Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

blog.swiftkickonline.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 213 posts

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#81

Post by ErrantX »

phjohnst wrote: post #31
pgbovine wrote: post #24

ok, for all you school-haters out there on HN, one thing that i think is often overlooked in the 'discussion' of how public schooling is such a mind-numbing rote memorization grind is the fact that it is a way of developing grit, discipline, whatever you call it ... the ability to endure through boring or tedious tasks to achieve some measurable goal. i think that for most people, the biggest determiner of 'success'…

But why? You can develop grit by doing things that really suck, but ultimately get you somewhere you want to go, or that leads to some sort of innovation down the line. But to force people to do things that are completely unrelated to what they want to do in life, just for the sake of doing it, is a huge waste of time. You gain grit by doing things that need to be done, hopefully in pursuit of some greater goal (more…

By my observation of the vast majority of people at school I would say... most people would just procrastinate and get nowhere if you just leave them to find something to work towards.

School sucks; but I think it is a bit of a dirty hack to keep kids minds on something for a few years. It needs a major revamp and broadening of the curriculum (so that those who do want to think independently can do their own thing).

But otherwise we risk a next-generation of total dropouts with no education and no life skills (it's bad enough anyway).

Yep; that's what society has come to. The fix is going to take more than just a few years.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#82

Post by mseebach »

moultano wrote: post #44
kloncks wrote: post #3

I would have loved to have the experience to not just hear her speech in person, but to see the reactions from everyone. The faces of her fellow students as well as teachers/parents.

At my highschool the valedictorian speech had to be approved by the principal in advance. I wonder if he ever would have let something like this by.

http://dailyfreeman.com/articles/2010/07/27/news/doc4c4e6e19...

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#84

Post by izendejas »

etherael wrote: post #72
izendejas wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An education is what you make of it. Those of us that "survived" the pursuit of the "asinine" found a way to take advantage of the many resources a schooling system offers to compensate for any deficiencies and learned a great deal. Those resources are your fellow classmates, your teachers (imagine that), clubs, sports, and I can go on and on.

Not to engage in the no true scotsman fallacy, but then by definition, your subjective experience was not the pursuit of the asinine. That doesn't mean other people's subjective experiences do not fall squarely within that realm.

Correct. Subjectivity is key--and thus, my point was regarding your second statement. My point is, while you may have dropped out because you thought going to school is a pursuit of the asinine (or parts of it maybe?), some of us didn't see it that way.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#85

Post by aik »

moultano wrote: post #64
aik wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. And why stop at 8-9k at a state university? She would be equally clueless and most likely surrounded by even greater confusion. This is the state of most people entering college in the United States. A person should not consider college unless they have some focus or understanding of why they are there. With focus, so much more will be achieved with what's given to them. How do you gain focus? First and fore…

In theory I agree with you, but in practice I don't. For most of the people I've seen delay college, they only life experience they gain in the meantime is in waiting tables. (Which they usually already had from jobs in highschool anyways.) The only positive effect I've seen is that people realize they don't want to work a shit job for the rest of their lives, and get some motivation for education. On the margin this…

I completely agree. This is exactly the area I'm interested in.

There needs to exist something in between high school and college. In other countries especially, a lot of people take a "gap-year" and travel and work elsewhere in the world. That's one option.

Some other possibilities are (I'm curious to hear what others think of these):

- Find a business/company that would hire you as an intern. Low pay is OK - the experience is what counts. It's OK if you don't know what industry to start in, doing any decently attractive job to you brings you one step closer to figuring it out. (We need to encourage adults/businesses to take in young adults and provide them with experience in different areas, basic mentoring and training).

- Attend some sort of career/passion finding school where the entire focus is on you and your development into a thinking being (this wouldn't be needed if public schools did a better job). I'm curious if places like this exist and how effective they are.

- Take a gap year or two and travel and work remotely in various places. Learn about the world and what exists in it. This will almost surely develop character faster than waiting tables in your hometown.

- Go to a community college or take random classes at any university that interest you until you develop some interest somewhere.

