Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Only a few countries are teaching children how to think

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 162 posts

Re: Only a few countries are teaching children how to think

#51

Post by adamnemecek »

aspensmonster wrote: post #12
clavalle wrote: post #8

> the company is struggling to find Okies with the skills to fill even its most basic factory jobs. Such posts require workers to think critically Perhaps those educated enough to think critically put that skill to work before accepting a factory job making mass produced biscuits. My critical thinking skills lead me to guess that is not the most fulfilling, high paying, or upwardly mobile job even for Oklahoma.

>Such posts require workers to think critically, yet graduates of local schools are often unable to read or do simple maths. This is why the company recently decided to open a new factory in Poland... This was the solution? Seriously? Going through the hassle of opening up a factory on the other side of the planet across language and legal barriers all because the local population in Oklahoma didn't come shrink-wrapp…

This comment is so naive that it hurts. So the company is supposed to push through an educational reform and wait 10-15 years for their future employees to go through the system before it can hire them?

Re: Only a few countries are teaching children how to think

#53

Post by ACow_Adonis »

eru wrote: post #46
ACow_Adonis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure that company wants those engaged in its lowest paid repetitive tasks to be critical thinkers. They might sit there, thinking critically, and realise that skill-shortage is economic new-speak for "wage-shortage". Everyone wants a ferrari, no one wants to pay for it. This doesn't mean there is a ferrari-shortage. Similarly, every big business and corporation wants cheap labour, preferably labour that will tak…

You make it sound like there's something wrong with outsourcing?

I'm not saying there's anything inherently wrong with outsourcing (after all, one man's out-sourcing is another man's in-sourcing).

What I am saying is wrong is believing in oft-repeated corporate propoganda as somehow being representative of the true statements of what motivates their decisions when said companies and societies actively work against any desire for a highly skilled or critical thinking workforce/population...

Re: Only a few countries are teaching children how to think

#54

Post by flexie »

kubov wrote: post #13

Well, reading that as a 22 years old Polish male gives me mixed feelings. I was living in Poland and studying there for my whole life and basically I have experience basically in whole educational process here (preschool, elementary, gymnasium, high school and now pursuing BS degree at polytechnic) I can definitely say that polish educational system is not that great. Of course we have a lot of people contesting in c…

Yet, here you are; following a website with a decent intellectual level and without much effort you are participating in discussions in a language that is foreign to you :-)

I have a feeling that although you most likely didn't go to an elite ground school or an elite high school you probably know a second and maybe a third foreign language as well, in high school you could do what Americans would call college level math.

How many Americans know the largest city in Poland? Can they name just 5 European political leaders from the past 100 years?

Don't underestimate the level of average Northern European education. We don't have elite schools, but our basic schools are quite alright.

Re: Only a few countries are teaching children how to think

#55

Post by p4bl0 »

kevincrane wrote: post #7
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #2

Growing up, I declined to participate in the educational system (primarily to avoid harassment at school) and instead spent all of my time learning to program video games at home. So I would sleep through class, go home, and try to write Pong. My academic performance was nonexistent, but I came out of it with a career. I was wondering, was anyone else's childhood experience similar? Highschool felt at best a dungeon,…

I feel like I'm in the minority here (backed up by a similar discussion on reddit today), but I really enjoyed high school. I liked the classes, I felt like I knew what I was doing with life when I graduated and went on to college, and then there's the whole social thing that people seem hit/miss on. I made a ton of lifelong friends in high school, played on sports teams all 4 years, and evolved from a shy little kid…

I have had the same experience of high school as you on the social level (well, except I didn't do sport). However, I felt really close to what sillysaurus2 said about classes. Beside, thinking by myself is clearly not something I was taught in class, but was rather taught to me by my parents' education, by my social interactions with friends, and by learning how to program during middle and high school.

