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

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#531

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 2:09 AM UTC

cheesecakegood wrote: post #217

freeopinion wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walter, I have a great deal of respect for you. Your math skills are much greater than my own. But you have stretched your statement too far. Flash cards can be very helpful in teaching math. Timed tests for math facts can be very helpful. Both of these can be facilitated with computers or tablets. Animations can be a very useful instructional tool. Even taking a picture of the chalk on the blackboard and putting it…

All good examples but all relatively low cost as well (and don’t require 1:1 student-laptops). However I’m pretty darn sure that videos do more harm than good - too easy to zone out during them, and providing them to students only allows them to slack in class with the attitude “I can just watch the video again later.” Despite being horribly inefficient this is true for students of virtually all ages. Providing video…

I cynically suspect that most people just cannot stand the idea that a teacher and a blackboard works better than all those technological crutches.

I remember when "educational" CD-ROMs came out for classrooms. The pitch was that at any time, a student could go look up the corresponding text on the CD-ROM.

You know, like a book.

Sigh.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#532

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 2:54 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #531

cheesecakegood wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All good examples but all relatively low cost as well (and don’t require 1:1 student-laptops). However I’m pretty darn sure that videos do more harm than good - too easy to zone out during them, and providing them to students only allows them to slack in class with the attitude “I can just watch the video again later.” Despite being horribly inefficient this is true for students of virtually all ages. Providing video…

I cynically suspect that most people just cannot stand the idea that a teacher and a blackboard works better than all those technological crutches. I remember when "educational" CD-ROMs came out for classrooms. The pitch was that at any time, a student could go look up the corresponding text on the CD-ROM. You know, like a book. Sigh.

Once I was at a presentation, and the presenter didn't show up. The organizer asked if anyone in the audience was willing to substitute. I raised my hand, and asked for nothing more than a whiteboard and markers.

It was the best presentation I ever did. It was a lot of fun, and the crowd was very engaged.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#533

Post by beej71 » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 3:50 AM UTC

tombert wrote: post #500

beej71 wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Undergrad still has a lot of required courses that aren't directly related to your major, and it can be draining. This is why I LOVED getting my MS. Just computer science all the time! Heaven! None of those pesky, worthless general ed classes! I was just a dumb college kid. I'm convinced I'd have done better in life overall if I'd taken those GE courses seriously and made the effort to be a more well-rounded indivi…

I go back and forth; part of what bothers me is how I'm paying for these GE courses. Like, for example, I took a multicultural film course in college the first time around. I love movies, I love analyzing everything about movies, I love discussing themes and metaphors that are in movies, and I even love writing long essays pondering movies, and I enjoyed the class. That said...is a multicultural film course really wo…

Admittedly, I went to school when such classes cost more like $250 in today's dollars.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#534

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 3:54 AM UTC

tombert wrote: post #496

beej71 wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After 20 industry years, I've been teaching CS for the last 7. I sincerely hope that I figure it out before I retire. :) Doing this job effectively is more challenging than anything I've done in my career. I've read a lot about teaching, and it's amazing how much of it doesn't resonate for me. What has been the absolute best is sitting in on other instructors' classes and learning from them. And being completely flex…

Yeah, honestly if I were to do the lecturing again, I would probably get some training first. I, like a lot of people, thought it would be relatively easy for me because I've always been relatively good at explaining things to people on an individual level. For example, at previous jobs I was the person who was there to help explain functional programming concepts to people from different backgrounds, and I was often…

[deleted]

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#535

Post by BobbyTables2 » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 4:54 AM UTC

fn-mote wrote: post #310

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is when one mixes kids who don’t want to be there with one’s that do, they all suffer. Makes a lot of teacher not want to be there too! The schools also have little interest in spending time and money on the higher performing students. They teach the minimum and focus resources on the failing ones to raise school averages. Currently, tertiary education is where a lot of real learning takes starts to happen.

> tertiary education is where a lot of real learning takes starts to happen Hilarious assertion. Absolutely false in my experience. Someone who just starts to learn in college will be years behind the students who began in high school. They probably mistake it for not “being good at” a subject, but it can really keep people away from some areas. For example, hard sciences and math, where years of training problem sol…

I mean more that the elementary/secondary school years are largely wasted in terms of what could have been taught.

