I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#191

Post by parpfish » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 5:36 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #106

marcus_holmes wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's basic arithmetic, and we have calculators to do that. Totally agree that understanding the problem and being able to frame a solution are also needed, but again, that's not hard maths. I think we're more talking about algebra or, really, anything "higher" in maths than arithmetic. Does a solid knowledge of, e,g, Set Theory, give any benefit later in life? And also, if we think that basic financial manageme…

A calculator won't help at all if you don't have a grasp on what compound interest is. I've seen many laments on X from graduates who could not understand why they've paid more money to their student loan lender than the amount of the loan, and still have a balance that was more than the loan amount. These are college graduates . > Does a solid knowledge of, e,g, Set Theory, give any benefit later in life? Knowledge…

nitpick: "walla" -> "voila"

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#192

Post by beloch » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 5:38 AM UTC

Random thoughts:

- Education should probably be an area where methods are chosen conservatively based on what is proven. It's easy to forget that a change in curriculum will affect thousands or millions of kids and could have a life-long impact on them. We'd pillory someone who suggested testing new drugs on thousands or millions of kids even though the effects might be far less pronounced or long-term than a few years under a poorly designed curriculum that embraces bad methods.

- Neither should we give up on finding better methods. Education has undergone significant changes that have almost certainly turned out for the better. How well would a kid perform if they were put through a typical 18th century study of the classics? Latin mastery is not the passport to success it once was.

- The quality of teachers really matters. In Canada, teaching generally requires a university degree in education or a university degree with additional education in teaching. Salaries are decent in most provinces. There are still lots of bad teachers out there. I can't imagine what it's like in places where standards and pay are lower. Perhaps we should put as much effort into developing better teachers as we do into developing better teaching methods.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#193

Post by somenameforme » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 5:41 AM UTC

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #165

nhinck2 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has been a shift towards too many jobs requiring a tertiary education. But good luck reversing that trend.

This is not true. There has been a shift in requirements to combat credential inflation. The average person is not smarter or more capable.

I think you misunderstood his comment, because you agree with him. He's not saying require as in needed to do the work, but required as in unnecessarily needed to be accepted for the job.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#194

Post by bigstrat2003 » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 5:42 AM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #146

madrox wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My issue with saying socializing is one of the primary goals is that schools leave kids to figure it out on their own. Hard to know how schools are performing at that goal when it is going unmeasured.

Schools do better than home schooling. Those kids constantly do great on tests but it doesn't take long to figure out they are lacking socially. I don't know how to teach socialization other than kids figure it out, but I'm open to the idea.

Some of those kids are lacking socially. It's not 100% by any means. The thing is that if you are home schooling your kids, you have to be intentional about socializing them in a way that you simply don't have to if you have them in a formal school setting. Obviously, some parents are going to fail at that but not all will.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#195

Post by bawis » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 5:43 AM UTC

saadn92 wrote: post #173

fasterik wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out that when you level the playing field, girls do better than boys. I don't think it's about the "girl power" nonsense, it's about the ability to sit down, focus on something, and produce work that meets a certain standard of achievement. I would say the more harmful slogan has been "you're okay just the way you are." I'm not saying we go back to harsh discipline and abuse, but there has to be a middle gro…

I disagree. There's cases where girls do better and cases where boys do better. This blanket statement is just as bad as saying that all men/boys are smarter than girls.

Exactly, girls and women can do astonishing work in fields that favour more or less their mutual traits and vice versa, no need for "hehe we are better because GPA said so".

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#196

Post by insane_dreamer » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 5:43 AM UTC

I don't pretend to know the solution to improving schools, but I'm pretty sure the answer is not EdTech or "more/better technology". The disastrous drop in academic abilities during COVID made it clear that classroom education is indeed necessary for children, and that EdTech's promises "software will teach the kids" were hollow.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#197

Post by nick486 » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 5:47 AM UTC

freeopinion wrote: post #81

Vinnl wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we had budgets that allowed for one teacher per ten students, I imagine many problems in education would already be solved.

