Teacher spends two days as a student and is shocked at what she learns • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by hnriot » Mon, Oct 27, 2014, 5:16 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #91

hnriot wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is a bit condescending to teens to write them off as that. Biologically we are not programmed to sit in a classroom, teenage girls are programmed by evolution to do something not too dissimilar to HS (show off their new found sexuality and attract a mate), boys on the other hand are better suited to hitting stuff with sticks. That's exactly the kind of mate you want if you're a teenage girl, someone who can go o…

Evolution is not sentient, and doesn't 'design' or 'plan' or 'program'. It's merely the name for a process, like 'the water cycle' or 'the bessemer process'. Evolution can result in things, like any process, but it doesn't design, and it's wrong to characterise it this way. This being said, if you're looking to the behaviour of primitives, the male-heavy roles were not 'war', but 'hunt'. And no, we're not all driven…

to be honest I can't follow what you're even trying to say. It's making no sense, and in general just inaccurate.

I'm not talking about individuals, but in general, and in that regard we are all sex driven. Of course evolution isn't sentient, but when you think about it, it's a reasonable way to think about it because the results are the same. It just depends which way you're looking at the process, looking forward, you cannot refer to evolution as a design process, but looking backwards you can. The design we see today is the result of the evolutionary process. It's tiresome having to explain all this.

hunting skills are much the same as war skills and man certainly hunted (I believe that's what I said) but we are also a very violent species.

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

#172

Post by hnriot » Mon, Oct 27, 2014, 5:19 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #121

wavegeek wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Evolution is not sentient, and doesn't 'design' or 'plan' or 'program'. Literally true but the effect is "as though" it designs or plans. See eg "Why evolution is true" or any evolution text book eg "Evolution" by Douglas Futuyma. As for war versus hunting, the levels of violence in hunter-gatherer societies were astronomical with death rates from violence typically in the 30-50% range. So yes 'war' though not usua…

The effect isn't 'as though' it designs or plans at all, any more than clouds 'plan' to rain on the plains. Evolution is better described as 'survival of the fittest' than 'programmed to -foo-'. Keeping it phrased correctly also helps keep specious Intelligent Design arguments at bay - by talking about 'design' or 'programming', you're implying a sentient cause. And you don't actually need to say things like 'program…

no, please stop spreading such misleading information, it is not survival of the fittest at all. go read about evolution please. You're right, evolution is not sentient, we're passed that, it is useful to think of it in that light when looking backwards at the process (as we can only really do anyway), we've all read the Blind Watchmaker and don't need this obvious point made over and over when it's been explained why we are doing so.

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

#173

Post by ufmace » Mon, Oct 27, 2014, 5:28 AM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #159

ufmace wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think of myself as being good at learning foreign languages, and I don't know enough of any of them to have any useful conversation, but I kinda disagree that just being in a country that speaks that language will get you started. I've spent weeks in Mexico, and my Spanish abilities are barely adequate to order a meal in a restaurant most of the time. I didn't feel like I gained anything at that point by bein…

> my Spanish abilities are barely adequate to order a meal in a restaurant most of the time // So you didn't eat out, how did you manage getting your shopping in, buying bus tickets and such without learning any of the local language, just hoped people spoke English?

It was a trip for work, so I was mostly accompanied by people who did speak Spanish.

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

#174

Post by smsm42 » Mon, Oct 27, 2014, 6:25 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #170

smsm42 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> how do you solve it without know the quadratic formula or some such? This is actually possible, if you've been taught to solve problems instead of being taught to apply magic formulas. Of course, one is rarely taught math this way now. Let me try. Suppose you have 3x^2+5+2x=7. Now, you have no idea how to solve for x. But what you could solve? If you had something like (ax+b)^2 = c, then probably this would be eas…

tl;dr; If you are really good at math, but didn't follow the math curriculum closely, you can probably rederive most of it. I'm not sure this counts as "gaming" a test. I'd describe it as "understanding the material really well and getting a high score." Remember, the goal of an exam is to measure if you have the knowledge. Whether you got the knowledge by studying hard in a traditional classroom setting as scheduled…

It doesn't really qualify as "really good" (I'm not - I know people who are and they are way beyond what I can do, I mean light years beyond). It's just a set of basic tools about how to approach problems. Like when programming you don't have to have library function for everything - you learn to write your own functions, etc. You don't have to be able to write your own OS (though some people can) but going beyond clicking buttons in Word is not a bad idea.

Of course, I do not see it as "gaming" - I see it as learning the right way. IMHO, all learning should start with that and formula should come after - as a shortcut, which you can take but you know if needed you could do it from scratch because you understand where it comes from.

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

#175

Post by glenra » Mon, Oct 27, 2014, 6:37 AM UTC

folz wrote: post #4

Saved you a click (from the top comment the last time this was posted): The three points from the article: > [1] Students sit all day, and sitting is exhausting. > [2] High School students are sitting passively and listening during approximately 90% of their classes. > [3] You feel a little bit like a nuisance all day long. People wonder why high school aged students are unruly, unpleasant, and filled with deep negat…

I would have added to that list:

[4] Teachers aren't good at lecturing.

A great lecturer can make a subject fascinating. A great teacher can organize information in such a way that it fits together logically. But an average teacher does neither of these things. They are giving you material you could learn better and faster by simply reading the book. So far as I could tell, in most of my classes through grade school and high school the only reason for lecturing is that some kids can't or won't read the book, so the teacher needs to say out loud the exact same things that the textbook author said better in print.

