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Deschooling Society (1970)

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Re: Deschooling Society (1970)

#181

Post by thu2111 »

JoelMcCracken wrote: post #163
askvictor wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we deschooled, we would absolutely end up with a double-digit percentage of the population either illiterate, innumerate, or both. This is already the case with our current schooling system; there double-digit percentages of school leavers who are functionally illiterate, and even more who are innumerate.

Not enough people understand this. It blew my mind when I first learned about illiteracy rates among Americans. And once you understand innumeracy you begin to understand just how vulnerable people are to coercion. And how people think that 1% fatality rates are no big deal.

Are there many people who think 1% fatality rate is no big deal? I haven't seen many. But of course the illiterate would not be commenting much online.

There are many who don't think COVID is a big deal, because it doesn't have anywhere close to a 1% fatality rate. But that's not quite the same thing.

Re: Deschooling Society (1970)

#182

Post by mola »

watwut wrote: post #178
mola wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. And it's such an easy target. Everybody hate schools. But the fact of the matter is that public schools were one of the prominent factors in reducing poverty around the world. As in any institution, it may calcify and be corrupted. But that's just how systems are, injecting the right amount of innovation usually takes care of that. No need to throw the baby with the water, and rethink the whole paradigm. I t…

> I agree. And it's such an easy target. Everybody hate schools. This is not true. I dont hate schools. My kids dont hate schools. My friends did not hated schools and my kids friends dont hate schools. There are people, both adults and kids who hate school, of course. And then there are very crappy schools. Speaking to my collegues, they dont hate schools and only two hated school as a kid. And even these do like th…

You are right, Of course I exggarated. But for a significant chunk of people I school is something you don't like. It's significant enough to be a cultural trope[0]. This makes it an easy target, and a useful hook to get support for any anti social institution criticism.

[0] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuckySchool

Re: Deschooling Society (1970)

#183

Post by bananaface »

paganel wrote: post #124
jimduk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed both being very impressed by Illich, but it not being workable. I dimly recall The Alphabetisation of the Popular Mind arguing that possibly you shouldn't teach language. Maybe this has merit (on the lines of Lanier arguing the midi-fication of music is detrimental which is clearer), but is the analogy that musical notation shouldn't happen. My Illich-worship hit a bump when talking to an Aussie English Phd wh…

> My Illich-worship hit a bump when talking to an Aussie English Phd who was much cleverer than me. After my first sentence she said "the problem with people who like Ivan Illich is they just want to talk about Illich". Touche Because he was basically right, and not that many people are right (Rousseau was another one, Hobbes and Machiavelli too) so it's worth talking about those who are. Of course most of what he's…

The amount of calories we're able to extract from the earth is proportionate to the amount of energy we can produce. If we stop generating large amounts of energy, the population will shrink dramatically. If we keep generating it, the population will eventually grow to exceed carrying capacity.

It's the wrong level of abstraction. There is no answer.

Re: Deschooling Society (1970)

#184

Post by bananaface »

aahhahahaaa wrote: post #164
guidoism wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Families these days can still do it but they don’t because they are led to believe in paying for convenience and get into a cycle that turns everything in their life into something the market provides. The insidious thing is that once you get into debt it is very difficult to break this cycle.

While this is true, it's also true that significantly fewer families can do it now than could in 1970. It's also true that the most predictable factor when it comes to student performance in school is household income.

Isn't IQ a significantly more predictive factor than income?

Re: Deschooling Society (1970)

#185

Post by dragonwriter »

aahhahahaaa wrote: post #164
guidoism wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Families these days can still do it but they don’t because they are led to believe in paying for convenience and get into a cycle that turns everything in their life into something the market provides. The insidious thing is that once you get into debt it is very difficult to break this cycle.

While this is true, it's also true that significantly fewer families can do it now than could in 1970. It's also true that the most predictable factor when it comes to student performance in school is household income.

> It's also true that the most predictable factor when it comes to student performance in school is household income.

Assuming you mean predictive rather than predictable, the most predictive factor from what I've seen is parental educational attainment, not income or (to respond to a sibling comment) IQ.

