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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

#201

Post by vkazanov »

WarmWash wrote: post #181
bawolff wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Art, while cool to look at and experience, has a pretty low efficacy in terms of "motivating people to do work, or removing obstacles, to carry society forward" Idk, the soviets didn't invest in socialist realism propaganda for nothing. Less sarcastically, art has had an outsized influence on society and culture. Take any social movement you want, and there was probably some novel or work of art that galvanized it.

My argument isn't that art doesn't have an impact, my argument is that the artists to impact ratio is insane. 10,000 artists in, one $20k work of art out. Whereas something like the engineer is closer to 5 engineers in, $500k of work out (and even that is pretty conservative)

I have this inner model of something i call "the rock star economics": many people want to do music but only one becomes a rock star and makes serious money. But he gets so much attention that many more people want to become rock stars.

Applies to art, fashion, media.

Most practical (including engineering) successes are much less externally attractive but do make decent money for everybody involved.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#202

Post by raincole »

bwhiting2356 wrote: post #45
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 mu…

> kids why they should learn advanced abstract math

Could you clarify what do you mean by 'kids' and 'advanced math' here?

I personally believe we should stop believing advanced math is meaningful for everyone. Especially stop trying to push them down to high school curriculum.

When I say advanced math I mean anything involved with "what exactly is a ___ (vector space, real number, group, set, etc)".

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#203

Post by throwaway2037 »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #167
kitchi wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on what you mean by "school" I'd disagree. Voluntary tertiary education makes sense, not all chosen professions may need or benefit from a degree. But primary education needs to be a requirement for every child. Coming from a country with a large illiterate population, it's easy to see how hard their lives are compared to folks with an education but similar socio-economic backgrounds. Now obviously implemen…

Problem is when one mixes kids who don’t want to be there with one’s that do, they all suffer. Makes a lot of teacher not want to be there too! The schools also have little interest in spending time and money on the higher performing students. They teach the minimum and focus resources on the failing ones to raise school averages. Currently, tertiary education is where a lot of real learning takes starts to happen.

    > Problem is when one mixes kids who don’t want to be there with one’s that do, they all suffer.
At what age do you think kids should be able to leave school?

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#204

Post by williamoforange »

WarmWash wrote: post #181
bawolff wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Art, while cool to look at and experience, has a pretty low efficacy in terms of "motivating people to do work, or removing obstacles, to carry society forward" Idk, the soviets didn't invest in socialist realism propaganda for nothing. Less sarcastically, art has had an outsized influence on society and culture. Take any social movement you want, and there was probably some novel or work of art that galvanized it.

My argument isn't that art doesn't have an impact, my argument is that the artists to impact ratio is insane. 10,000 artists in, one $20k work of art out. Whereas something like the engineer is closer to 5 engineers in, $500k of work out (and even that is pretty conservative)

I know this is going to seem reductive, but especially with young children we teach art due to the value it gives them as individuals developing. Not for the GDP or individual fiscal benefit.

Further, judging the value of art to society by how much it costs is ridiculous and an asinine comparison.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#205

Post by vkazanov »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #82
WalterBright wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But that's basic arithmetic, and we have calculators to do that. Totally agree that understanding the problem and being able to frame a solution are also needed, but again, that's not hard maths. I think we're more talking about algebra or, really, anything "higher" in maths than arithmetic. Does a solid knowledge of, e,g, Set Theory, give any benefit later in life? And also, if we think that basic financial manageme…

Set theory is actually the basis for all of math. This includes basic counting of the number of things in, ehm, sets. Cant be nore practical than this.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#206

Post by roncesvalles »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #161
tombert wrote: post #70

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 just assume that they've never actually taught anyone anything I care about teaching my students leadership, because all real problems are political. What exactly is the "test" for this? To me, revolutionizing school looks beyond "problem solving," because the parents and students who are excited about the thing they call "problem solving" - it's invoked in the article, it's talked about by many of the other comm…

>because all real problems are political

I don't think that's true at all. A lot of problems are purely technical. Once someone figures out the technical part, you realize the politically savvy people waiting on the sidelines for a solution were always a dime a dozen.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#207

Post by wagwang »

The obvious low hanging fruit is that most Americans just need less school and should skip straight into vocational training which can start as early as 15-16. These kids don't need to ever be even close to calculus or physics. There's an epidemic of overly educated people and it's a tremendous waste of resources and broken expectations.

Just follow the people who invented kindergarten :))

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#208

Post by throwaway2037 »

beloch wrote: post #192

Random thoughts: - Education should probably be an area where methods are chosen conservatively based on what is proven. It's easy to forget that a change in curriculum will affect thousands or millions of kids and could have a life-long impact on them. We'd pillory someone who suggested testing new drugs on thousands or millions of kids even though the effects might be far less pronounced or long-term than a few yea…

    > In Canada, teaching generally requires a university degree in education or a university degree with additional education in teaching.
This is true in all highly developed countries at this point. Many also require an advanced degree within X years of starting.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#209

Post by wombatpm »

annzabelle wrote: post #176
necovek wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never taught myself, so take this with a grain of salt (though I do think it is extremely hard to do well). I did, however, have a teacher who taught an advanced subject and I found his instruction so good that I did not have to bother with homework and assignments if I was happy with B grades — as I wasn't particularly motivated, only occassionaly did I put in the effort for an A. I could, however, see the level o…

I was lucky to attend a liberal arts college with a large and extremely pedagogy focused mathematics department, and all of my math classes there were like this. Engaging lectures, if I listened and wrote down everything on the board I would be able to get a B on the exams, even if I skimped on practice. Made it all the way to measure theory this way. They included in class group practice integrated with the lectures…

Bette White has an honorary degree from there for her Rose Nieland character on Golden Girls

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#210

Post by raincole »

pianopatrick wrote: post #99

Ya know, one way we could "revolutionize schooling" that would make sense for our modern world is to set up schools that make sense when both parents work. Like have school open from 7 - 6 with the same amount of teaching but lots more recess so that parents can drop their kids off in the morning and pick them up after work. Also, have schools available in the summer so parents can drop the kids off while they go off…

That's what we do here. Around my high school there are dozens of 'after school' classes where parents send their children to stay until 7~9pm.

Now the birthrate is literally the lowest around the world, at 0.7[0]. The other comment is spot on:

> 7-6? Why even have kids

Humans should create societies that are friendly to parents who take care of their children. Not societies that encourage parents to delegate their children to someone else, being it nannies, schools or governments. Otherwise people will eventually ask this question: Why even have kids?

[0]: to put a scale for how low 0.7 is: you might have heard that Japan has a low birthrate. And they are at 1.15.

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