When choosing a textbook, you can use one written by one of the best subject-domain teachers in the entire country and that author has an editor whose job is to hone the material to minimize repetition and confusion. What's more, you're not even constrained to currently living textbook author/editor combinations. If the best treatment on the subject was written in 1947, schools can still use that 1947 textbook (or relevant quoted sections from it). But when choosing a teacher you need to find somebody who is alive and teaching today and lives in or is willing to relocate to your neighborhood, which hugely lowers the expected quality. Your math teacher might be quite good compared to most math teachers in your county but probably is not a world-renowned subject expert the way your textbook author is. Your teacher has no editor tightening up the prose. Your teacher's lectures are (compared to the book) rambling, poorly organized and repetitive.

As a result, the best learning strategy to get at least some value out of the time you're forced to spend sitting in a class being talked at by idiots is to read the textbook and ignore lectures - use that time to read books or magazines that you actually enjoy.

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

#176

Post by glenra » Mon, Oct 27, 2014, 7:07 AM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #141

iirc either McDonalds or BK has rumors of an internal rule that even the uppermost layers of management have to spend at least one full day each year standing behind the cash register and selling burgers. It would be nice if a) this was more than an urban legend and b) if more companies embraced variations of this rule. I believe it to be a good way to catch problems (e.g. unrealistic expectations of workers) before…

There's a reality tv show based on this premise called "Undercover Boss".

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

#177

Post by pbhjpbhj » Mon, Oct 27, 2014, 3:33 PM UTC

ufmace wrote: post #173

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my Spanish abilities are barely adequate to order a meal in a restaurant most of the time // So you didn't eat out, how did you manage getting your shopping in, buying bus tickets and such without learning any of the local language, just hoped people spoke English?

It was a trip for work, so I was mostly accompanied by people who did speak Spanish.

Ah, people speaking other languages around me annoys me enough that I want to know what they're saying!

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

#178

Post by paypaul » Mon, Oct 27, 2014, 3:55 PM UTC

folz wrote: post #4

Saved you a click (from the top comment the last time this was posted): The three points from the article: > [1] Students sit all day, and sitting is exhausting. > [2] High School students are sitting passively and listening during approximately 90% of their classes. > [3] You feel a little bit like a nuisance all day long. People wonder why high school aged students are unruly, unpleasant, and filled with deep negat…

I think the whole thing can be flipped. Assign the lectures as homework. Do the homework in class. This is exactly how Khan Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/) is structured.

Technology opens up entirely new teaching methodologies. We should be encouraging mastery of concepts rather then praising good marks on tests. What does getting 80% on a test mean. It means there was 20% you didn't know. I sure hope that 20% wasn't important. When you consider that concepts build upon each other that 20% deficiency compounds pretty quickly. It leads to students thinking they are stupid when maybe there was just a concept early on they struggled with and never mastered that has caused them to stumble from that point forward.

I breezed through High School only to later stumble with high level university Math courses.

Khan Academy has helped me correct this problem and I think it should be integrated into the school system. It demands mastery, it is addictive to use (earn points, achievements) and it standardizes the lecture quality. Being able to watch a great teacher on video and having control of the pace (fast forward, rewind) is a much better use of time then copying notes off a blackboard.

Teachers can have a dashboard view of how all of their students are doing and exactly what concepts each student is struggling with. Smart students can take it as far as they want without being slowed down. Students that are struggling can get help in a much more constructive way (and can stop being convinced they are stupid). Teachers can use class time to actually help the kids learn something. Pair students who excel with the ones that struggle and use them as tutors.

Make the classroom a collaborative experience. That's where I think things need to go.

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

#179

Post by nilkn » Mon, Oct 27, 2014, 4:01 PM UTC

vacri wrote: post #120

wavegeek wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You really don't think sticking somebody in an uncomfortable chair for 7-8 hours a day, giving them a desk that's too small to even accommodate the work they're expected to do, telling them to basically shut up all day, and getting on to them for even getting up to take a 3 minute stretch-walk is going to have any impact at all on adolescent behavior?

There are reasons that all these things are done, of course. But pretending that they don't have an impact is just silly. There are huge costs to structuring classrooms like this.

I recently spent all day in such circumstances and it really reminded me of how oppressive the conditions in high school felt. By the end of the seminar, I was just flat-out tired and frustrated and I wasn't listening to anything the speaker was saying. I just wanted out.

Honestly, if decent chairs are too expensive, then we'd be better off throwing the chairs away completely. Have students stand. Just use standing desks that don't have to be shaped so that you can get in or out of the seat easily, thereby sacrificing half of the working surface. This solves the problem of not being able to afford reasonable chairs and it's far healthier for everybody as well.

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

#180

Post by crpatino » Mon, Oct 27, 2014, 6:46 PM UTC

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.

Agreed. I could have (and sometimes did) passed every high school exam with decent grades (~B+) without studying, just by having actually learned the K9 material during the previous years. However, what I got out of the experience was 2 things:

First, I got a better grasp of the breath of human knowledge. It was mostly shallow, mind you, but in my mind it was like a buffet. You sample a little bit here and there, and figure out what you like and what makes you good (or sick).

Second, it is the social interaction thing. I think this is important, but not in the way you imply. What I learned most in high-school in this aspect was:

* How to deal with assholes.

* * What to do when you are forced to be around with assholes.

* * There are many kinds of assholes, and you should not deal with them in the same way (i.e. You can escalate conflict and make the typical bully back off, but this might prove a horrible mistake if attempted on the truly violent psycos).

* * Assholes can climb into positions of authority too (aka asshole teachers). You need to know how to fly under their radar.

* Dealing with Authority.

* * Authorities are not necessarily competent or event interested in fulfilling their nominal roles. You have to educate yourself.

* * Authorities do not care about your problems. You have to figure out and solve them yourself.

* * Authorities are very interesting in maintaining the status quo. You do not go around shaking the waters without reason.

* * * Unless you figure out how to turn status quo disruption into leverage. Then you go for it and turn authorities into unwilling allies in your dealings with assholes.