Budgets are a region-specific thing. In the USA there are approximately 50 million students aged 5-18. If you paid for each student to get 1:1 attention one day a week, you would need one teacher per five students in schools that meet five days a week. Let's use that number because it reduces 50 million students nicely to 10 million teachers. Let's pay each teacher $70K/year. That would cost $700 billion per year. Th…

Even if the money had been available. you can't just spawn millions of teachers out of nothing. there aren't that many people who can and want to do the job.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#198

Post by bruce511 » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 5:50 AM UTC

WarmWash wrote: post #181

bawolff wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Art, while cool to look at and experience, has a pretty low efficacy in terms of "motivating people to do work, or removing obstacles, to carry society forward" Idk, the soviets didn't invest in socialist realism propaganda for nothing. Less sarcastically, art has had an outsized influence on society and culture. Take any social movement you want, and there was probably some novel or work of art that galvanized it.

My argument isn't that art doesn't have an impact, my argument is that the artists to impact ratio is insane. 10,000 artists in, one $20k work of art out. Whereas something like the engineer is closer to 5 engineers in, $500k of work out (and even that is pretty conservative)

Firstly, measuring art in $ terms ignores the benefits that extend way beyond $ terms. Most fine art produced has a value approaching 0. My wife and I buy art from time to time, but we've never spent more than about $100 or so, yet get disproportionate pleasure from it.

As a first order approximation the "price" of art (as distinct from its value) is a function of branding not asthetics.

Secondly most artists get paid, not from doing fine art, but from adjacent careers that require good color, balance, composition, and so on. Industrial designers (think Jonny Ive), interior design, food presentation, magazine layout, web design, architecture and so on. Art skills are all around us. In the same way engineering is around us.

Put another way, engineers build ugly (think beige PC boxes). It took an artist to give us the iMac. And it was a marketing genius (yet another important skillset) to bring the artist and engineer together.

Teaching math goes far beyond creating mathematicians. Teaching art goes far beyond teaching artists. Societies that drop art because it is unproductive get ugliness permeating everywhere.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#199

Post by snhshshjss » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 5:50 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #20

freeopinion wrote: post #10

IMO, the best questions around revolutionizing school should address whether children should be coerced into learning something. It seems obvious to me that the answer should be yes. So the follow ups should be figuring out how to move a student from an unwilling participant to a willing participant. I think about three strata of students. The stubbornly unwilling, the coaxable, and the eager. It is pretty easy to de…

> I think about three strata of students. The stubbornly unwilling, the coaxable, and the eager. I have a real issue dividing kids up along these lines. I've found that virtually all young kids love to explore and learn things, and if anything schooling can extinguish this innate desire when it becomes a source of stress.

I used to believe this until I got kids myself.

There is no stress, they just don’t want to “explore” things they see as non-urgent.. basically everything you need like writing, reading and calculating properly.

No amount of coaxing, gamification or whatever works consistently. The only thing that got my smartest kid through anything is by force. Not too much, but still, they need some amount of coercion no question about it. Anyone that denies this I find very, very hard to take seriously.

Interestingly the slightly less cerebral one is easier to guide through gamification. I guess the smarter you are the easier you see through BS. It’s easier to just learn to suck it up and Do The Thing instead of “learning is fun”. It isn’t and it doesn’t matter.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#200

Post by HDThoreaun » Fri, Jun 05, 2026, 5:53 AM UTC

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #194

bluGill wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Schools do better than home schooling. Those kids constantly do great on tests but it doesn't take long to figure out they are lacking socially. I don't know how to teach socialization other than kids figure it out, but I'm open to the idea.

Some of those kids are lacking socially. It's not 100% by any means. The thing is that if you are home schooling your kids, you have to be intentional about socializing them in a way that you simply don't have to if you have them in a formal school setting. Obviously, some parents are going to fail at that but not all will.

Well the thing is if youre home schooling it's really easy to just never have your kid interact with someone they dont get along with. Thats the most important part of the socialization though. If you dont put effort into making your kids life a little uncomfortable Im not sure how theyll gain those skills.