As you pointed out, a key factor in motivating someone to follow any logical path is for a person to understand that the paths exist and are as possible as any other, and perhaps even more lucrative. It should all be part of the initial education.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#86

Post by etherael »

izendejas wrote: post #84
etherael wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to engage in the no true scotsman fallacy, but then by definition, your subjective experience was not the pursuit of the asinine. That doesn't mean other people's subjective experiences do not fall squarely within that realm.

Correct. Subjectivity is key--and thus, my point was regarding your second statement. My point is, while you may have dropped out because you thought going to school is a pursuit of the asinine (or parts of it maybe?), some of us didn't see it that way.

Which is why I used the word "much" rather than "all". I may be a ninth grade dropout, but I have been a prolific and voracious consumer of all things educational, sourced ridiculously large amounts of recorded lecture content online on even larger amounts of subjects in general. I know there's a lot of good information and a lot of that information comes from educational institutions, at the same time I know there is much pointless rote droning by people far more interested in a by the book approach than one that works.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#87

Post by pavelludiq »

pgbovine wrote: post #24

ok, for all you school-haters out there on HN, one thing that i think is often overlooked in the 'discussion' of how public schooling is such a mind-numbing rote memorization grind is the fact that it is a way of developing grit, discipline, whatever you call it ... the ability to endure through boring or tedious tasks to achieve some measurable goal. i think that for most people, the biggest determiner of 'success'…

I can spend 8 hours programming a computer with just 1 or two 20 minute brakes for eating or a mug refill, but i found it impossible to concentrate for a 40 minutes high-school chemistry class. Could it be that school is just BORING?

I can read a thick book on a hard subject(programming, philosophy, history), but could never finish a fucking chapter from a high-school text book, without falling asleep. Could it be that the textbooks are badly written?

I can spend days and weeks writing an essay on something that interests me, but i fucking hated writing 3 paragraph short essays in school. Could it be the topics, the format and especially the time constrain made me write badly?

If school taught me anything is that unless im working for myself on what i want, its better to just half ass everything, and not do your best, because all it takes is to not be your worst. It probably made me even less disciplined because my natural rebelliousness made me pride myself as an undisciplined misfit. I was proud of being lazy, stupid, stubborn, rebellious and all of that precisely because they wanted me to not be like that. Fuck school. It messed me up, and caused me great suffering with very little benefit, when at least in my case, there was a clearly better way of doing things.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#88

Post by dgordon »

ars wrote: post #18

There's a lot of selection bias here - the majority (all?) of the readers of this site are far more intelligent than the majority. So all (most? many?) of us will probably agree with her (at least as regarding our own schooling). I know I do. But the trouble, the reality, is that most students can't do what she suggests, using our minds for creativity, and not rote work. There really is a difference in intelligence,…

>But the trouble, the reality, is that most students can't do >what she suggests, using our minds for creativity, and not >rote work. There really is a difference in intelligence, and >the sad truth is that for most students school is exactly >right.

I disagree. I don't think we're that smart, and I don't (usually) think the rest of the world is that dumb. Besides, is memorizing soon-to-be-forgotten dates and listening to other students butcher Shakespeare in a uniform monotone exactly right for most students? Is doing the same math over and over again, boring those who get it and failing to bring understanding to those who don't, exactly right?

More people need to be able to find their way to meaningful work (not necessarily creative work.) I claim that the public school system hinders this process.

> The good news is that the really intelligent rise above it and succeed anyway.

Probably only if you circularly define the really intelligent as those who succeed. This definitely doesn't work if you use IQ.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#89

Post by lionhearted »

pgbovine wrote: post #24

ok, for all you school-haters out there on HN, one thing that i think is often overlooked in the 'discussion' of how public schooling is such a mind-numbing rote memorization grind is the fact that it is a way of developing grit, discipline, whatever you call it ... the ability to endure through boring or tedious tasks to achieve some measurable goal. i think that for most people, the biggest determiner of 'success'…

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all." -Peter Drucker

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#90

Post by AndyKelley »

mseebach wrote: post #82
moultano wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my highschool the valedictorian speech had to be approved by the principal in advance. I wonder if he ever would have let something like this by.

http://dailyfreeman.com/articles/2010/07/27/news/doc4c4e6e19...

Nice find! I admire that girl's courage.
Post reply on HN