Re: Deschooling Society (1970)

#186

Post by foolinaround »

tmaly wrote: post #7

"Classroom attendance removes children from the everyday world of Western culture and plunges them into an environment far more primitive, magical, and deadly serious." I know it was written in 1970, but back then a family could still have one person working a good job on just a high school diploma. Today, grade school serves the primary purpose as a daycare for the kids so both parents can work.

> so both parents can work

today, many families find themselves in a position where they 'have to' work.

It could be 'lifestyle inflation' but it could also be the deeper specialization - and certain jobs needing that, but these skills erode before the worker is able to adapt to the next wave.

Re: Deschooling Society (1970)

#187

Post by watwut »

mola wrote: post #182
watwut wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree. And it's such an easy target. Everybody hate schools. This is not true. I dont hate schools. My kids dont hate schools. My friends did not hated schools and my kids friends dont hate schools. There are people, both adults and kids who hate school, of course. And then there are very crappy schools. Speaking to my collegues, they dont hate schools and only two hated school as a kid. And even these do like th…

You are right, Of course I exggarated. But for a significant chunk of people I school is something you don't like. It's significant enough to be a cultural trope[0]. This makes it an easy target, and a useful hook to get support for any anti social institution criticism. [0] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuckySchool

> But for a significant chunk of people I school is something you don't like.

That is much milder sentiment through and I think the difference matters. And significant chunk of people perceives school positively or neutrally.

> This makes it an easy target, and a useful hook to get support for any anti social institution criticism.

My problem is that while I see this a lot on HN, I don't see it anywhere else. Including in people who loudly criticize this or that aspect of education or school. The positive attitude toward school is unrepresented on HN, despite being present in real life and in studies that measure attitudes.

Similarly, the people on HN are way more pushing homeschooling then anyone else I know ... including people on forums for stay at home moms or general mom forums (who would be in position to do it and tend to be biased more toward family/children interests). Reading HN, one would believe that the only reason to not homeschool is that you cant afford one parent at home. And that those parents are unhappy for having kids in school and that those kids are unhappy. That sentiment is not present among people who are actually at home and could theoretically homeschool if they were inclined to.

The whole thing seems to me political ideological. Some people here want everyone to hate the school, but it does not make it so.

Re: Deschooling Society (1970)

#188

Post by CM30 »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #16
motohagiography wrote: post #4

Illich's concept of a "Radical Monopoly," is also immensely relevant to internet platforms. Radical monopoly is a concept defined by philosopher and author Ivan Illich in his 1973 book, "Tools for Conviviality," and revisited in his later work, which describes how a technology or service becomes so exceptionally dominant that even with multiple providers, its users are excluded from society without access to the prod…

> I think Illich's criticisms of car culture pushed him outside the Overton window of policy making. Then or now? Cars being terrible and destroying society is not a fringe view in many places.

It's a fringe view in most of them. Sure, quite a few people in many places don't drive or feel the need to, but I suspect if you asked the population at large what they thought of cars as an concept/invention/technology, they'd be at worst neutral to them, and often see the positive side.

I know for sure that most people around here either drive or want to, and that many peope consider it unthinkable to not do so.

The anti car ideaology is something that seems far more common on Hacker News and certain online forums than it is in the real world/offline.

Re: Deschooling Society (1970)

#189

Post by tmaly »

TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #77
tmaly wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I supplement our kids education at home. It is my opinion that kids are capable of a lot more. The school is catering to the lowest common denominator.

I totally agree that kids are capable of more than adults think they are most of the time. Districts are incentivized to increase standardized test scores, from what I have seen this has forced some level of change, ranging from bringing in additional educators at the class level to work with groups at different levels, to using web applications that will assess and create individualized curriculum.

Has the No Child Left Behind Act and the push for teaching to the test really benefited kids?

Re: Deschooling Society (1970)

#190

Post by tmaly »

cousin_it wrote: post #65
TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today, grade school serves the primary purpose as a daycare for the kids so both parents can work. I have not found this to be the case. I'm not a professional educator. I'm not going to do as good a job at educating my kids as an experienced teacher. Looking at what our kids are learning, I'm impressed by the curriculum, which at least in our district has kept up with changes in day to day life and professional ex…

You'll almost certainly do a better job than {an experienced teacher} + {an environment full of kids who don't want to learn}.

Its essentially private tutoring. I think its a lot for many parents to do. Their willpower is depleted after a day at work.
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