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Life, school, and the 80:20 rule (2019)

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Re: Life, school, and the 80:20 rule (2019)

#81

Post by greenonions »

vikingerik wrote: post #77
thenerdhead wrote: post #64

I think there's two things. 1. The school system has been broken for many years. Learning from people who are not passionate about what they teach is the main concern I have. You can easily tell the difference of "engaged" students who have a great teacher they will remember forever vs. "disengaged" students who will be able to tell you how bad their teacher was. I think Montessori-esq / curiosity driven schooling is…

These ring true for me. I had both of these experiences you describe, and I feel like my life approach is a mix of them. I went to a Montessori school for preschool and kindergarten, then regular public school after that, and was in fact my high school valedictorian. The Montessori "curiosity-driven" approach definitely stuck with me. I'm always interested in reading and learning about how anything works, and to get…

I struggle with this as well. I would describe myself as very curious, and love to read about new subjects.

I wish though, that I was more organized and ambitious. I always want to accomplish more instead of just dabbling in a million different things and never producing anything very large.

Re: Life, school, and the 80:20 rule (2019)

#82

Post by parineum »

halgir wrote: post #14
hhmc wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young children are not famously good decision makers, and it's easy to imagine them making very limiting choices that they would later come to regret.

Young children are also famously voracious learners. That is, until institutions like schools get in the way. Plunging young children into an anarchical learning environment with nothing but YouTube to guide them won't end well. But if you add guidance that encourages their strengths and tolerates their weaknesses, I speculate that net learning will exceed that of today's school system.

> That is, until institutions like schools get in the way.

I wouldn't be so quick to attribute those two events, which happen around the same time, as causal. I know a few teachers of young children and the things they love about their jobs is just that curiosity you're talking about. Unless you think it just takes a few years for the system to really beat them down, it's not exactly synchronous.

When thinking back on sitting through all the boring classes on subjects I wasn't interested in feels like it was a lot more of a me "problem". I find most of that stuff interesting now or at least appreciate that I had the exposure to it. It seems to me that I was much more interested in play and/or social development at the time.

Re: Life, school, and the 80:20 rule (2019)

#83

Post by kqr »

thenerdhead wrote: post #64

I think there's two things. 1. The school system has been broken for many years. Learning from people who are not passionate about what they teach is the main concern I have. You can easily tell the difference of "engaged" students who have a great teacher they will remember forever vs. "disengaged" students who will be able to tell you how bad their teacher was. I think Montessori-esq / curiosity driven schooling is…

Yup. Schools are really designed to crank out people from the factory worker template. Obey, don't question, meet your targets, and then disconnect.

It's in every part of the design:

- The focus on getting things "right" rather than exploring why things are wrong.

- The grading the discourages exploration and challenging oneself.

- The endless back and forth about how children fail assignments. Other than in very special circumstances, the teacher is the one having failed if the children on aggregate are not performing as well as they should.

- The way "learning" is defined as "remembering what the teacher wants to hear".

I could go on. It's crazy. When the children of today become adults, they won't, generally, need to become obedient factory workers. They will need to be creative free thinkers in knowledge jobs. School robs them of opportunities to learn that.

Montessori is a small win, but my years in Montessori was also plagued by some of the above. In particular, even though teachers were not allowed to set formal grades on assignments, they came up with their own pretty transparent improvised grading systems. (For example, it was clear that "Excellent" > "Outstanding" > "Great" > "Very good" > "OK". I still have a deeply rooted sense of this hierarchy and feelings connected to it, some 25 years later.)

Re: Life, school, and the 80:20 rule (2019)

#84

Post by kqr »

brimble wrote: post #72
halgir wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young children are also famously voracious learners. That is, until institutions like schools get in the way. Plunging young children into an anarchical learning environment with nothing but YouTube to guide them won't end well. But if you add guidance that encourages their strengths and tolerates their weaknesses, I speculate that net learning will exceed that of today's school system.

The challenge in public education reform is doing anything interesting/useful without doubling teacher headcount and increasing salaries (at the very least, to increase supply without decreasing quality). All sorts of approaches are possible with 5 students per teacher, but not 10, and with 10, but not with 20—let alone 25 or more.

Student-to-student mentoring is a part of the solution. Empirically shown to work really well. I don't know why more schools don't do it.

Re: Life, school, and the 80:20 rule (2019)

#85

Post by PuppyTailWags »

thenerdhead wrote: post #64

I think there's two things. 1. The school system has been broken for many years. Learning from people who are not passionate about what they teach is the main concern I have. You can easily tell the difference of "engaged" students who have a great teacher they will remember forever vs. "disengaged" students who will be able to tell you how bad their teacher was. I think Montessori-esq / curiosity driven schooling is…

> 2. These rules work because there's a significantly smaller portion of the population who truly knows themselves and embraces their eccentric characteristics. We typically lose our identity when going through a formal means of schooling because we want to fit in and thus be "average". Even those valedictorians are quite "average" outside of working harder to get perfect grades. How many do you know that went on to do the amazing things expected of them? Usually it's the people who were eccentric and didn't do so well in school.

