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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

#441

Post by verall »

vablings wrote: post #346
simiones wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree on phonics, but teaching Greek and Latin before any modern language? That seems deeply weird as an idea. Especially since Greek (by which I assume you mean Ancient Greek) is a pretty isolated language, with relatively little relation to any modern language except modern Greek. Another huge issue with Ancient Greek and Classical Latin is that they have extremely complex grammars compared to any modern Eu…

It's not even really about learning Greek or Latin as a true spoken language. It's about known the roots of the linguistics for understanding why a word is even created in the first place. English is a really messy language but there are many simple underlying roots that can tell you what the word means with context clues after hearing it for the first time. Also learning the International Phonetic Alphabet is probab…

If we're discussing pedagogy, hearing a word and repeating it with a human judging your pronunciation is miles better than IPA.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#442

Post by wnc3141 »

yuanBuilds wrote: post #302
annzabelle wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I also went to a liberal arts college and, yes, my instructors care a lot about what I've learned. However, I am exactly that "asked educated question but sucked at homework and test" student. I usually got A or A- for first few assignments and just cannot finish any assignment near the end of the semester. The only exceptions are those "really hard and abstract" lessons where most of people got 70/100 for exams and…

I definitely struggled with feeling hyper engaged in the classroom setting, and then the jarring transition to the next class. By the time I switched between three and four subjects that day and on to do assignments, I was completely fried.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#443

Post by Kuyawa »

Teachers are workers, underpaid teachers are mediocre workers and the result is mediocre teaching skills.

Now, being six hours straight on a torture chamber seating on a medieval torture device are not the best conditions for learning.

I remember in the nineties I went to Japan for a course and they had executive chairs for every student, a nice desk, two whiteboards for projecting slides, breaks every hour, bombarded with visuals it was the best learning experience ever, you never got bored.

And learning Japanese role playing different characters, that's how you learn a language for daily use. A student played as a cab driver, turned the seat around, and another in the back seat, asking to go to the airport, the academy, a restaurant, counting money in Japanese, paying, being thankful for everything. Unforgettable learning experience.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#444

Post by bccdee »

teiferer wrote: post #299
conductr wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We shouldn’t force interest. But have high expectations across the board and just realize disinteresting topics will just take more effort and or be more time. It’s virtually impossible to make every subject interesting for every student. The interest, at least through high school, should come from disciplinary action. And not from the school, from parents. Bad grades should result in punishment. It’s should be the p…

> It’s virtually impossible to make every subject interesting for every student. It its full generality that's probably true, but we probably don't fully appreciate how the classical school system kills interest. I've met many 6 year olds that were so curious about the world, you could tell them stuff about any subject and they would soak it up and ask for more. 2 years later, shaped by a school system that focuses o…

I believe in school as an opportunity for intellectual enrichment, but fostering interest is not the primary goal of schooling. It's nice if school can make your kid an engaged and passionate reader, but your kid must become literate—whether they want to or not. And frankly, until they can string a sentence together, interesting books aren't even on the table.

At some point, kids have to develop the discipline to do the things they need to do, whether they want to or not. Carrots are better than sticks, but in the real world there are a lot more sticks than carrots.

I was a passionate and interested kid. I had a lot of boring classes in high school, but I worked hard at them anyway, even when I didn't give a shit. I got good grades because I knew bad grades could jeopardize my future. That was my stick; kids who don't take that seriously might need a different one, but ultimately you can't keep them going with carrots forever. It's good if they can be intrinsically motivated, but kids often will not be, and they need to do things anyway.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#445

Post by HappMacDonald »

tombert wrote: post #76
Natsu wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a huge difference between things people are forced to learn and stuff they want to learn. Life does tend to make you learn a few things by force, but that can also kill off one's taste for a subject. Conversely, I remember mom giving me M&Ms for getting math flash cards right as a small kid. For some reason, I always liked math...

There's an art to making learning fun. I thought I had that skill, but I do not, at least not intrinsically. Maybe I could learn it, but since I was only a lecturer for about a year, I never really developed it. I am not going to pretend I know how to make seemingly-boring subjects interesting, but a lot of things do need to be learned that aren't always fun. I've always liked math [1], but I know a lot of people don…

I can recall that one motivation that helped to drive me when I was very young (K-2 at least) was a sense that "more advanced" meant that it's what the older kids could do. Like there was this ladder I could climb to in a sense help to advance to a more sophisticated peer group; even in relation to academic concerns like reading and math.

