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I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

scotthyoung.com

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Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#41

Post by jplusequalt »

rootusrootus wrote: post #28
XorNot wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What philosophy? The gender based outcomes people never seem able to come up with any coherent explanation of what they think the problem is other then to play to stereotypes.

The explanation that I’ve seen floated is behavioral. Boys are active and physical and don’t focus as easily as girls, who are more amenable to sitting quietly and paying attention. The idea is that the current predominant K12 style favors students in the latter behavior group. I have two kids in K12 and I don’t think it’s that simple. Not that I have a good explanation of my own, mind you.

>who are more amenable to sitting quietly and paying attention

Is this explanation not making a blatant assumption here that girls are statistically less hyperactive and distracted than boys?

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#42

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

Etheryte wrote: post #39
tshaddox wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it obvious to you that children should be coerced into learning something? Let's say that you have some curriculum C that you think is vital for children to learn, and you want as many children as possible to learn C. Even ignoring ethics, it's not obvious to me that attempting to coerce all children into learning C is the best way to accomplish your goal!

In broad strokes, learning leads to better life outcomes just like brushing your teeth leads to better health outcomes, or any other example you may prefer. Brushing teeth is a chore so a child won't generally pick it up all by themselves without some nudging. If you don't do the nudging you're essentially letting a child be free, yes, but also willingly letting them end up worse off when they're too young to know an…

> just like brushing your teeth leads to better health outcomes

This is very context dependent. If you grow up surrounded by a typical western/industrial/post-industrial diet, then yes, it almost certainly does.

But you could also change the food environment.

Hopefully the analogy/metaphor that connects this to schooling is reasonably obvious.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#43

Post by jplusequalt »

aeternum wrote: post #17
apsurd wrote: post #7

- "Learning made easy" is an oxymoron. Learning is biologically required to be hard. (brain needs a forcing function to get out of its default-mode and pay attention to the novel stimuli) - The hard part about education has little to do with learning and a whole lot to do with socioeconomic realties. - Education and learning is a public good. Any for-profit initiative (ed-tech) will not be incentivized to improve lea…

>Learning is biologically required to be hard. I think we all know this to not be true. We've all had a super engaging teacher or task in which we learned quickly and efficiently without it feeling hard. I've learned far more through natural interest or through pursuing a goal than I have forcing myself to engage with a subject. >Any for-profit initiative (ed-tech) will not be incentivized to improve learning outcome…

> We've all had a super engaging teacher or task in which we learned quickly and efficiently without it feeling hard

Turns out that when you enjoy something, the same amount of effort doesn't feel so taxing! Who would have thought?

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#44

Post by yongjik »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #8
madrox wrote: post #2

I was a horrible student as a child, and in my 20s I strongly held the belief that education was broken. Now that I'm a few decades older I wonder if my problem was not education but life. I did not fit in at most schools, and that had a negative effect on my desire and ability to learn. That's what led me to teach myself computers as a teenager...education and online socialization combined. Win/win. I think the auth…

Any time you try to randomly assort 30 children of the same calendar age into a room with a single (or even several) teacher, it's going to be bad for nearly everyone except those in the very middle of the curve. A very narrow portion of that middle too. It can't not be. And if the teacher tries to cater to the slow kids and the "gifted" kids even a little, then the middle-of-the-curve children will suffer for that t…

Meh, it's not like before public schools most children had access to tutors tailored to their individual needs.

Badly misquoting Churchill, public schools are the worst form of education, except for all the other forms.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#45

Post by bwhiting2356 »

freeopinion wrote: post #10

IMO, the best questions around revolutionizing school should address whether children should be coerced into learning something. It seems obvious to me that the answer should be yes. So the follow ups should be figuring out how to move a student from an unwilling participant to a willing participant. I think about three strata of students. The stubbornly unwilling, the coaxable, and the eager. It is pretty easy to de…

It's hard to convince kids why they should learn advanced abstract math, beyond what is necessary to calculate the tip on a restaurant bill. The number of high school students who will use advanced math beyond high school is very small, but those that do will have high impact, which is both in society's interest and their own interest as high earners.

The kids that study and apply themselves, I don't think it's so much that they can see they understand the benefits of linear algebra at the time, it's that their parents and the social network they're a part of sends them signals that this is what they should do to be successful and they're rewarded for doing well in school.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#46

Post by bigthymer »

freeopinion wrote: post #10

IMO, the best questions around revolutionizing school should address whether children should be coerced into learning something. It seems obvious to me that the answer should be yes. So the follow ups should be figuring out how to move a student from an unwilling participant to a willing participant. I think about three strata of students. The stubbornly unwilling, the coaxable, and the eager. It is pretty easy to de…

Having multiple parallel tracks for different types of students is controversial. Schooling tends to be cyclical with periods with more tracking is popular shifting to periods of less tracking and more classroom mixing. It really depends on what you want to optimize for. More tracking benefits the highest achievers. Less tracking raises the bottom and the average but at the cost of not maximizing the outcome of the top.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#47

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

1. the best teachers (of anything) rarely convey information or skills in any direct sense. Instead, they create the conditions where (willing) students will (or are at least more likely) to have experiences that cause them to learn.

2. John Holt (look him up)

3. I always wanted to offer people the chance to both leave and return to K-12 education. Lots of kids want out as teenagers, and we should make that possible but only if we make equally easy to come back when they realize the downsides.

4. Almost every child is a willing, in fact, overachieving learner. The fact that they fail to be interested in a topic is a reflection of things other than their capacity and capabilities for learning.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#48

Post by vjulian »

How best to teach and effective teaching are problems solved long ago. It’s unaffordable for most.

What’s being discussed here is how to optimize mass education so that it’s least bad and is effective for a majority or least a substantial portion of children.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#49

Post by fasterik »

pokstad wrote: post #3
madrox wrote: post #2

I was a horrible student as a child, and in my 20s I strongly held the belief that education was broken. Now that I'm a few decades older I wonder if my problem was not education but life. I did not fit in at most schools, and that had a negative effect on my desire and ability to learn. That's what led me to teach myself computers as a teenager...education and online socialization combined. Win/win. I think the auth…

There’s something lopsided about education for boys. The system appears to favor girls heavily. There’s projections that college student populations will have shrinking male population. I think this is a systemic issue with school being built to favor a certain philosophy that isn’t well thought out for 50% of the population.

It's not that the system favors a particular gender. The system favors personality traits like self-regulation, organization, and conscientiousness. These traits develop earlier on average in girls than in boys.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#50

Post by FloorEgg »

tshaddox wrote: post #31
freeopinion wrote: post #10

IMO, the best questions around revolutionizing school should address whether children should be coerced into learning something. It seems obvious to me that the answer should be yes. So the follow ups should be figuring out how to move a student from an unwilling participant to a willing participant. I think about three strata of students. The stubbornly unwilling, the coaxable, and the eager. It is pretty easy to de…

Why is it obvious to you that children should be coerced into learning something? Let's say that you have some curriculum C that you think is vital for children to learn, and you want as many children as possible to learn C. Even ignoring ethics, it's not obvious to me that attempting to coerce all children into learning C is the best way to accomplish your goal!

I'm not the parent comment author, but my guess is that they probably meant persuade or inspire as much if not more than coerce. Most respectful interpretation and all...

Why is it obvious that an educator should do their best to teach a student something even when they don't want to learn? Well for one, it's their job, and two... Children especially are not good judges of which knowledge and skills will benefit them later in life.

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