A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days • Hacker News Board

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#31

Post by moron4hire » Sun, Oct 12, 2014, 12:27 AM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #22

moron4hire wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're very stand-offish people. We tend to not engage in conversation with strangers. I think sarcasm is sort of a way to probe another person for where you stand with them, given a functionally retarded mindset towards personal interactions. You can say something, and if the person laughs, you know they are net-positive towards you, and if they don't, you can apologize and claim you were just being sarcastic…

>I think we're very stand-offish people. We tend to not engage in conversation with strangers. I have never heard that from anyone. What culture are you comparing the US to? I've heard the exact opposite from nearly every non-American I've ever discussed this with. If anything they think Americans are too friendly/chatty.

Come to DC sometime.

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#32

Post by mschuster91 » Sun, Oct 12, 2014, 12:33 AM UTC

vvpan wrote: post #16

I grew up and went to school in Russia, but spent my last three grades in the US. Both have their pros and cons, but some cons of the US system were very apparent. 1. In Russia I remember having eight classes a day only briefly and that quickly came to an end because having so many classes was considered to be close to child abuse. Six was the norm, sometime seven, but definitely not every day of the week. Here I had…

> Here I had 9 classes every single day. I was not pleased at all.

This is by far the worst thing in any school system... even in Germany, with 6 different subjects every day, it's hard because you shift your entire focus every 45min. Until you're in the correct focus, it needs ten minutes - and suddenly, a third of the lesson time is gone.

Best would be three or four 90-minute blocks to avoid the constant mind-shifting, separated by 15-min (or at midday 30-45min) breaks in order to relax, eat and socialize.

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#33

Post by alphydan » Sun, Oct 12, 2014, 12:41 AM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #23

Mithaldu wrote: post #2

> In addition, there was a good deal of sarcasm and snark > directed at students > ... > I realize that sarcasm, impatience, and annoyance are a > way of creating a barrier between me and them. From a european point of view that is something the entire us-american culture embraces and grapples with vigorously, to the detriment of interactions among themselves and with other cultures. It would make sense that this is…

>us-american There's no need to ad "us" to "american". While the Americas can refer to the entire new world, the term "American" is wholly unambiguous. When you say American everyone in the world knows to whom you are referring, including all the other people of the Americas.

Wikipedia doesn't agree with you (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American)

American also means

> Something of, from, or related to the Americas > Indigenous peoples of the Americas

If you had lived in a Latin american country and spoken enough with the locals, you would know that many refer to themselves as "Americans".

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#34

Post by foob » Sun, Oct 12, 2014, 2:02 AM UTC

vvpan wrote: post #16

I grew up and went to school in Russia, but spent my last three grades in the US. Both have their pros and cons, but some cons of the US system were very apparent. 1. In Russia I remember having eight classes a day only briefly and that quickly came to an end because having so many classes was considered to be close to child abuse. Six was the norm, sometime seven, but definitely not every day of the week. Here I had…

I'm sure this varies between states but at my school in New York we had nine periods per day rather than nine classes. One of these was taken up by lunch and then science classes would often take up two adjacent periods. Most people also had at least one study hall period which could be used for homework or socializing. In the end, most people were taking six classes or so. You also had the option to take classes at the local college or do independent studies for AP courses that weren't offered if you weren't challenged enough. Nine subjects at once is certainly pushing it for most students but that definitely isn't universal in the US.

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#35

Post by cdwhite » Sun, Oct 12, 2014, 2:04 AM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #32

vvpan wrote: post #16

I grew up and went to school in Russia, but spent my last three grades in the US. Both have their pros and cons, but some cons of the US system were very apparent. 1. In Russia I remember having eight classes a day only briefly and that quickly came to an end because having so many classes was considered to be close to child abuse. Six was the norm, sometime seven, but definitely not every day of the week. Here I had…

> Here I had 9 classes every single day. I was not pleased at all. This is by far the worst thing in any school system... even in Germany, with 6 different subjects every day, it's hard because you shift your entire focus every 45min. Until you're in the correct focus, it needs ten minutes - and suddenly, a third of the lesson time is gone. Best would be three or four 90-minute blocks to avoid the constant mind-shift…

As a counterpoint, I have a hard time keeping my focus for more than 45 min. 90-min classes, which I've been having for a good five years now, can be killers.

This is even more true when I'm working on my own: it requires a substantial amount of effort to make it through one 25 min. pomodoro period.

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#36

Post by ObviousScience » Sun, Oct 12, 2014, 2:23 AM UTC

smoyer wrote: post #13

ObviousScience wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To address your points: [1] My college schedule was considerably more broken up, including a 10 minute break in classes that were longer than 90 minutes. In fact, I almost never had a block of classes longer than 3 hours which didn't have at least an hour before more classes happened. During the time I wasn't in class, I was unsupervised and able to walk around a large campus, stop by the gym, go off campus, etc. All…

I agree ... in college you don't have to do 1, 2 or 3. The ability to do them is however a necessary skill (e.g. "I was (generally) allowed to eat, use my laptop as I saw fit." - but if you browsed the Internet during the entire class period, you'd have completely missed the presented materials). So college classes don't force students into these behaviors like high-school classes often do, but the ability to self-re…

Sorry for the late reply, but I think the difference of being able to regulate my level of attention, ie, browsing the internet when the lecture is particularly dragging, being able to look things up when I get confused, etc actually make it easier to focus on the large majority of the lecture. By being able to take quick mental breaks, and not having to expend full focus when, eg, the professor is belaboring the part of it that I already know because other students did bad on the quiz, for instance, actually makes it easier to stay fresh and focused during the other parts of the class.

