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

201–210 of 213 posts

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#201

Post by bpyne »

kragen wrote: post #192
bpyne wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

"Maybe you were in a public school." Through 8th grade I was. For high school I went to a private school with religious affiliations. I'd qualify the private school as antiquated at the time, so my education was better in the public system.

The private schools you attended sound above average. Friends of mine in private schools through elementary (grades K-6) took French - no other options were available.

Out of curiosity, do you still speak any of the languages?

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#202

Post by peterwwillis »

Twisol wrote: post #112
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…

Computers are all the way up at eighth grade? Egads.

Not everyone has the benefit of schools with computers. Getting kids in many districts to comprehend basic math or science first would be nice.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#203

Post by kragen »

bpyne wrote: post #201
kragen wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

"Maybe you were in a public school." Through 8th grade I was. For high school I went to a private school with religious affiliations. I'd qualify the private school as antiquated at the time, so my education was better in the public system. The private schools you attended sound above average. Friends of mine in private schools through elementary (grades K-6) took French - no other options were available. Out of curi…

Oops, I lost my longer answer in a power outage. The short answer is that I only speak English and Spanish fluently, and Spanish only because I've been living in Argentina since 2006. I can get by in Portuguese and French under some circumstances, and my Japanese is sufficient to make Japanese people giggle before they talk to me in English.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#204

Post by SoftwareMaven »

timthorn wrote: post #197
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

At the time, the industrial revolution was rapidly pulling people from the agrarian life to the factory life. Factory owners knew they'd need more and more people who could sit around, day after day, expressing no individuality. Politicians recognized the economic benefits the factories were providing. Together, the current US school system was born.

Here are the real questions: Current industry leaders recognize the education system is not training knowledge workers they way it could be. Do politicians recognize the economic value of the knowledge economy and will current politicians and business leaders come together to build a new education system that meets those needs? Of course, 125 years ago, there wasn't an existing bureaucracy that needed to be torn down first...

The first country to get that right is going to thrive. A country like Costa Rica could do amazing things.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#205

Post by bpyne »

kragen wrote: post #203
bpyne wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Maybe you were in a public school." Through 8th grade I was. For high school I went to a private school with religious affiliations. I'd qualify the private school as antiquated at the time, so my education was better in the public system. The private schools you attended sound above average. Friends of mine in private schools through elementary (grades K-6) took French - no other options were available. Out of curi…

Oops, I lost my longer answer in a power outage. The short answer is that I only speak English and Spanish fluently, and Spanish only because I've been living in Argentina since 2006. I can get by in Portuguese and French under some circumstances, and my Japanese is sufficient to make Japanese people giggle before they talk to me in English.

Far better than I. I can read French and German but my speaking French makes native speakers cringe. German is easier for me but I've lost too much vocabulary to hold a long conversation.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#206

Post by kragen »

bpyne wrote: post #205
kragen wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oops, I lost my longer answer in a power outage. The short answer is that I only speak English and Spanish fluently, and Spanish only because I've been living in Argentina since 2006. I can get by in Portuguese and French under some circumstances, and my Japanese is sufficient to make Japanese people giggle before they talk to me in English.

Far better than I. I can read French and German but my speaking French makes native speakers cringe. German is easier for me but I've lost too much vocabulary to hold a long conversation.

Tolerant native speakers make a huge difference. Backpackers and people from Couchsurfing are great for this. (Also it helps if you can tolerate people cringing when you talk, some.)

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#208

Post by DavidSJ »

ErrantX wrote: post #81
phjohnst wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).…

Try observing people not at school, e.g. pre-school (literally) children, or unschoolers, Sudbury school students, etc.

People are naturally curious. School kills curiosity.

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#209

Post by billybob »

AndyKelley wrote: post #178
moron4hire wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then it's not literal.

I have an idea for a website. literalpolice.com (I've already bought the domain name) A community of people who care about preserving the power of the word "literally." The site maintains a list of websites and people from the community who are assigned to them. When you are assigned to a website, your task is to have an account with as close to a variant as "LiteralPolice" as possible. You simply read the website as…

I think it's more fun to make emphatic use of "figuratively." As in, "wow, we FIGURATIVELY kicked their butts!"

Re: Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech

#210

Post by kadavy »

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…

Yes, school sucks: http://www.hulu.com/watch/169534/louie-pta-meeting#s-p1-sr-i...
Post reply on HN