Education must go beyond the mere production of words • Hacker News Board

Re: Education must go beyond the mere production of words

#51

Post by wisty » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 2:22 PM UTC

fn-mote wrote: post #42

globnomulous wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's one thing to memorize arguments in favour of a position. It's another to actively defend your positions against those aggressively invested in proving you wrong. John Stuart Mill argued that only the latter activity produces the real understanding that allows an argument, or a tradition, to be renewed and kept alive across generations against constant attempts at refutation. If you are regurgitating a stance i…

I once heard a lecture by a (famous) college professor who talked about the large numbers of students who failed (college) Algebra 1. His argument was: you cannot memorize algebra, you have to understand. Students who are failing in college do so because they do not understand the fundamentals, and try to memorize enough to succeed - not realizing that the effort needs to go somewhere else. Rule 1 of memorization is…

As a teacher, I feel this is wrong. A lot of students fail by trying too hard to understand.

They listen in class, then read the text and notes you posted, then watch a Youtube explaination, then ask Chat, then ask you questions ... anything to avoid trying to do a few practice questions where they might make a mistake.

It's like watching people try to learn to play basketball when they are afraid of shooting hoops in case they miss a shot. So they watch videos or read books to really understand how to shoot hoops. And then fail miserably when they are tested.

OK, you could argue that exercises build a type of understanding, and listening to explanations builds a different type of understanding, and the former is more useful, but people don't understand that.

Re: Education must go beyond the mere production of words

#52

Post by graemep » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 2:24 PM UTC

bluefirebrand wrote: post #48

obscurette wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European, I don’t know what a Public school means. But if it refers to the kind of school environment you can find on YouTube by searching for “gen alpha teachers,” then I’m surprised those schools still exist at all.

> As a European, I don’t know what a Public school means It means "school paid for by taxes", which, as a European is probably the sort of school you attended Private school is a school you have to pay to attend

In the UK it means a type of (established, large, non-profit) what Americans call a private school. We call the latter in general independent schools.

Re: Education must go beyond the mere production of words

#53

Post by graemep » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 2:27 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #39

rdevilla wrote: post #4

I wonder what kinds of information are worth keeping resident in human carbon wetware, and what kinds of information are better off sitting in a silicon cache somewhere in the cloud. On one extreme LLMs do 100% of your thinking, and your brain understands nothing other than how to function as a transport layer from/to the data center and other humans. On the other you have the technophobic tendencies of Anathem's avo…

Repetition of basic knowledge is actually a big part of a successful education, Even schoolkids in the earliest grades can actually learn surprisingly complex subjects by heart simply by blabbing everything back word-for-word. Problem solving skills can then be built up on these basics.

I am not convinced by that. Kids tend to learn problem solving (and other) skills if given a chance. i do not think encourage huge amounts of rote learning is an optimal, or even, useful say of doing that.

My experience (with myself and my kids) has been the opposite.

Re: Education must go beyond the mere production of words

#54

Post by graemep » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 2:30 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #24

justonceokay wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What happened to shop class? Generation of parents who were ashamed of their kids having to swing a hammer for a living. See my comment below. When I started working in the trades every single person said it would be hard on my body. Some days it’s hard on my body. But I honestly would break my knee again if it meant I could be assured that I’d never have the mental anguish of pretending like I cared about a comput…

They weren’t ashamed, they wanted their kids to have a higher quality of life. They looked around and saw themselves and most others who swung hammers to have a lower quality of life than they would have preferred for their kids compared to those in offices. Everyone can swing a hammer after they get home from work if swinging the hammer is virtuous.

> They weren’t ashamed, they wanted their kids to have a higher quality of life. They looked around and saw themselves and most others who swung hammers to have a lower quality of life than they would have preferred for their kids compared to those in offices.

Is that true? I do not know about the US, but in the UK skilled people who work with their hands out earn many who work in offices, find it easier to be self employed, and have greater job security.

Re: Education must go beyond the mere production of words

#55

Post by graemep » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 2:36 PM UTC

quantified wrote: post #5

A lot of being Catholic is just receiving and producing words. Mass is basically an exchange of words. With a little music and a one-way flow of cash. Confession is, well, words. The profession of priesthood is basically one of words. Yes, there is day labor in some charitable activities, but those same activities are performed by non-Catholics and the irreligious as well. Better to to tie education of words and numb…

Mass, music, confession etc. is supposed to have meaning. Just memorising and repeating the words is not supposed to be what happens. Mass is supposed to have real effects (transubstantiation) and like all prayer is supposed to encourage contemplation and the experience of God. Confession is supposed to give people a fresh start, and often helps people deal with problems and move on - you might as well say that therapy is just an exchange of words. What about things such as silent prayer?

> The profession of priesthood is basically one of words.

As above, a lot more to it. Lots of time spent on pastoral work.

> Yes, there is day labor in some charitable activities, but those same activities are performed by non-Catholics and the irreligious as well.

So? That does not prevent it from being a part of being a Catholic of being a priest.

Re: Education must go beyond the mere production of words

#56

Post by lotsofpulp » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 2:41 PM UTC

graemep wrote: post #54

lotsofpulp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They weren’t ashamed, they wanted their kids to have a higher quality of life. They looked around and saw themselves and most others who swung hammers to have a lower quality of life than they would have preferred for their kids compared to those in offices. Everyone can swing a hammer after they get home from work if swinging the hammer is virtuous.