Self-regulation, even if you end up doing mostly the same thing, is substantially different from being forced to do it continually, at least in terms of the mental strain it places on me. I always got much more out of long lectures where my attention sort of wandered in and out, and was punctuated by a mixture of doodles, thinking about other things, and sharply focusing on the key points and arguments. Let's not pretend every word out of a professor's mouth is golden, and the students are going to be seriously disadvantaged if they miss a few here and there.

Part of the disservice we're doing to high school students is that we're not actually teaching them to self-regulate in a useful way: we're teaching them to do all or nothing.

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#37

Post by copperx » Sun, Oct 12, 2014, 2:42 AM UTC

keeptrying wrote: post #15

Whats really amazing is that this experiment would have been a first of its kind in nearly 100s of years. I personally think that our class based education systems are languishing at some 100 year based minima right now w.r.t effectiveness. Present systems don't take into account: 1. Most subjects require different modalities of learning. Teaching computer science via lecture format? seriously? 2. Students have diffe…

> Teaching computer science via lecture format? seriously?

I agree that hands-on learning in programming classes would be much better, but computer science in general? I don't think so.

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#38

Post by Afton » Sun, Oct 12, 2014, 3:26 AM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #19

smoyer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the board of a small private high-school and I'm going to forward this to the headmaster but ... Sitting all day [1] passively listening to a droning professor [2] and feeling like a nuisance [3] if you don't grasp the material, pay attention and avoid causing disruptions [3] is an important skill for college survival. If we change the curriculum to engage the students more (which I tend to believe will increa…

So your plan for preparing students to endure these things successfully in college is just to inflict the same things on them, with no preparation, no training, no discussion, no allowance for failure? If true that's as insane as most of the rest of the education system, but it seems to be more likely to be a very weak justification for continuing with the status quo.

It's interesting, because I hear this kind of line all the time, that we need to e.g. "learn to do work we don't like because sometimes in (high-school, college, work) we have required work that is essential, regardless of whether we like it or not."

For some reason it never occurred to me to ask the obvious question "why would we think that just making them do it is the right training for this?". It just seems intellectually lazy to say that "you have to learn" to do something, but the 'learning' is just the demand that you do it. It may be optimal for some things, but it seems very unlikely to be the correct, final answer.

Thanks for this insight.

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#39

Post by valar_m » Sun, Oct 12, 2014, 4:15 AM UTC

protonfish wrote: post #27

Having been a teacher (for one miserable year) I have too much to say about this. I'll try to make a few points and not rant. There is a reason that classes are like this. In my experience it is because if you try to have more participation in a large classroom it devolves quickly into chaos. Which you you little angels remember making sport of the substitute teacher? Putting 30 teenagers in a room with one adult and…

Two years ago, I spent eight weeks teaching high school students about the legal system through a juvenile diversionary program called Street Law. One would think that this would be prime time for what you described, what with me being essentially a substitute teacher for a classroom of only students who had all at some point been charged with a crime. It was not.

In fact, the exact opposite occurred. Students engaged in thoughtful discussion on a wide range of complex issues on which reasonable minds frequently disagree. We debated constitutional rights and justice reform. We shared personal experiences with racism and bigotry. We searched for ideas to stop it.

One or two times, I think I even saw someone consider changing their mind.

You probably think I am making this up. I am not. It happened, and I think it happened because I didn't treat them like children. I spoke to them with honesty. I asked them what they thought, and it took them by surprise. Perhaps if we stopped treating them like small children, they will stop acting that way.

let's just be honest and call school what it is: baby-sitting

Oh.

Re: A veteran teacher turned coach shadows two students for two days

#40

Post by protonfish » Sun, Oct 12, 2014, 4:40 AM UTC

valar_m wrote: post #39

protonfish wrote: post #27

Having been a teacher (for one miserable year) I have too much to say about this. I'll try to make a few points and not rant. There is a reason that classes are like this. In my experience it is because if you try to have more participation in a large classroom it devolves quickly into chaos. Which you you little angels remember making sport of the substitute teacher? Putting 30 teenagers in a room with one adult and…

Two years ago, I spent eight weeks teaching high school students about the legal system through a juvenile diversionary program called Street Law. One would think that this would be prime time for what you described, what with me being essentially a substitute teacher for a classroom of only students who had all at some point been charged with a crime. It was not. In fact, the exact opposite occurred. Students engage…

Some of the best teaching being done today in public schools in the U.S. is in what is commonly called "alternative education." These are special facilities for "problem" students. The expectations are low. The politicians and parents are overjoyed the students bothered to show up. It is very similar in environment to Sudbury schools.

One of the many topics I didn't address in my mini-rant is how, when you stop brutally regimenting education, real learning can occur. It's too bad we don't allow students that haven't committed crimes this same opportunity.