Re: Only a few countries are teaching children how to think

#56

Post by dreamdu5t »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #14
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #2

Growing up, I declined to participate in the educational system (primarily to avoid harassment at school) and instead spent all of my time learning to program video games at home. So I would sleep through class, go home, and try to write Pong. My academic performance was nonexistent, but I came out of it with a career. I was wondering, was anyone else's childhood experience similar? Highschool felt at best a dungeon,…

> I didn't really know how the world worked, and it seemed to me like the system had been designed for the purpose of dragging me down to the level of the brutes around me. A huge amount of education "policy" in the US is driven by the goal of closing the "achievement gap" between blacks and whites (for educational purposes, Asians are honorary whites). Since when you improve instruction, high performers tend to bene…

You're reminding me of a High School I went to that has a large mural with the words "Don't mind the gap" and a bunch of different colored children on it.

Re: Only a few countries are teaching children how to think

#57

Post by ericd »

austenallred wrote: post #24
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #2

Growing up, I declined to participate in the educational system (primarily to avoid harassment at school) and instead spent all of my time learning to program video games at home. So I would sleep through class, go home, and try to write Pong. My academic performance was nonexistent, but I came out of it with a career. I was wondering, was anyone else's childhood experience similar? Highschool felt at best a dungeon,…

"Highschool felt at best a dungeon, and at worst a torture chamber." I had a largely similar experience, though my method of coping was a bit different. Simply put, day in and day out, I would try to manipulate systems as best as I could and raise hell. Every teacher had figured out a system that they wouldn't deviate from. Spend the first two weeks of each class studying how the teacher behaves and befriending the s…

I didn't realize how lucky I was to attend the public school I did. I need to write my diff eq teacher a thank you card for deciding to teach high school instead of doing engineering work for much better pay. Maybe someday I'll do the same for my kids' school, when I have kids.

Re: Only a few countries are teaching children how to think

#58

Post by einhverfr »

boothead wrote: post #40
einhverfr wrote: post #4

Over here in Indonesia, most of the more prestigious schools follow the Singapore model. Kids do end up studying a lot, but on the whole it doesn't seem more than I did as a kid (in rural America). They tend to be pretty well-rounded, teach three languages (English, Bahasa, and Mandarin), and follow roughly the math courses I remember as a child though perhaps a year advanced by 4th grade. In the US, schools seem to…

Is that in the international schools or local? We are thinking of moving our family back to Indo and one concern is the education... Actually compared to the likely quality in the UK we probably have nothing to worry about!

These are the "national plus" schools, so technically neither international nor local but somewhere in between.

>Actually compared to the likely quality in the UK we probably have nothing to worry about!

Funnily enough the most elite schools try to follow the UK curriculum but there is not a consensus that this is the best education around.

Re: Only a few countries are teaching children how to think

#59

Post by anonemouscoward »

jwr wrote: post #49

I am Polish, I live in Poland, and I found the article's praise for our education system strange. My opinion of it is much lower. I regularly worry about teaching my children to think for themselves — because I believe this is something the schooling system actively discourages. I also don't think that recent reforms did much to improve education, and I don't see why anyone could think they did. I would approach this…

Everything the Economist publishes is motivated purely by politics.

Poland is the number one USA ally, offset against the EU, and, especially, Russia, the evil bad guy in this current cold war.

Re: Only a few countries are teaching children how to think

#60

Post by einhverfr »

joshuaheard wrote: post #36
einhverfr wrote: post #4

Over here in Indonesia, most of the more prestigious schools follow the Singapore model. Kids do end up studying a lot, but on the whole it doesn't seem more than I did as a kid (in rural America). They tend to be pretty well-rounded, teach three languages (English, Bahasa, and Mandarin), and follow roughly the math courses I remember as a child though perhaps a year advanced by 4th grade. In the US, schools seem to…

"Education begins and ends at home, and what schools offer is largely a supplement for the home." I think it is the opposite. I pay the school to teach my kid. I don't expect to have them come home and require me to finish the job. Can you imagine if you went to a restaurant and they said, we prepared the food, but you must cook it. I work every day with my child on her homework, but it is not to teach her what she l…

But before your kid ever goes to school, there are habits regarding learning that are picked up. These begin at home. For kids of below-school-age this is the place where most learning takes place.

The question is whether learning is something that is to be compartmentalized off into school work, or whether it is something we weave into every aspect of life. If the former, one will never become very smart or very skilled. If the latter, then all school offers is an opportunity to learn, something that kids take advantage of based on habits acquired at home.

Post reply on HN