> They weren’t ashamed, they wanted their kids to have a higher quality of life. They looked around and saw themselves and most others who swung hammers to have a lower quality of life than they would have preferred for their kids compared to those in offices. Is that true? I do not know about the US, but in the UK skilled people who work with their hands out earn many who work in offices, find it easier to be self e…

It was true. Probably started tilting back the other way after 2008. There is a lag in perception though, but it’s still very much boom and bust type work. Healthcare is probably the new dependable, decent paying, blue collar work.

Office work, however, lends itself to scaling, so earning potential is always more. Swinging hammers is great, but owning the business that hires the people who swings hammers is going to allow you to earn more, because it can scale. But you’re right back to office work.

Re: Education must go beyond the mere production of words

#57

Post by analog31 » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #43

jillesvangurp wrote: post #28

During the industrial revolution, the purpose wasn't to enlighten the masses but to make sure they could work in factories and work with complex machinery. So that meant being able to read/write, work with numbers, etc. And there as a need for engineers, mechanics, etc. that could make all this machinery work, that could work in systematic ways, etc. For the last century, a lot of jobs have shifted from making stuff…

> With modern technology, you can 3D print whatever you need, generate software, and run advanced manufacturing all in a small workshop just by yourself. I assure you, you cannot. Go ahead and make a USB A-B cable from scratch. A 30-year-old product that retails for $2 so hardly 'advanced manufacturing'.

I admit that I'm just blown away by the metalwork in tiny little electrical connectors. To me it's as amazing as watchmaking, if not more so, because the connectors are multiple-nines reliable, dirt cheap, and probably have never been touched by human hands when you receive them.

Re: Education must go beyond the mere production of words

#58

Post by roysting » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 2:48 PM UTC

lokimedes wrote: post #13

The concept of “absorptive capacity” our ability to gain from the information presented to us, is a key factor in education. If we humans remain agents of our own lives (which I find axiomatic) we still need education to interact with AI, to ask the right questions and to make sense of the results.

The vast majority of people currently do not “ask the right questions and to make sense of the results” now because they are conditioned from early life on to only ask the approved “right questions”, which will always frame the sense they can make of any results; why would that change with AI that has clearly already been manipulated with the very same kind of dogmatic guardrails deliberately there to prevent “asking the right questions and make sense of the results”?

And if anything, it’s inversely correlated with at least the “education” in the West today, which is primarily an incentive ladder where the more “education”, i.e., system approved indoctrination you have, the less incentive or motivation you have to question it at all.

In many ways, we are witness to that behavior pattern in the Department of War and our whole government right now, where yet another generation of people in the military are supporting and perpetrating war crimes, while the incentive structure shields and protects them.

We can even see today that those the system fears the most, those people who start asking questions and are financially outside of that incentive ladder, the system attacks most aggressively. That has also never changed. If the system does not attack you, you know you are not actually over the target in any way.

It’s not really a new phenomenon or really fundamentally any different than aristocratic incentives to remain loyal to the king to curry favor, but the AI component introduces a whole different dynamic and in my view will even start aggressively going after any kind of knowledge or information that the system does not control, very much like how Orwell envisioned in 1984 or somewhat as envisioned by Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451. The question I cannot find an answer to is; why wouldn’t it do that, especially since we are already seeing the groups and interests that have long undermined free speech even in the USA, only get more aggressive in their attack on free speech from all angles?

So if you have books and information of fact the system will definitely come to not like at one point or another, you may want to keep quiet about that future contraband.

There is nothing in the trajectory and the system that would give me the impression that it wants anyone to “ask the right questions” especially not the “educated ones”. Their job within the system is to ask the acceptable questions within the guardrails, and they are conditioned/trained to do that and self-police in that way.

Re: Education must go beyond the mere production of words

#59

Post by analog31 » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 2:53 PM UTC

quantified wrote: post #5

A lot of being Catholic is just receiving and producing words. Mass is basically an exchange of words. With a little music and a one-way flow of cash. Confession is, well, words. The profession of priesthood is basically one of words. Yes, there is day labor in some charitable activities, but those same activities are performed by non-Catholics and the irreligious as well. Better to to tie education of words and numb…

>>> What happened to shop class?

The cost of shop class. The region where I grew up abandoned shop class and orchestra as the tax base declined due to industry moving to the South. Meanwhile, my mom taught CS at an extension campus of a state university, and her students were getting high paying jobs as programmers after one year of instruction.

Re: Education must go beyond the mere production of words

#60

Post by Retric » Sat, Apr 25, 2026, 2:53 PM UTC

graemep wrote: post #50

lokimedes wrote: post #13

The concept of “absorptive capacity” our ability to gain from the information presented to us, is a key factor in education. If we humans remain agents of our own lives (which I find axiomatic) we still need education to interact with AI, to ask the right questions and to make sense of the results.

Yes, you definitely need to absorb some information, but you also need to understand an process it. There is a bias in education to memorising facts over teaching concepts and skills. It has certainly got worse in the UK over the last few decades as a result of pressure on schools to get high grades, which has lead to teaching the exam rather than the subject. I might be biased by the small sample closest to me: my k…

It’s not a bias on the educational side, it’s the inherent requirement for knowledge before you can learn skills. Memorization creates a Rosetta Stone the enables people to start reading. You need to know what happened historically before you can have meaningful opinions about it. You need to memorize mathematical symbols meaning before you can use them etc etc.

The only bias here is people disliking memorization. It takes effort and has concrete right and wrong answers so you can fail in a way that doesn’t happen with skills. But disliking something doesn’t mean it’s actually wrong.