So for at least some students, there might be some potential in convincing them that "it's what the big kids / cool kids / etc can do" might help motivate them. :)

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#446

Post by BeetleB »

Telaneo wrote: post #189
BeetleB wrote: post #90

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. When I was just a bit younger, I detested what I'm about to say, but now know as the "reality". Your argument is focused on rationalism. You're trying to give kids/teenagers real world reasons to learn something. People are rarely motivated by reason. They are motivated by emo…

> [1] Think about all the useless things kids can be good at. Did they have to rationalize why they should learn them? 'It's fun' is a pretty compelling reason for both kids and adults to learn certain things, but you can't just decide what's fun and what isn't. Maths rarely gets to have that reason (and when it does, it applies to people for whom this entire problem isn't relevant).

I'm not opposed to trying to make learning anything fun. At a larger scale, though, if that's the primary strategy, you'll barely move the needle.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#447

Post by BeetleB »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #260
BeetleB wrote: post #90

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. When I was just a bit younger, I detested what I'm about to say, but now know as the "reality". Your argument is focused on rationalism. You're trying to give kids/teenagers real world reasons to learn something. People are rarely motivated by reason. They are motivated by emo…

> Focus on (positive) emotions. Give kids incentives. I taught at an English-immersion high school in Shanghai. It's worth remarking that the boy at the top of the class in each grade was dating the girl at the top of the class.

Are you suggesting that in that culture boys/girls did not value the other party unless they were academically similar...?

I can believe it, but I don't know if it's true. Obviously not true in the US.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#448

Post by rahimnathwani »

lnenad wrote: post #408
rahimnathwani wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reading of it is not that Bryan thinks education (aka learning) is a waste of time, but that much of what we call 'education' in the US, particularly with respect to higher education (4 year colleges) is just signaling. Very little is being learned. It's just a very expensive and time-consuming way to sort people based on skills and attributes they already had. Of course, the above paragraph isn't perfectly accura…

I strongly disagree (having not read the book and having my own biases). History teaches us that any education is better than no education. Formal education is very far from just booklernin', you also learn *how to learn*, you develop social skills, you network, you start understanding how to deal with administration stuff, how to deal with failures and many other skills... No country has perfect education, but what…

Many people graduate from US high schools without being able to read. Many people graduate from US universities without significant skills in the areas you mention.

I highly recommend reading the book, even if you expect to disagree with every fact, statistic, opinion and conclusion.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#449

Post by SoftTalker »

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…

One of my sons is one of those. He's smart, tends to creative pursuits, and while he will research and learn on his own about stuff he's interested in, put him in a classroom setting, for something he doesn't really care about, and he just won't do the work.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#450

Post by graemep »

bccdee wrote: post #415
graemep wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most teaching until uni is mostly forced upon students. That is the problem. It should not be forced. People naturally love learning and its a matter of facilitating that. Not going into details here as I have recent comments on this and other threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48397182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48409530

I know a lot of people who believe this, and I think it just doesn't bear out. I am 4. I have many interests. I would love to read books about those interests, but in order to do this, I have to do phonics drills and practice sounding out words. But I am 4, and I do not have the cognitive skills to force myself to do unpleasant practice to acquire a skill which I will some day cherish. I must be made to learn. I am 1…

It does work in my experience.

> I am 4. I have many interests. I would love to read books about those interests, but in order to do this, I have to do phonics drills and practice sounding out words. But I am 4, and I do not have the cognitive skills to force myself to do unpleasant practice to acquire a skill which I will some day cherish. I must be made to learn.

My kids learned to read without being forced. They did not do phonics, they learned to read whole words from flashcards. As far as they were concerned it was guessing game. Then on to reading books together designed for more whole word recognition, which is reading guns stories. I wrote a blog post about it: https://pietersz.co.uk/2009/11/educating-lucy-learning

> I am 14. I have many interests. I would love to have a career revolving around those interests, but in order to do this, I have to acquire various basic skills and distinguish myself. But I am 14, etc.

You can explain to a 14 year old. My kids had been out of school for years at that age and I had not had to force them to do anything. A teenager is perfectly capable of understanding that in order to achieve somethings they have to do other things. If they want a particular career you explain that as well as the interesting things they have to do some less interesting things. If they want to study a particular subject to a higher level they have to meet entrance requirements.

> You have to make them do stuff sometimes, including learning.

Sometimes, but rarely with learning. The problem is that making them do stuff is the default, not the exception.

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