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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

#61

Post by parpfish »

fasterik wrote: post #49
pokstad wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

i'm not sure if it's an issue of the educational system, but for at least several decades there has been a societal push to correct historical gender imbalances by encouraging girls to do well in school, go to college (especially STEM), get a career.

This has resulted in kids seeing a lot of messaging along the lines of "Girl Power! Girls can do anything!". Which to an adult looks like a shift in the tides of history, but for one of the kids that's all they've ever seen and i think that has an effect.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#62

Post by ambicapter »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #20
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…

> I think about three strata of students. The stubbornly unwilling, the coaxable, and the eager. I have a real issue dividing kids up along these lines. I've found that virtually all young kids love to explore and learn things, and if anything schooling can extinguish this innate desire when it becomes a source of stress.

Then think of them as the same child in different phases between "extinguished innate desire" and "loves to explore and learn things".

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#63

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#64

Post by WalterBright »

parpfish wrote: post #58
bwhiting2356 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mu…

re: not teaching math to kids is a pet peeve of mine. the number of adults i've met who cannot add two fractions together is depressing. at some point each of them had decided "i'm just bad with numbers, hahaha" and they gave themselves permission to stop trying math. worse, society gives you a pass at not knowing math. we need to apply the same constant social pressure to mathematics skills that we do for learning t…

When young people ask me why they should learn math, I point out that managing your money requires math, and there are plenty of people who will steal from you if you are unable to recognize it.

An inability to understand compound interest is classic.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#65

Post by rocmcd »

jplusequalt wrote: post #41
rootusrootus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

"Hyperactive and distracted" is not necessarily the exact reason, but there is a large, well documented gap in performance for boys vs girls in elementary school (at least in the US).

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#66

Post by fasterik »

parpfish wrote: post #61
fasterik wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

i'm not sure if it's an issue of the educational system, but for at least several decades there has been a societal push to correct historical gender imbalances by encouraging girls to do well in school, go to college (especially STEM), get a career. This has resulted in kids seeing a lot of messaging along the lines of "Girl Power! Girls can do anything!". Which to an adult looks like a shift in the tides of history…

It turns out that when you level the playing field, girls do better than boys. I don't think it's about the "girl power" nonsense, it's about the ability to sit down, focus on something, and produce work that meets a certain standard of achievement.

I would say the more harmful slogan has been "you're okay just the way you are." I'm not saying we go back to harsh discipline and abuse, but there has to be a middle ground where we hold children, especially boys, to a higher standard.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#67

Post by ai_critic »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #20
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…

> I think about three strata of students. The stubbornly unwilling, the coaxable, and the eager. I have a real issue dividing kids up along these lines. I've found that virtually all young kids love to explore and learn things, and if anything schooling can extinguish this innate desire when it becomes a source of stress.

Real talk: which kids have you interacted with? What social class? What ethnicity? What household structure (nuclear, multigenerational, single parent, single parent plus intermittent partner, divorced with shared custody, dirtbag but grandparent covering)?

I've found that the people who are more optimistic about kids tend to live in a particular category of socioneconomic bubble.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#68

Post by WalterBright »

hunterpayne wrote: post #60
Vinnl wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we had budgets that allowed for one teacher per ten students, I imagine many problems in education would already be solved.

There is no correlation between better educational outcomes and higher teacher pay. Washington has the highest teacher pay and the smallest classrooms yet is below average in educational outcomes. Stop this canard, it just isn't true. US Schools have plenty of money, they just don't spend it wisely. In fact, both Mississippi and Louisiana have better outcomes than Washington state despite the fact they have half the…

The Washington schools constantly ask for more money so they can teach. I don't see what monetary resources are needed to teach arithmetic beyond a blackboard and chalk.

Projectors, videos, computers, tablets, calculators, are all completely useless in teaching math.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#69

Post by WalterBright »

FloorEgg wrote: post #50
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!

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…

> Children especially are not good judges of which knowledge and skills will benefit them later in life.

This. If children knew what was best for them, they wouldn't need teachers or parents.

When I was in college, the courses were laid out for particular majors. Electives were few. I trusted the college that they knew what they were doing in deciding the curricula, because I sure didn't.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#70

Post by tombert »

I'm not the first person to state this, but it bears repeating: nearly everyone thinks that they know the right way to teach, and most people don't.

I'm not exempting myself from this. I was an adjunct lecturer for two semesters. I did have some fun with it, but it was way harder than I thought it would be, and I think that university is probably considerably easier than elementary or high school.

I had students that I knew were smart that I was forced to fail. They would grasp the subjects quickly when I was speaking, they would ask good questions during class...and then they would simply never study or do the homework I assigned them, and then they would do terrible on tests and I'd be stuck having to give them a bad grade. They were smart students, but they didn't want to be there.

Now when I see people talking about how they're going to "revolutionize" school, most of the time I just assume that they've never actually taught anyone anything, or least never been required to teach someone who really isn't interested in learning.

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