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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

#271

Post by hdctambien »

Dfiesl wrote: post #241
ChaitanyaSai wrote: post #228

Schooling has been trying for ever to institutionalize and standardize learning without really understanding what learning is. In that absence, we've focused on learning proxies, which are tests. And tests resulted in a focus on mechanics. Meaning was and is an intangible so it got leached out. Everything school does starts at the wrong end of meaning > motiviation > mechanics > measurement. It is possible to fix sch…

Im definitely in this camp. It seems like the biggest frustration from the teachers’ part with modern schooling is lack of engagement from the students. This is clearly telling us something. Sure some students have not even had their basic needs met, which is a separate issue. But those that have and still don’t engage tells us that their brains have probably assigned the information they’re receiving as “having litt…

In highschool, at least, you have to somehow elevate the meaning of your subject to be more interesting than the movie theatre/concert/video game system they have in their pocket.

Kids will make eye contact with you and nod along as you teach, but they are wearing air pods and can't hear you over their spotify playlist.

Im not sure I can be more interesting than Taylor Swift, Call of Duty, MrBeast, and texting with friends all at the same time. You need the student to be a little bit receptive to even have the opportunity to convince them what you are teaching is relevant to them.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#272

Post by bilbo0s »

hunterpayne wrote: post #79
bilbo0s wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I should also gently suggest here that the issue could also be expectations. The idea that you put 30 random children in a class and that therefore there must be some who are "gifted", and there must be some who are "slow". I don't know man? I'm just saying that sometimes sure, all the kids in your neighborhood could be above average. But most of the time, all the kids in a class are just average. And now the…

Don't have kids huh...gifted is just a classification for those with test scores in the top 1-5%. So if you have 100 kids, there is a pretty high likelihood you have 1-5 gifted kids (yes its not that simple, whatever). And the research on the topic says that tracking (the idea you are criticizing here), improves educational outcomes. What to know the real problem with education? Its people like you who don't have kid…

>Don't have kids huh...

I'm a grandparent.

>people like you who don't have kids and know nothing about the education system

You know when I did my student teaching stint to certify? 1993.

PS: You know why they say tracking works? Because we throw out data from after high school graduation. Ever wonder how those, uh, "gifted", kids who got "A"s in high school Calc typically do in Calculus streams at the University level? I can assure you there are many many professors out there dealing with the results of our tracking system, (that being where the proliferation of "gifted" programs came from), who would not say that it is "working".

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#273

Post by thaumasiotes »

WalterBright wrote: post #96
freeopinion wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walter, I have a great deal of respect for you. Your math skills are much greater than my own. But you have stretched your statement too far. Flash cards can be very helpful in teaching math. Timed tests for math facts can be very helpful. Both of these can be facilitated with computers or tablets. Animations can be a very useful instructional tool. Even taking a picture of the chalk on the blackboard and putting it…

I tried various methods on myself. What works: 1. having a lecture on a chalkboard 2. taking notes by hand. Yes, by hand. Something about the act of writing it by hand fixes it in my brain 3. using pencil and paper to do the problems. 4. and what really works is giving an in-person lecture on how to do it What doesn't work: 1. everything else I've watched many instructional videos. Poof, none of it sticks. I've audit…

I mostly agree with you. However, if you imagine yourself sitting down with a set of exercises that you need to figure out how to do, it is true that some well-chosen animations / models will be helpful in that process.

You have to do the exercises. But it might be beyond your ability to start doing them straight from the textbook. Crafted didactic material can walk you through initial exercises to the point where you have a theory of where to begin on another one. Or it can let you investigate a structure until you have an idea.

In your analogy, if you want to be able to bench 150 pounds, at some point you'll have to bench 150 pounds. But a nonconfigurable 150 pound weight isn't the best way to get there. You can have a set of weights that let you start with easier tasks. You can have a set of exercises that aren't bench pressing. Those things are helpful, and generally required.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#274

Post by hazbot »

bjourne wrote: post #29

The author cites 50-year-old education studies. It's exactly like citing 50-year-old papers about cancer research. They seriously need to update their views on what the state-of-the-art in pedagogy is.

Ahhhh but cancer treatment has gotten significantly better over the last 50 years.

Cancer research has a half-decent feedback mechanism that means fads eventually have to prove themselves or die out.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#275

Post by bjourne »

necovek wrote: post #135
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 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 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

This comment made me roll my eyes. :) Giving students high grades for little effort is a cheat code for being considered a great teacher. Most everyone working in academia knows that.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#276

Post by gampleman »

fastforwardius wrote: post #247
gampleman wrote: post #245

This is basically why the classical education movement exists. The fact that you can have remarkably better results using thousand(s) year old teaching methods/ideas than using 'modern' educational approaches is actually rather surprising.

Why is it surprising?

We're rather used to the idea of progress in most areas of human endeavor. It's fairly absurd to believe rolling back the last 200 years of progress would lead to measurably better outcomes is absurd in fields like medicine, industry, science, history, technology, cuisine, transportation, ...

That it seems to be that case in education seems to me to qualify for the label of surprising.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#277

Post by hurril »

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 was one of these "smart students" but it really wasn't that I did not want to be there. I was a lazy, or complacent, f*ck. I've have had to learn how to learn and how to have discipline late(r) in life.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#278

Post by zozbot234 »

hunterpayne wrote: post #57
bigthymer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

"Having multiple parallel tracks for different types of students is controversial." It shouldn't be. The research overwhelming says its a good practice. The type of people who say this type of thing are the exact type of ideologically motivated people who are destroying school systems in blue districts. Ironically this group both hates private schools and creates the environment that pushes parents to pay for private…

It's not that easy. The status quo is that having multiple tracks creates terrible incentives among teachers: no teacher wants to teach the "bad" track, so they get stuck with the worst teachers and the worst educational outcomes over time. (This occurs not just because many remedial students have very real behavioral issues that deter the best teachers from engaging with them, but also notably because the progressive education establishment is dismissive of teaching methods that actually help those students learn effectively, and doesn't train general-ed educators in the use of such methods.)

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#280

Post by wiredfool »

roysting wrote: post #237
ChaitanyaSai wrote: post #228

Schooling has been trying for ever to institutionalize and standardize learning without really understanding what learning is. In that absence, we've focused on learning proxies, which are tests. And tests resulted in a focus on mechanics. Meaning was and is an intangible so it got leached out. Everything school does starts at the wrong end of meaning > motiviation > mechanics > measurement. It is possible to fix sch…

Have you ever heard of John Taylor Gatto? If not, you may want to look into his books. They will help you realize that schooling and learning/education are mutually exclusive and even that schooling is counterproductive because its primary objectives are hostile to the objectives of education, real learning as a human. The worst people in the world created schooling and the education system for their own narrow, self…

Unschooling works for a fraction of kids, and at some stages of their life.

How big is that fraction? In my experience being around a bunch of home schoolers (and adjacent, and school system), some of whom were more in or out of unschooling, I think it's small enough that it should be a rarely considered option.

There are some kids where it will work _really_ well. I've interacted with a couple. There are a lot of kids where it really doesn't work, especially in a distraction rich environment.

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