I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#501

Post by zchrykng » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 6:29 PM UTC

neutronicus wrote: post #356

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…

In the US, it seems like malpractice to teach anything before Spanish IMO. 14% of the country are native Spanish speakers. It's hard to imagine a return on any other foreign-language instruction that would match improving communication between 45 million residents of the country and everyone else, to say nothing of improving communication with citizens of the other countries actually sharing a land mass with the US.

If you extend that logic to the world, is it malpractice to teach anything before Mandarin or Hindi?

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#502

Post by slim » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 6:34 PM UTC

bccdee wrote: post #411

Edman274 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do understand at least intuitively that it's not even mathematically possible - let alone practically - to train 100 percent of teachers to be in the top 10 percent of teachers, right? The definition of "good" and "gifted" is only used relative to an average. No amount of training can make the average teacher better than the average teacher; it's a logical impossibility, and misunderstands the central effect of t…

> it's not even mathematically possible to train 100 percent of teachers to be in the top 10 percent of teachers …yes, but it's totally possible to (by, say, 2036) train 100% of teachers to perform at a 90th percentile as compared to teachers from 2026. That's how improvement works, which is what people are describing here. > No student nor teacher cares about be trained to some objective standard of competence What…

who will train them ? average trainers. it's a chicken/egg problem

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#503

Post by neutronicus » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 6:38 PM UTC

zchrykng wrote: post #501

neutronicus wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, it seems like malpractice to teach anything before Spanish IMO. 14% of the country are native Spanish speakers. It's hard to imagine a return on any other foreign-language instruction that would match improving communication between 45 million residents of the country and everyone else, to say nothing of improving communication with citizens of the other countries actually sharing a land mass with the US.

If you extend that logic to the world, is it malpractice to teach anything before Mandarin or Hindi?

No, because native Mandarin speakers make up only 1% of American citizens.

In the US you are very likely, at some point in your life, to encounter native Spanish speakers with poor English competency. Outside of higher education, you are very unlikely to encounter native Mandarin speakers with poor English competency.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#504

Post by SoftTalker » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 6:43 PM UTC

CobaltFire wrote: post #473

SoftTalker wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having a hard time believing this. I've had one really good math teacher, his lecture prep was thorough, and the way he presented the material was very understandable, but without doing the problem sets, and some pre-exam review, I would not have been able to remember everything weeks later on an exam.

I can believe this. I had some subjects I was able to do this for going through Naval Nuclear Power school, and later college. Others I was unable to do this with. Different people grasp things at different rates.

Yes, I can see it with something you are naturally gifted in. But in that case the instruction probably has less impact; you'll get it even if it's poorly explained.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#505

Post by zchrykng » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 6:45 PM UTC

neutronicus wrote: post #503

zchrykng wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you extend that logic to the world, is it malpractice to teach anything before Mandarin or Hindi?

No, because native Mandarin speakers make up only 1% of American citizens. In the US you are very likely, at some point in your life, to encounter native Spanish speakers with poor English competency. Outside of higher education, you are very unlikely to encounter native Mandarin speakers with poor English competency.

... I'm not sure what part of "If you extend that logic to the world" you didn't understand.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#506

Post by tombert » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 6:57 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #294

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 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. I think you need to go a…

I think for at least a couple of the students, they really did learn the subject well.

A couple students took me up on my offer to do private tutoring [1], and I do think that they benefited from it. A couple of them would even ask interesting follow-up questions [2].

Of course, there's a pretty strong selection-bias there: if they are actively looking for help from a professional, they probably have some interest in the subject matter, so it's difficult to know how much I helped compared to them just looking things up on Google and/or doing the homework, but I would like to think that I helped at least a little more than they would have had otherwise.

[1] On my own free time; I wasn't given any direct budget for office hours.

[2] e.g. one person became extremely interested multithreading and multiprocessing, and so I pointed him to the ZeroMQ guide and walked him through some basic farmout patterns...I should see how he's doing actually, I think he has a lot of potential.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#507

Post by SoftTalker » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 6:57 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #488

hylaride wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was one of those kids. Did well in class, participated, and my grades trended downwards as the school year went on. A lot of it was undiagnosed ADHD, which didn't work well with the repetitive nature of much public schooling. OK, let's do polynomials. Start with two terms...then three...then four...and on and on. I lost interest after three. Of course, then I didn't study or practice and did poorly on tests. I gras…

I was also one of those kids. Some of it was diagnosed ADHD (I was on Ritalin; I couldn't tell the difference, but my mom said it was huge; on almost every day I forgot to take it she would get a call from the school about my behavior), but much of it is something I still can't explain to this day. I was a voracious reader, but if the book was assigned for school, I wouldn't read it. Science was usually my best subje…

Oh man did I hate math up until algebra. It just seems like pointless memorization and rote work. Then with algebra suddenly I could see applications. "I can actually solve problems with this" and my grades went from Cs to As immediately.

I still remember the test I took in 7th grade to qualify to take algebra in 8th grade. For reasons I don't understand I was in a panic for nearly the entire test. My hands were shaking. I don't think I even finished it. Yet somehow I passed it and that was a turning point in actually starting to like math for me.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#508

Post by tombert » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 7:02 PM UTC

HappMacDonald wrote: post #445

tombert wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> was a sense that "more advanced" meant that it's what the older kids could do.

That's honestly a mentality that I never completely got over.

When I was first learning to program when I was ~13-15, Python was already a fairly typical "beginners language", and my dad actually already had a book on learning Python.

Wanna know why I started with C++ instead? Because one of my classmates told me that it was too hard and that I wasn't smart enough to do it and only professional software engineers can.

I wasn't about to let some kid tell me I wasn't smart enough to do something that I knew I was capable of, so that afternoon I begged my parents to take me to a nearby used-books store and buy me a "Learn to Program in C++" book, and started on that. Eventually I also found a copy of the Sams "Teach Yourself C in 24 Hours" book that I read through online.

I still kind of have that mentality; I learned how to use Isabelle because I felt that that's what the "grown up" computer scientists use. I learned how to write Haskell because that's what the "smart" software engineers use. I learned how to use Vim as a teenager because that's what the "good" coders used.

It's probably not the best way to motivate yourself, but it seems to have worked out ok for me.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#509

Post by tombert » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 7:06 PM UTC

galaxyLogic wrote: post #98

tombert wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thing about it is the students should be given an explanations about why each topic is important for them to learn to be able to learn more advanced topics. Maybe briefly show how that adavanced topic will be taught and let them realize they can not possible even start to understand advanced topic because they are missing the more elementary pieces. Similarly why they can't got further without doing their homework. H…

One of my favorite teachers that I ever had was my Calc 2 teacher in high school.

He always made a very special point to explain the "why" of everything. Not just "how is this used?", but he would also derive a lot of the formulas for us instead of having us just memorize forms. I think it makes you better at math in general; the whole point if mathematics education, in my mind, is to teach you the how and the why of things, not just to get to an answer.

I already loved math by the time I got into that class, but I attribute him as the reason that I love formal math so much.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#510

Post by lnenad » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 7:12 PM UTC

rahimnathwani wrote: post #448

lnenad wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem with any such statement is framing and agenda. I agree with the premise that education has a long way to go to be universally good. But compared to undeveloped rural areas where people don't have access to education? Is it better? Everything points to an unequivocal yes.

I personally avoid giving money to people who are easily obviously having a net negative effect on society.