Kids urged to study less, sleep more • Hacker News Board

Re: Kids urged to study less, sleep more

#11

Post by yarian » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 6:55 PM UTC

dmm wrote: post #4

yarian wrote: post #3

While I agree that too much of a good thing is a bad thing, I disagree with the spirit of the article. Yes, children should not be adults. But let's face it, America's percentage of overbooked, stressed, kids is nothing compared to the overwhelming masses which are under-challenged and not interested in school or learning. The U.S. is so far behind in education--having school years much shorter than the top countries…

| The U.S. is so far behind in education How did you develop this hypothesis? What does it mean to be ahead or behind in education? Anticipating some of your answers. Is it really meaningful to compare the test results of the US to those of Finland? What are the reasons for the differences between the test results of Finland and the US? Is a few more weeks in school really the best reason you can think of? Are you aw…

It's not just that more class time in the summer would--if used appropriately--lead to more learning. It is also that better-off students learn much more over the summer than their poorer counter-parts. Thus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_learning_loss

Re: Kids urged to study less, sleep more

#12

Post by yarian » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 7:01 PM UTC

Lost_BiomedE wrote: post #6

I really wish that education looked more like Conrad's vision in: Conrad Wolfram’s TED Talk: “Stop Teaching Calculating, Start Teaching Math” From very early on, at least in my education, concepts and the reason 'why do this at all' was stripped from the curriculum. The other thing that I feel is lacking is confidence building, which to me is directly connected. When solving a real life problem, the problem does not…

I saw Conrad's talk a few months ago and I couldn't agree more. In fact I am attempting to put his theory in general by teaching math through programming at the moment.

I wanted to add a caveat to your confidence point though. We need to engender the right kind of confidence. A lot of kids are already confident, even arrogant. Yet it's completely unfounded since they are not actually acquiring human capital.

We need to promote the kind of confidence that comes from taking a hard problem, banging your head against it for a week, solving it, and repeating. The kind of confidence that comes from previous hard work.

Re: Kids urged to study less, sleep more

#13

Post by gnemeth » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 7:09 PM UTC

According to a poll by the National Sleep Foundation, 53% of teens take naps to cope with insufficient sleep. This is symptomatic of the problem and it does not just stop at teens. 44% of adult take naps to cope with insufficient sleep. For more info about sleep checkout http://blog.wakemate.com/

Re: Kids urged to study less, sleep more

#14

Post by Lost_BiomedE » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 10:33 PM UTC

yarian wrote: post #12

Lost_BiomedE wrote: post #6

I really wish that education looked more like Conrad's vision in: Conrad Wolfram’s TED Talk: “Stop Teaching Calculating, Start Teaching Math” From very early on, at least in my education, concepts and the reason 'why do this at all' was stripped from the curriculum. The other thing that I feel is lacking is confidence building, which to me is directly connected. When solving a real life problem, the problem does not…

I saw Conrad's talk a few months ago and I couldn't agree more. In fact I am attempting to put his theory in general by teaching math through programming at the moment. I wanted to add a caveat to your confidence point though. We need to engender the right kind of confidence. A lot of kids are already confident, even arrogant. Yet it's completely unfounded since they are not actually acquiring human capital. We need…

Agreed. The current confidence you speak of is smoke and mirrors, the arrogance hits a brick wall and turns to depression.

In regards to math through programming, I always wondered how well it would work to have a supervised lab that students could use to write up a program verified as their own. Then, allow the student to use this in coursework. The geeks currently do it behind the scenes with their TI calculators anyway. Of course, increasing complexity of coursework would require them to revisit or rewrite their programs.

Re: Kids urged to study less, sleep more

#15

Post by cema » Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 3:42 AM UTC

yarian wrote: post #10

natnat wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think poverty may have a bigger effect on test scores than race. If you break down the PISA scores by state, the three lowest performing states are Mississippi, New Mexico, and West Virginia. While Mississippi has a huge black population, New Mexico is only 2% black and West Virginia is only 3%. While New Mexico is 44% hispanic, West Virginia is almost entirely white non-hispanic. One thing these three states have…

But "controlling for poverty" is the same as saying "if you assume that the US was something else without some of its key flaws then "... Do you see that this line of thought goes nowhere?

It may be a flaw, but it appears not to be a flaw in ''education'' but elsewhere.

Re: Kids urged to study less, sleep more

#16

Post by yarian » Sat, Mar 19, 2011, 1:12 AM UTC

Lost_BiomedE wrote: post #14

yarian wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw Conrad's talk a few months ago and I couldn't agree more. In fact I am attempting to put his theory in general by teaching math through programming at the moment. I wanted to add a caveat to your confidence point though. We need to engender the right kind of confidence. A lot of kids are already confident, even arrogant. Yet it's completely unfounded since they are not actually acquiring human capital. We need…

Agreed. The current confidence you speak of is smoke and mirrors, the arrogance hits a brick wall and turns to depression. In regards to math through programming, I always wondered how well it would work to have a supervised lab that students could use to write up a program verified as their own. Then, allow the student to use this in coursework. The geeks currently do it behind the scenes with their TI calculators a…

I don't teach math the way you are thinking about it though. What I mean by math is more like the way of thinking and not specific math concepts.

I mean they learn boolean logic but really it is more of gaining comfort with defining and working with functions, domain, range, and variables.