151–160 of 213 posts
Oh come on now, Valedictorian, you can find plenty of important life skills to be learned in school if you only look hard enough: kindergarden - learn how to play nicely together first grade - learn how to read and write second grade - learn how to add, subtract, multiply, & divide third grade - learn how to spell fourth grade - learn how to play a musical instrument fifth grade - learn how to appreciate great litera…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do not agree with her as well. Yes there are problems with the system. Yes, we can have a more liberal flexible system. But the system is designed for everyone. How many people in your class didn't know the capitals? How many couldn't write a formal letter? How many couldn't solve for x? I'm sure majority of HN thought this was trivial, but many others need this, and the only way they can learn it is through repeti…
I feel that learning to solve for x, learning the capitals, writing a formal letter, etc. can all be handled better than "repetitive, boring, tedious tasks." Why am I solving for x? How would knowing the capital of Nebraska ever help me? When would I write a formal letter? These are questions school fails to answer and thus fails the students. For example, teachers could give projects out that involve a closed-system…
I don't necessarily disagree, but it seems like there has been an article a day about "should i go to college", "the diminishing value of a degree", etc.
Is something that the country is focusing on right now or is it hacker news specific?
Am I the only one detecting a "frowning on education" theme on hacker news lately? I don't necessarily disagree, but it seems like there has been an article a day about "should i go to college", "the diminishing value of a degree", etc. Is something that the country is focusing on right now or is it hacker news specific?
The anti-education slant largely comes about from people trying to prove themselves or justify their personal circumstances. Their words: "Well, I didn't go to college and I'm doing fine." Their meaning: "You must be not as good as me if you didn't do what I did." Their feelings: "All these other people had opportunities, support, and they just went along with it. Their lives were handed to them. I know I'm better, or at least just as good, as them even though I didn't go to a fancy school. I'm going to prove it by telling everybody how school is worthless."
In short, you are what you did. The anti-schoolers forget school also includes social grooming, transition periods, and growing up. The schoolers forget not going to school has different ways of social grooming, helping with transitions, and growing up.
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had we known how easy it really was to game the system, we might have started playing the game earlier and earned more points. I think you completely missed the point the girl was trying to make.
Not really, he means the current system is how it is and if you want to there is a way to game it. I know people who took subjects based on their interests, the way it should work, in high school and ended up getting a much lower score than those of similar ability who sort to pick subjects to best maximise their score. Sure the people picking the interest based subjects may have learned more and got more out of the…
Oh come on now, Valedictorian, you can find plenty of important life skills to be learned in school if you only look hard enough: kindergarden - learn how to play nicely together first grade - learn how to read and write second grade - learn how to add, subtract, multiply, & divide third grade - learn how to spell fourth grade - learn how to play a musical instrument fifth grade - learn how to appreciate great litera…
Either that or they're recognizing and embracing the uniqueness of your passion to not read.
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,…
It's almost like one-size-fits-all is a bad idea. On that thought, I wonder why we get so much choice in so many services that we buy but so little in something that matters as much as education?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._D._Hirsch,_Jr.#Concern_for_c...
What I worry about, however, are the fools who will use specific criticism of our implementation of education to fight education in the general sense. Every time I read one of these articles, there are inevitably dozens of comments by idiots who don't have any specific criticism of the system at hand, but would rather rail against the idea that learning is important. In fact, conflating the "Platonic ideal" of education with the American school system is exactly the kind of confusion that prevents anyone from making any progress in the first place.
Wonderful speech, but a bit of a misleading title on the article as she's not speaking out against schooling, but against a specific kind of schooling that's common throughout the United States (and elsewhere): H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not "to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be further f…
While intriguing to think about, this teleological viewpoint which she repeats a few times is a little silly. There isn't really a shadowy cabal of plutocrats secreted away in a subterranean headquarters inside of a volcano, planning all of this. It's likely instead a series of unplanned, undirected side-effects from other things. Standardization could side-effect of trying to mass-produce education, which is a side…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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 listeni…
And how do you measure IQ? With a test?