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Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

thesunmagazine.org

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Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#81

Post by TaupeRanger »

fiziks_hckr wrote: post #46
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…

I've taught in schools from all corners of San Francisco, and can't agree more with majority of what was said in this article, except maybe the money part*, I'll leave a footnote for this. One day when I was volunteering at one of these schools, a student came up to me showing a picture of a robot how cool it was. When I mentioned that it was relatively easy to build, he got super stoked, told his friends and before…

Small class sizes don't just help, they are essential for this type of setup, which is why it can never work at scale and will not be relevant to 99% of kids in the country. There simply aren't enough teachers.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#82

Post by Consultant32452 »

TaupeRanger wrote: post #75
theptip wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Good luck in a classroom of 30 kids of wildly varying abilities and interests doing "self paced exploration". Maybe 1/100 kids would actually choose to learn any traditional school subject. Structured learning is required for the other 99/100 to learn important and valuable parts of human knowledge that they wouldn't pursue otherwise.

Schools used to be designed exactly this way, with kids of varying ages/abilities all in the same room learning and teaching each other. It's actually quite successful and more aligned with how we are wired to learn (tribal/community style).

The Prussian model we use currently was not designed to create more educated people, it was designed to most efficiently create factory workers. That's an important factor to keep in mind. I would argue the school model is working, it's just not doing what you think it's doing. Any discussion of "improving" schools that doesn't completely overturn the Prussian model is just grifting for more funding.

You can get some of the benefits of this environment today if you are willing to pay a premium for Montessori style private schooling. My daughter loved it and was WAY ahead of everyone else, including the "honors" kids, when she transitioned to a regular public school.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#84

Post by giantg2 »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #73
giantg2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

I'd wager that it is the sense of individualism that causes the feeling of carrying dead weight as the dead weight does not feel any sense of responsibility towards the group. Given what I have read about such individualistic behaviour, I am inclined to believe that public transportation as found in Denmark wouldn't function in the US simply because it requires a form of trust between citizen and state. You just ente…

I think it depends on what we mean for individualism. One can have a strong sense of individualism and still function well in society. An individual can still want to do their part. I think it's mostly a lack of honor or integrity - they'd rather put their name on a project and get credit for the work of others, or get a free ride on the bus.

For example, the boy scouts teach integrity, teamwork, and also self-reliance (individualism).

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#85

Post by robocat »

grendelt wrote: post #10
Spivak wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing more sure to kill your love of anything than to have it be taught at school. Like come on, we were stuck in the boredom cube for 6ish hours a day, the alternative is nothing and most of us still didn't pay attention.

> than to have it be taught at school. than to have it be taught IN A BORING WAY WITHOUT CONTEXT Learning my multiplication tables was fun when it was turned into a race with my friends. Memorizing the state capitals and abbreviations was fun when it was turned into a game. You can turn most anything into a fun way of learning it with just a modicum of effort. One problem is too many teachers get beat down to only te…

It is the intolerable conditions that need fixing.

You make a tired stereotypical argument that better pay attracts and retains better people: the idea that money can fix all problems is a thoughtless crutch.

Better pay retains those people that despite the intolerable working conditions, people who slavishly force themselves to remain. Why presume there is a correlation between teaching ability and slavishness?

The argument that better pay attracts better people makes little sense for jobs that people desire regardless of pay: becoming a teacher is often a calling. the great teachers I know are not necessarily academic (high GPA) achievers, instead they have a passion for teaching children, and they learn skills that are not testable by written exams.

You yourself even point out that money is not the issue: “young college graduates [leave] the profession within the first five years because of how stifling the bureaucracy [is]”.

Most private preschool teachers in New Zealand work for nearly minimum wage, and I have friends who are teaching preschoolers (under 5 year old). These are smart, motivated, dedicated women working long hours and they remain in the profession earning little: even those that move up the preschool career ladder earn well below equivalent jobs in other industries.

In New Zealand teachers of 5+ year olds get paid a more reasonable salary. I have many friends that remain teachers for decades mostly because of the joy and satisfaction they get from the job, not because they are tied to the job by money or lack of opportunity.

Fix the conditions, not the pay.

Edited: improved writing.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#86

Post by notch656a »

jcz_nz wrote: post #69
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.

That’s just laughable. About a billion Chinese might disagree with this.

Didn't Chinese spend more time in school after more elements of capitalism were introduced and the command economy of "get in the fields for the public good" gave way to "participate in the world capitalist economy." I agree schooling seems an important link to increased wealth, but it seems bettering education is as much linked to better capitalizing on stock of tax-cattle and realizing the capital investment in the children allows them to better compete on the capitalists market so their tax money can be taken to fatten the government hogs.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#87

Post by TaupeRanger »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #82
TaupeRanger wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck in a classroom of 30 kids of wildly varying abilities and interests doing "self paced exploration". Maybe 1/100 kids would actually choose to learn any traditional school subject. Structured learning is required for the other 99/100 to learn important and valuable parts of human knowledge that they wouldn't pursue otherwise.

Schools used to be designed exactly this way, with kids of varying ages/abilities all in the same room learning and teaching each other. It's actually quite successful and more aligned with how we are wired to learn (tribal/community style). The Prussian model we use currently was not designed to create more educated people, it was designed to most efficiently create factory workers. That's an important factor to kee…

Sure...when you pay for good schools with small class sizes you get better education. The point is that this doesn't work for 99% of children who are going to be in classes of 25-35 kids, and I wouldn't count the child of a smart HN reader as representative of the average "Montessori" kid.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#88

Post by yamazakiwi »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #73
giantg2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

I'd wager that it is the sense of individualism that causes the feeling of carrying dead weight as the dead weight does not feel any sense of responsibility towards the group. Given what I have read about such individualistic behaviour, I am inclined to believe that public transportation as found in Denmark wouldn't function in the US simply because it requires a form of trust between citizen and state. You just ente…

This exact model is used in my city train / rail system so it is possible in the U.S.

I assume it would be more challenging to use this model in our largest Metro areas.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#89

Post by ravenstine »

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…

> I have yet to see a child that is not curious, you need some war-level trauma to stop children curiosity.

I hope you're right and I'm wrong, but that doesn't reflect my experience at all. Some children are indeed curious, but I wouldn't say anywhere near most. Saying that only serious trauma stops curiosity comes off as overly optimistic, but what do I know.

After all, would you make the same statement about adults? Are nearly all or most adults curious except for when there's trauma? My guess is that you would struggle to make a similar statement about adults in general. If adults aren't that curious, but children are, then why is that?

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#90

Post by scarmig »

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…

Feudal and socialist systems had access to cheap energy, and they weren't nearly as successful at raising people out of poverty. In the case of classic centrally planned socialist states, they were likely worse for the environment during development than comparable capitalist states (cf USA vs USSR).
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