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Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

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Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#191

Post by kragen »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #156
edw519 wrote: post #110

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…

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.

You might just have a mental disability of some kind, such as dyslexia, or a physical one, such as blindness. I know at least one person who I'm pretty confident would have been able to read by kindergarten (knowing his parents) but for his lack of mental capacity.

For 90% of the population I agree.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#192

Post by kragen »

bpyne wrote: post #146
barredo wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone starts learning a foreign language at 7th grade something is wrong I think. Question: Is this the general case for US Education?

During the 70's/80's in my home state, 7th grade would be about normal to start learning a foreign language if you were seen as college bound. Otherwise, you had to wait until 9th grade. In my area of the US, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian are the predominant languages taught. The choice of languages goes strictly according to the immigration patterns.

Maybe you were in a public school. Because I was in private schools, I had French in kindergarten and first grade, and then Spanish in fourth and fifth grade. (In between, I was in public schools, you see.) After that, I took French in 7th grade, Spanish in 8th grade, Japanese and French in 9th grade, and then Latin and Classical Greek in what would have been 12th grade, except that I had dropped out in order to go to college.

This was in Texas and then in New Mexico, which has one of the two or three worst public school systems in the US.

This might sound like a "nyah nyah my family is so rich" except that in fourth and fifth grade I was living with my dad in a converted school bus parked on a friend's lawn, while he was fixing cars at the garage on the outskirts of a small town, and then later we upgraded to a trailer in a trailer park. Obviously we weren't the poorest of the poor, since we did have enough money for housing and to send me to a private school, but we were far from rich in US terms.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#193

Post by megablast »

loewenskind wrote: post #47
megablast wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with her, well, sure a little. The fact is, like capitalism, the schooling system is the worst system, except for all the others. And for the majority, it is great for them. I think this is one of the areas where it is so easy to criticize, because of course there are problems, unless someone actually recommends a good alternative system, I just ignore them.

Total nonsense. Lots of other countries have vastly better grade schools (pg mentions this in one of his essays). Do you think all the people in those countries just have a lot more potential than most Americans? The worst thing about this ridiculous "America is the best!" attitude is that you can't fix anything if you think you've already got the best that can be done.

I am not actually American, I am from Australia, which supposedly has a comparatively good schooling system.

We have the same complaints here.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#194

Post by SoftwareMaven »

PhilipM wrote: post #170
edw519 wrote: post #110

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…

I read all the boring comments and this is the only one I liked. Learning is hard, caring about stuff that has no relevance to food or sex is hard. School is not about helping the rug rats but getting them out of the adults hair until they can kill their own horse for supper. Edumacation is about following rules. Follow pointless rules in a chain for 200 hours straight and maybe you'll discover something that actuall…

I disagree on the current purpose of school (which really came to be in the late 19th century). School is there to train people to 1) tolerate being bored eight hours a day and 2) do what the authority figures say.

These two items were critical for training a workforce who would sit in a factory screwing the lid onto the tube of toothpaste.

Unfortunately, today's jobs are all about creativity. Knowledge workers increase value through their creativity, which is all but stamped out of them in school.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#195

Post by loewenskind »

chopsueyar wrote: post #134
loewenskind wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total nonsense. Lots of other countries have vastly better grade schools (pg mentions this in one of his essays). Do you think all the people in those countries just have a lot more potential than most Americans? The worst thing about this ridiculous "America is the best!" attitude is that you can't fix anything if you think you've already got the best that can be done.

"Do you think all the people in those countries just have a lot more potential than most Americans?" Yes, for the above reasons you mentioned.

I meant potential as in "do you think no manner of teaching could ever make them more intelligent".

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#196

Post by v21 »

jacoblyles wrote: post #48
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,…

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?

But where I have seen pro-choice policies implemented here in the UK, the choices have amounted to between "bad" and "good". And some parents are pushier, and richer, and can afford to live in the right catchment areas. And thus choice mainly seems to promote rich parents having well educated kids.

Personally, I don't want a choice, and I want what I receive to be high quality and accommodating of a wide range of kids.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#197

Post by timthorn »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #194
PhilipM wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read all the boring comments and this is the only one I liked. Learning is hard, caring about stuff that has no relevance to food or sex is hard. School is not about helping the rug rats but getting them out of the adults hair until they can kill their own horse for supper. Edumacation is about following rules. Follow pointless rules in a chain for 200 hours straight and maybe you'll discover something that actuall…

I disagree on the current purpose of school (which really came to be in the late 19th century). School is there to train people to 1) tolerate being bored eight hours a day and 2) do what the authority figures say. These two items were critical for training a workforce who would sit in a factory screwing the lid onto the tube of toothpaste. Unfortunately, today's jobs are all about creativity. Knowledge workers incre…

At that time, the majority of the workforce was involved in agriculture. Toothpaste was nowhere in it...

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#198

Post by carussell »

fleitz wrote: post #164
nimms wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

careful on dismissing which European country invaded which European country etc. Unless people have a good understanding of history, they're doomed to repeat it. Something that becomes very clear in times of strife such as the recent world financial crisis. One thing that school is good for is exposing you to ideas that are normally outside your sphere of interest, thus attempting to give you a balanced view of the w…

Ironically the people behind the recent financial crisis are the product of the best our educational system can produce.

Zing!

Or are/were they exhibiting the shallow results-driven sentiment reflected in statements like "99% of what I learned in high school I have never ever needed since."?

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#199

Post by ramchip »

aik wrote: post #85
moultano wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ex…

Unrelated to your suggestions, Quebec has a school (CEGEP) between high school and university. I think it's a good idea to give kids some time to think about their choice, and since they have to choose their general orientation (science, etc.) it's a good test of their choice. Many people change program at this point.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#200

Post by dkersten »

pavelludiq wrote: post #87
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 th…

20 minute brakes

Holy Crap! They're some inefficient brakes!

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