As Mark Twain said: "Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty."
Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech
181–190 of 213 posts
Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech
#182There'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?
There's an active "school choice" movement, and they're working for policies which enable choice: e.g. charter schools, voucher programs, and choice open enrollment for public schools, as they do in Seattle.
Cynically, the reason choice is restricted is it's easier to do a bad job and get away with it when you have no competitors to be compared against. Because the public schools get substantial funding from the government, an entrepreneur generally can't compete on equal footing unless they have similar funding of some sort as well. Hence vouchers & charter schools as a mechanism for choice.
Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech
#183Someone mentioned Montessori schools, which seem to do pretty well. Another along similar lines, but more extreme, is Sudbury Valley schools: http://www.sudval.org/ Kids are taught whatever they ask to be taught. They aren't divided into classes, they can just wander around the campus asking for help from any teacher they like. If you start kids young in this environment it works really well; kids are hard-wired to l…
>- Every parent can send their kids to whatever school they wish.
This is an impossible system to work if you don't have unlimited funds for education. Parents want to send their kids to "the good school" getting the better grades, with better facilities or whatever. Not all parents in an area can do this, there isn't enough room. As the good school gets fuller, it takes more of the cream and the other schools suffer. But this school is leaching the money away from other schools too as the richer parents that help to contribute time and resources and money move to the "good school". Ultimately the other schools aren't getting the pupils they need to run properly and suffer incredibly. The one school gets better the others worse.
>- Each school is directed entirely by the parents, with no interference from government bureaucracy.
There are many areas of running a school that can be made more efficient by using local government departments. Paying employees, insurance, grounds-keeping, building maintenance, healthcare provisions, utility purchasing, school meal provision, etc., can all be run more efficiently with a local grouping of schools rather than individual schools fighting it out for themselves. Do you know who is good at administrating such groups? Local government.
Indeed things like creating syllabuses and setting exams can too be streamlined by cooperation across schools.
>- Each school gets $X per enrolled student.
I'm assuming here that you're not allowing x to vary from school to school. What about areas with high levels of non-native language speakers that need translators and extra helpers. Or that by some quirk have large numbers of disabled students that require special care and equipment. Or those in rural areas that pay a lot more for bus travel than inner-city schools. Do these schools have to restrict the care and opportunity they give to pupils because of costs that are out of their control?
Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech
#184Earlier 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…
"... but the fact is being a great artist and knowing differential calculus are mutually exclusive." Either you missed a 'not', or you need to stop and think about the number of people you've just insulted with this statement. Math and art have been strongly intertwined for a very long time, from the Golden Ratio of the Greeks to Da Vinci to Escher ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_and_art ). Those who are g…
I missed a 'not'.
Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech
#185Oh 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…
Er, if you can't read before you get to kindergarten your parents are fucking up. Either that or they're recognizing and embracing the uniqueness of your passion to not read.
I could not read before kindergarten and, given that they later home-schooled me, I would not say my parents were "fucking up".
Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech
#186ok, 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 think all our children should be sent to retraining camps and made to work fifteen-hour days assembling electronics. That will create true grit and allow them to value whatever small rewards later life will give them. I get your larger point, that a sour-grapes excuse of "Well, school was booooring" doesn't necessarily indicate a successful individual - but just because losers also hate the system doesn't mean the…
I hear China is nice this time of year...
Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
And how do you measure IQ? With a test?
You can't study for an IQ test.
You probably can, at least in principle. The SAT is effectively an IQ test (it correlates as well with IQ tests as they correlate with each other) and you can definitely study for that. The difference is that there aren't Stanford-Binet prep classes (at least I don't think so.)
Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't study for an IQ test.
You probably can, at least in principle. The SAT is effectively an IQ test (it correlates as well with IQ tests as they correlate with each other) and you can definitely study for that. The difference is that there aren't Stanford-Binet prep classes (at least I don't think so.)
SAT scores and IQ may be correlated, but the fact you can study for the SAT means that it's a weak indicator of 'natural' intelligence.
My friend scored 70 points higher than me on the math section and yet he was totally lost in calculus II and eventually dropped the class (while I consistently scored the highest on tests). His strategy was to try and memorize the answers/procedures rather than understand the principles behind them (which is the name of the game in prepping for the SAT).
Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech
#189Someone mentioned Montessori schools, which seem to do pretty well. Another along similar lines, but more extreme, is Sudbury Valley schools: http://www.sudval.org/ Kids are taught whatever they ask to be taught. They aren't divided into classes, they can just wander around the campus asking for help from any teacher they like. If you start kids young in this environment it works really well; kids are hard-wired to l…
>- Every parent can send their kids to whatever school they wish. This is an impossible system to work if you don't have unlimited funds for education. Parents want to send their kids to "the good school" getting the better grades, with better facilities or whatever. Not all parents in an area can do this, there isn't enough room. As the good school gets fuller, it takes more of the cream and the other schools suffer…
Except, apparently, it did work. (I wish I still had a citation.) Yes, I expect bad schools suffered. In fact, I expect the bad schools went out of business entirely as people abandoned them in droves. This leaves a market opportunity for private schools to spring up and get that tuition money.
I wasn't really referring to things like building maintenance, just instruction methods, curricula, stuff like that. Those are the things that I think should not be streamlined and standardized, for the very reasons described by our distinguished valedictorian.
You raise good points about varying $X but I would keep it constant anyway, because although in an ideal world we should vary $X according to the factors you mention, in the real world it would vary according to the political pull of the people living in different areas.
Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Er, if you can't read before you get to kindergarten your parents are fucking up. Either that or they're recognizing and embracing the uniqueness of your passion to not read.
I could not read before kindergarten and, given that they later home-schooled me, I would not say my parents were "fucking up".
You need to read that post using my over-the-top ranting voice. No offence to your parents.