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Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

thesunmagazine.org

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Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#51

Post by cycomanic »

nus07 wrote: post #40
hintymad wrote: post #38

> "just let the kids learn by themselves" This has been the central theme of progressive education movement in the US. IIRC, Jo Boaler has been advocating that kids could discover most of the maths by exploring and learning by themselves. I fundamentally disagree with this belief, though. It took thousands of years for our greatest minds to simplify our maths to its current incarnation. Discovering "everything" by my…

Totally agree. Which countries are dominating STEM education? Israel, Russia, China , India and a few others which have strict schedules, competition and discipline. Looking at the failing US model I am starting to believe that finding your path and self motivation may work for 5% while leading the other 95% to slacking , cheap entertainment and failure.

Actually the statistics around education have completely different systems from Finland (very student driven learning) as well as Korea and Singapore (very discipline driven) at the topic. The main common factor is that the spend significantly larger fractions than the average on education.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#52

Post by nyc111 »

hintymad wrote: post #38

> "just let the kids learn by themselves" This has been the central theme of progressive education movement in the US. IIRC, Jo Boaler has been advocating that kids could discover most of the maths by exploring and learning by themselves. I fundamentally disagree with this belief, though. It took thousands of years for our greatest minds to simplify our maths to its current incarnation. Discovering "everything" by my…

True. Where there is teaching there is no learning.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#53

Post by zozbot234 »

glennvtx wrote: post #47
hintymad wrote: post #38

> "just let the kids learn by themselves" This has been the central theme of progressive education movement in the US. IIRC, Jo Boaler has been advocating that kids could discover most of the maths by exploring and learning by themselves. I fundamentally disagree with this belief, though. It took thousands of years for our greatest minds to simplify our maths to its current incarnation. Discovering "everything" by my…

He means to explore these subjects by themselves, i.e. drawing upon the current body of knowledge. This technique works very well, i educate 3 children at home, and more or less their own interests guide their learning, only occasionally do i feel the need to put them onto the path of a specific subject.

If they're at school, they're not being allowed to pick their preferred subjects to explore. School kids these days are literally expected to teach themselves everything, it's not really about exploration or interest.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#54

Post by lordnacho »

ravi-delia wrote: post #49
nus07 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. Which countries are dominating STEM education? Israel, Russia, China , India and a few others which have strict schedules, competition and discipline. Looking at the failing US model I am starting to believe that finding your path and self motivation may work for 5% while leading the other 95% to slacking , cheap entertainment and failure.

Which countries are dominating STEM research? You know, the part that is actually useful instead of just coersive? America, by a long shot.

Aren't the actual PhD students often from those other countries?

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#55

Post by giantg2 »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #13
hourago wrote: post #4

> But our society is disintegrating, and in such a society, the only successful people are self-reliant, confident, and individualistic — because the community life that protects the dependent and the weak is dead. Too many people has apocalyptic views of the world. And to push for individualistic behavior when you think that your society is disintegrating seems to just accelerate any problems that may exists. 30 yea…

> And to push for individualistic behavior when you think that your society is disintegrating seems to just accelerate any problems that may exists. This can not be understated. Coming from a country that would be considered "Eastern European", there is an astounding amount of individualism pushed in schools, and yet, it seems that the most prosperous and "equal" countries take the opposite approach. What I cherish t…

"Those who work in group will always achieve and learn a lot more than those who do it alone, unless the latter are truly exceptional."

Many people in the US who have done group projects at school will disagree - you typically end up with dead weight or overbearing partners (it tends to get better when you get out of the compulsory school years).

With the right partners, I completely agree though. In my undergrad and even moreso in my masters I had some good groups.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#56

Post by RealityVoid »

yonaguska wrote: post #48
hintymad wrote: post #38

> "just let the kids learn by themselves" This has been the central theme of progressive education movement in the US. IIRC, Jo Boaler has been advocating that kids could discover most of the maths by exploring and learning by themselves. I fundamentally disagree with this belief, though. It took thousands of years for our greatest minds to simplify our maths to its current incarnation. Discovering "everything" by my…

I disagree, the most productive moments in my math education were spent "discovering" patterns while trying to solve problems, having been given just enough tools to attempt the problem. Credit to Szeszlér Dávid goes to those formative experiences. The next lesson, after we spent time "discovering" and likely failing, we would be given the last tool we needed to solve the problem. That discovery process cemented the…

My experience is somewhat similar to yours, I just loved "discovering" concepts, but I think that while this might work for us, it doesn't work for all. And this might be exactly what makes this problem hard, each person responds to different stimuli and then you either have to find a way to identify this, OR just pick something you want to optimize for (the average kid, prodigies, whatever) and apply the method that works for them, to all. I think this second method is what happens in most educational systems.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#57

Post by notch656a »

vkou wrote: post #45
hitpointdrew wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have seen world wide that schools are THE most effective tool for lifting people out of poverty. This is false. Schooling has had nothing to do with it, capitalism is what has lifted the most people out of poverty, not schooling.

> capitalism is what has lifted the most people out of poverty This is false. Access to cheap energy, in the form of fossil fuels is what has lifted the most people out of poverty, not capitalism. Without burning through millions of years of oil and coal in the span of a few centuries, we'd all still be farming and eating mud, regardless of which economic system were in play. Remove capitalism, and industrialized soc…

What's your proposed mechanism for incentivizing me to efficiently provide energy to customers without capitalism? To invest in the capital intensive industries necessary to refine and extract this energy? Are you thinking a form of anarchism without property rights kind of situation, or more of a command economy?

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#58

Post by theptip »

hintymad wrote: post #38

> "just let the kids learn by themselves" This has been the central theme of progressive education movement in the US. IIRC, Jo Boaler has been advocating that kids could discover most of the maths by exploring and learning by themselves. I fundamentally disagree with this belief, though. It took thousands of years for our greatest minds to simplify our maths to its current incarnation. Discovering "everything" by my…

This seems like a bit of a strawman. I don’t know Jo Boaler but I have never encountered the idea that students could rediscover everything from scratch. It’s clearly a dumb idea.

A much more common position is that self-paced exploration — but using the latest textbooks and also a variety of teaching styles — could interest students much more than “no child left behind” style common curricula which constrain both the teacher and the student.

Personally I think the current system is terrible for below- and above-average students, and perhaps passable for average students.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#59

Post by giantg2 »

hintymad wrote: post #38

> "just let the kids learn by themselves" This has been the central theme of progressive education movement in the US. IIRC, Jo Boaler has been advocating that kids could discover most of the maths by exploring and learning by themselves. I fundamentally disagree with this belief, though. It took thousands of years for our greatest minds to simplify our maths to its current incarnation. Discovering "everything" by my…

"just let the kids learn by themselves"

This is what companies want. They want a diploma just for the credential, but they don't really train you and just want you to learn on the job.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#60

Post by notch656a »

giantg2 wrote: post #59
hintymad wrote: post #38

> "just let the kids learn by themselves" This has been the central theme of progressive education movement in the US. IIRC, Jo Boaler has been advocating that kids could discover most of the maths by exploring and learning by themselves. I fundamentally disagree with this belief, though. It took thousands of years for our greatest minds to simplify our maths to its current incarnation. Discovering "everything" by my…

"just let the kids learn by themselves" This is what companies want. They want a diploma just for the credential, but they don't really train you and just want you to learn on the job.

Sure this works great for things like swimming in the deep end and how to use a firearm without grossly endangering yourself or others.

Honestly I'm convinced anyone who believes this stuff has never watched a toddler.

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