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Teacher spends two days as a student and is shocked at what she learns

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Teacher spends two days as a student and is shocked at what she learns

#111

Post by wavegeek »

bane wrote: post #51

I found this interesting. I worked for a few years teaching technical subjects to mid-career adults and ended up adopting an educational theory not too dissimilar to the author, but for mostly different reasons. Previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8251569 I remember high school very well, and it was a pretty torturous experience. If you could design an educational program that was almost guarante…

As an example, people routinely study a foreign language for 3+ years and come out with zero ability to actually use the language. While a couple of months in the same country will produce a person with real useful usable skills in the language.

If you believed that school was there to teach people this is shocking. But it all makes sense on the basis that school is there to keep young people out of the way.

Re: Teacher spends two days as a student and is shocked at what she learns

#113

Post by hrktb »

wavegeek wrote: post #111
bane wrote: post #51

I found this interesting. I worked for a few years teaching technical subjects to mid-career adults and ended up adopting an educational theory not too dissimilar to the author, but for mostly different reasons. Previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8251569 I remember high school very well, and it was a pretty torturous experience. If you could design an educational program that was almost guarante…

As an example, people routinely study a foreign language for 3+ years and come out with zero ability to actually use the language. While a couple of months in the same country will produce a person with real useful usable skills in the language. If you believed that school was there to teach people this is shocking. But it all makes sense on the basis that school is there to keep young people out of the way.

While true, this ignores the actual number of hours spent using the language. 3 years of at most 2h a week lessons, that's around 300 hours. Deal with the language 15 hours a day and in 20 days you reach the same 300 hours.

Of course actual involvment in the lessons, motivation, effectiveness of being immerged also make going to a speaking country a better deal.

About the social role of school, one of the badic goals is to format young people into "standard" citizens who can obey rules and bear authority. Sitting for long hours listening to some adult is part of the process.

Re: Teacher spends two days as a student and is shocked at what she learns

#114

Post by PhasmaFelis »

visarga wrote: post #94
treehau5 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can relate to this so much it's not even funny. Don't let your fear of failure get in the way. I currently struggle with the same -- applying myself to a difficult task. Staying focused longer than 10 minutes at a time was difficult -- so difficult I was even suspicious I may of had adult ADHD. Turns out that I don't. What I have is the fear of failing and rejection. The fear of exposing my weaknesses to others, an…

> Staying focused longer than 10 minutes at a time was difficult I found an unexpected solution in working with someone else - that is - not working alone on the project. The more social interaction is involved, the less I am affected by procrastination. You have to make yourself visible and accountable to other people, to feel shame if you slack off, to feel energized when you make progress and then discuss it with…

I have severe ADD, and this is very much true for me as well. I look for reasons to "cross-train" with coworkers, having them sit in and comment on whatever I'm working on, because just having someone looking over my shoulder makes it so much easier to resist distraction. I'm hoping to develop more formal pair-programming practices.

Re: Teacher spends two days as a student and is shocked at what she learns

#115

Post by yummyfajitas »

bsilvereagle wrote: post #77
yummyfajitas wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standardized tests even more so. Without any actual learning from the class itself, you can generally come close to ace'ing most high school tests by being moderately intelligent. How do you do this? I mean if a test asks you to solve 3x^2+5+2x=7, how do you solve it without know the quadratic formula or some such? There is a difference between gaming a test (in the sense of not knowing the material, but still passin…

> Standardized tests even more so Standardized tests are almost always multiple choice. So, given four (or five) possible answers for x, plug them all in and see which one equals 7. That's arguably faster than using the quadratic formula to solve the problem.

I've seen variants of tests (maybe SAT Algebra?) where you fill in bubbles to choose a digit. (E.g., in column 1 you fill in a bubble next to []0, []1, []2, ..., []9, column 2 you fill in a bubble for the second digit, etc.) Cumbersome, but it would seem to overcome this.

This also only seems to be an issue for the narrow set of problems where checking the answer is a lot cheaper than solving it. Sounds to me like standardized tests are on the right track, we may just need a few small tweaks.

Re: Teacher spends two days as a student and is shocked at what she learns

#116

Post by vellum »

thirdsun wrote: post #101
earino wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this, in a nutshell, is why my wife and I let our son "online homeschool" when he asked. He's a freshman in highschool and to quote him: "I'm happy to not have to deal with the arbitrary 'lord of the flies' social structure in High School and just be a normal person."

To be honest, I'd say there's actually some value in socializing and the concept of engaging with friends and students on a daily basis - especially outside of class. Aren't you worried that your kid might be missing out on those social interactions? There's a lot more to school life than attending several 90 minute classes in a row and calling it a day.

There are plenty of activities they can do outside the house: volunteer work, local sports leagues, community theater, a part-time job, etc.

Re: Teacher spends two days as a student and is shocked at what she learns

#117

Post by eru »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #88
pyre wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> south (Mississippi) and north (Washington state) The whole concept of "North vs. South" is an anachronism from a time when most of middle-/western-America wasn't part of the picture. Washington state, while north of Mississippi, is part of the Pacific Northwest, not part of the "North." You'd be in for a rough time if you would expect (e.g.) Washington (state), North Dakota, Ohio, and Rhode Island to all have some…

True. This was in the 80s/90s, maybe its better now, but Mississippi was like a third world country even compared to Tennessee, Kentucky, or some parts of Arkansa, while Washington definitely has better schools than next-door libertarian Idaho. On another note, no one is left handed in China, so I've had problems in Beijing with the inevitable right handed desk at work.

Or rather, they suppress all their lefties.

Re: Teacher spends two days as a student and is shocked at what she learns

#118

Post by Freeboots »

This article actually made me angry, to the point of pacing and muttering, that these points are not commonly understood and addressed.

How can these be new concepts? how can this be news? Students are bored because they have no autonomy, are force to sit and be talked down to all day, are not empowered to be involved in their own learning. WOW! AMAZING!

How out of touch do educators have to be for this to be considered innovative thinking?

Re: Teacher spends two days as a student and is shocked at what she learns

#120

Post by vacri »

wavegeek wrote: post #107
vacri wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your rejoinder to my point is "professionals have nice working conditions"? If so, perhaps go visit a call centre. I've worked in one where the floor staff had less than a meter of desk space each. Or clerks in a crappy government department. Or try being a taxi driver. Professionals also have a nice salary that keeps their interest; rarely is it below median wage. These shitty places don't have a lot of acting ou…

Call centers are the archetype of a bad work situation. If you are aiming for classes to meet that standard, you are aiming very low.

I didn't say they were good. I said that they don't cause the problems we associate with adolescents in adult staff: ie: it's not the bloody chairs that cause adolescent acting out. Saying "I don't act out. I have an expensive chair" is not a counterpoint.
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