111–120 of 124 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the world actually followed school-like rules, your analogy would be useful. But it doesn't. The recipe for "winning" the game of school is: - follow directions very carefully - be good at memorizing things - never challenge authority The market value of being able to carefully follow directions is nearly zero, and falling fast. That was a useful skill back when there were lots of good-paying factory jobs. Now it…
The recipe for "winning" the game of school is: - follow directions very carefully - be good at memorizing things - never challenge authority This is an appealing theory, and I know lots of people who think it is true. However the "never challenge authority" bit poorly describes the people that I know who did best at school. Respect authority? Sure. Follow the rules you're ordered to follow? Sure. But question author…
Many friends I know got through very well because they knew the rules of the game, and notably got some exceptional treatment because they made sure that they were taken seriously by the administration. One way not to do that is to be completely insufferable and unreasonably stubborn(which is how a lot of teenage kids act, granted).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I interviewed thousands of new college grads. The guys who I made offers to were almost always guys who did stuff on their own. Right before I retired, the last guy I made a job offer to showed me an app he had written for his iphone that simulated how particles diffuse in a solvent, and his resume showed a link to the code that he wrote. His GPA was only a 3.5. But I totally got him: he was great because he had a pa…
This is an irrational model for evaluating a candidate's talent. The best way to evaluate a candidate's talent is to make them code for you, plain and simple. Many people's motivations in university diverge from their motives in the professional world. Some people will work much harder when the result is a paycheck every two weeks, or when they have to feed a family, or because they see their work career as distinct…
And I agree that schools are different. I occasionally considered candidates from schools that people snicker about, like San Jose State. But they had better have aced everything and really stand out from the pack to overcome that handicap. Sometimes, great people have life circumstances that corral them into lame schools. On the other hand, I'd give pretty serious consideration to a candidate from Harvey Mudd or CalTech with a 3.1. (But even at those great schools, the < 3.0 rule seemed to apply: candidates with a really low GPA couldn't pass the technical parts of interviewing. You'd be surprised how many CS graduates from top schools can't implement the C library strrev() function or return a pointer to the nth element of a linked list.)
My son finds homework painfully aversive, as I did before him. But I cut him much less slack than I was given as a kid. School is often arbitrary, pointless, and tedious. It's part of a large system that needs to serve many different interests, several of them legitimate. That's modern life. We're not so much beset by wolves and bears; instead, we have to deal with systems and social/cultural obligations. And while I…
> he's at least going to be familiar with what it takes to play the system. That comment makes your perspective the complete opposite of the author's. The author kid moves his chess pieces randomly and the author writes a blog post about how the rules are not fair. You likely teach that sometimes you have to follow the rules to play the game. This blog post reads like like a fool arguing that the rules of chess are s…
No one is being forced to play chess.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the world actually followed school-like rules, your analogy would be useful. But it doesn't. The recipe for "winning" the game of school is: - follow directions very carefully - be good at memorizing things - never challenge authority The market value of being able to carefully follow directions is nearly zero, and falling fast. That was a useful skill back when there were lots of good-paying factory jobs. Now it…
The recipe for "winning" the game of school is: - follow directions very carefully - be good at memorizing things - never challenge authority This is an appealing theory, and I know lots of people who think it is true. However the "never challenge authority" bit poorly describes the people that I know who did best at school. Respect authority? Sure. Follow the rules you're ordered to follow? Sure. But question author…
Sure you can be a PITA if you want, but unless you're the sort of person who loves being a PITA for its own reward (I was, to my shame), it probably won't get you anything meaningful.
No one ever looks at this from a teachers perspective. They are caught in the middle of trying to help children with wide variety of learning styles and the political machine of a school district learning mandate. They can only do so much to help. If a parent feels their child doesn't fit the mold and thinks the system is rigged, they should help their child understand how the school system work and how that relates to the rest of the working world. Where nearly everything else is based on metrics.
If they feel their child understand the material but the tests and homework are causing problems, find the path that accomplishes the goals of a passing grades. You'd be surprised if you just ask, that a teacher will tell you what they are going to be grading on. Is it just test or is it an overall judgement of how the child is doing?
As a kid I figured out that the key to "doing well" was to impress by showing off in areas where you really do excel. Is the child more creative? Then answer the homework or tests with creative answers and get the answer they are looking for but done in a fashion that may be different than what was expected. Do they have to do a book report? Make that look better than every other kid in class.
In short I pretty much skated through middle school and high school by doing the bare minimum to achieve an C but impressed in other creative areas that demonstrated effort and ability to comprehend the material.
Anyway that's my rant.
From personal experience with a similar situation. It's a major leap of faith, but you'd be surprised what a kid can do in an environment that permits them to.
After hiring committee one day, we digressed into a discussion of the value of a high GPA from university. One of my colleagues made the point that the value of an individual with a high GPA from a four year degree is that you know the person will get done what needs to get done. To have a high GPA, a student needs to finish term papers on subjects they have no interest in, they need to study for exams in language fo…
A student who does not do what is required... would have described me throughout much of my career, and there is a string of bosses, unfortunately, that may have ulcers as a result of employing me, what with my wild ideas and unchecked imagination.