I don't know if I agree. If you look at many of the most influential positions in many institutions, it's far and away majority filled by valedictorians, first-in-class, degree havers. Very few times will there be a highschool drop out neurosurgeon, or never graduated college politician. Even the technical geniuses in code of our time often came from wealthy backgrounds, attended MIT or another well regarded technical school or had direct tutelage/mentorship from someone else with that background. You can obviously point to examples, so-and-so dropping out of Harvard... but at that point they were already in Harvard which one doesn't get to do if they sucked shit at school.

Re: Life, school, and the 80:20 rule (2019)

#86

Post by minihat »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #85
thenerdhead wrote: post #64

I think there's two things. 1. The school system has been broken for many years. Learning from people who are not passionate about what they teach is the main concern I have. You can easily tell the difference of "engaged" students who have a great teacher they will remember forever vs. "disengaged" students who will be able to tell you how bad their teacher was. I think Montessori-esq / curiosity driven schooling is…

> 2. These rules work because there's a significantly smaller portion of the population who truly knows themselves and embraces their eccentric characteristics. We typically lose our identity when going through a formal means of schooling because we want to fit in and thus be "average". Even those valedictorians are quite "average" outside of working harder to get perfect grades. How many do you know that went on to…

High school (in the US) is so easy for gifted students that they barely need even try to earn a 4.0 and be the valedictorian.

Not all kids with good grades go on to do awesome things. But it makes sense that many of the best and brightest, the 'eccentric' ones, happen to have an easy time in school.

Re: Life, school, and the 80:20 rule (2019)

#87

Post by adamsmith143 »

verve_rat wrote: post #50
BobbyJo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> profits aren't the true goal... Ok, we can all stop there and go home. This person knows more than every economist and game-theorist on the planet. >They're all kinda the same, though, and the system is designed that way. I take it you haven't had many jobs I've worked at 5 different corporations and this is just verifiably wrong. 'The system' you're referencing is voluntary exchange, and it's not designed, it emer…

Profit for the firm might be the goal for the firm as an entity, such that it is, but the goal for each individual is their own self interest. The worker wants a pay rise, the manager wants a promotion, the CEO wants a better gig at the next company. None of that is a goal of making more money for the company.

>The worker wants a pay rise, the manager wants a promotion, the CEO wants a better gig at the next company. None of that is a goal of making more money for the company.

This is quite literally the definition of Adam Smith's Invisible Hand.

"By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it."

Re: Life, school, and the 80:20 rule (2019)

#88

Post by magicloop »

I think one of the best things about school is the timetable. You don't need to be there too much of each day, and there are generous periods of holiday. What this means is that you have lots of time on your own to go deep and explore the thing you are most interested in, whilst having enough broad knowledge of the stuff you should know via the school curriculum. School kind of offers you a taste of so many things, so you get a chance to see what your inclinations are.

People seem to think teachers can just deliver into you excellence, but excellence comes from within, and hopefully you are in an environment which permits you to grow and develop under your own personal efforts and dedication (i.e. stable home environment, warmth, food, etc.).

Re: Life, school, and the 80:20 rule (2019)

#89

Post by Zircom »

lordnacho wrote: post #3

I've long thought that schools should just let people go at whatever pace they want. This should be easier now with video classes. Just let people take the algebra or calculus or whatever module, when they feel like it. There would still be some sort of minimum requirement so that you can write a decent email, but there would be no reason to lock people in year groups. Year groups are still important socially, but th…

WGU is an online, fully accredited college that does exactly that. You pay for 6 months at a time and can do as many classes as you're able to complete within that time frame.

I just started at the beginning of February and have already knocked out an entire course in the past 10 days, it's honestly the best experience I've ever had with schooling. I like to work at my own pace because my motivation to get things done comes in bits and spurts, so I like to take advance of the upswings of my motivation levels and will manically get as much done as I can it fades and then take a week off to just chill, which did not work very well when I was enrolled at a more traditional university.

Re: Life, school, and the 80:20 rule (2019)

#90

Post by oneoff786 »

minihat wrote: post #86
PuppyTailWags wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. These rules work because there's a significantly smaller portion of the population who truly knows themselves and embraces their eccentric characteristics. We typically lose our identity when going through a formal means of schooling because we want to fit in and thus be "average". Even those valedictorians are quite "average" outside of working harder to get perfect grades. How many do you know that went on to…

High school (in the US) is so easy for gifted students that they barely need even try to earn a 4.0 and be the valedictorian. Not all kids with good grades go on to do awesome things. But it makes sense that many of the best and brightest, the 'eccentric' ones, happen to have an easy time in school.

I certainly learned to do the bare minimum required to get a 4.0. It was pretty easy in the end.
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