Yes, some things are taught and sometimes learned, but only superficially.

Even basic economics and financial literacy is taught way too late. These kids have been ogling phones, tablets, apps since they were in Kindergarten and then learn a few basics over a decade later?

Acceleration in Physics is not a difficult concept. Yet, it’s often taught late in secondary school - 6 to 8 years after teaching fractions.

Each year Math classes largely repeat the previous year with just a small extra wrinkle (except for the crazy year known as Geometry).

Pre-algebra, algebra I, algebra II, advanced math, Calculus I. That’s 5 years to poorly learn lines, parabolas, and integrals — longer than an entire college education.

Imagine if we taught grammar that way. All Of Elementary education would be stuck in the simple tenses! The future perfect continuous would be taught Senior year!

I’m not advocating teaching Calculus in 2nd grade but I think we should be doing better.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#536

Post by somenameforme » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 6:06 AM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #522

somenameforme wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, here [1] are the PISA outcomes. PISA is an international test that's generally the gold standard for comparison of educational outcomes on an international level. [1] Over the last testing year China was #2, the test prior #1. Singapore was #1 in the most recent period, and is around 75% ethnic Chinese. Whether the differences are genetic or cultural is interesting but doesn't really matter. The reality is that…

The real question is how you 'do at life'. Some tests are a proxy but not all. And even when it is, you can 'teach the test' and get worse results at life even though the test itself is good. Too often we are not sure what is a good proxy. That is the grain of salt all education comparisons need to be made with.

They went from literally starving to death in the 60s to becoming one of the greatest, if not the greatest, power on Earth with a thriving and growing middle class - which is really the backbone of a nation. So I think it's safe to say that their life outcomes are on parity with their measurable educational outcomes.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#537

Post by atoav » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 8:21 AM UTC

beej71 wrote: post #494

win311fwg wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally think I would fail my students on a personal level if I let them go through my education and have them ill-prepared for the world that faces them outside. While it is great that you are willing to help those in need catch up, something has gone horribly wrong with primary sources of education and lived experience if someone reaches the university level before being prepared for the world. In fact, give…

> something has gone horribly wrong with primary sources of education and lived experience if someone reaches the university level before being prepared for the world I think the GP's idea is that university is part of getting prepared for the world. And for many students, university is the final culmination of their preparation.

Yes, this is what I meant University is both academic in the sense that it is about research for the respective field(s), but it is also in a very real sense the last educational institution for many students who end up outside of academia. I am not saying that academic rigor needs to be replaced with a self-help group, what I say is that we can look for win-win-situations that help both in an academic sense and are practical outside of academia.

Of course I can't catch all of my students deficiencies (alone for the reason that I can't discover all), but my base assumption is that there are fields and topics everybody has gaps in and this is normal. As a software developer I have met people who worked a decade in the field, did good work and they haven't heard of a fundamental concept in networking before. Everybody has their gaps, even people I worked with who are the most knowledgeable people I have ever worked with sometimes have gaps in basic stuff. Maybe your former teachers neglected them, you never really had to apply it, or whatever. Normal.

Good teaching means you quickly recap the required knowledge before you apply it. I can't recap simple arithmetics, but if we need integration or trigonometry I will recap in a beginner course.

An important aspect of University is that it is more free than school education. That means it teaches people to organize their own learning to a much higher degree (which you also may need after you graduate or drop out). If someone has gaps they should get the feeling that they know what to work on and not hit a brick wall and shatter.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#538

Post by Etheryte » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 8:53 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #42

Etheryte wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In broad strokes, learning leads to better life outcomes just like brushing your teeth leads to better health outcomes, or any other example you may prefer. Brushing teeth is a chore so a child won't generally pick it up all by themselves without some nudging. If you don't do the nudging you're essentially letting a child be free, yes, but also willingly letting them end up worse off when they're too young to know an…

> just like brushing your teeth leads to better health outcomes This is very context dependent. If you grow up surrounded by a typical western/industrial/post-industrial diet, then yes, it almost certainly does. But you could also change the food environment. Hopefully the analogy/metaphor that connects this to schooling is reasonably obvious.

I don't think this argument is logically sound. Your eating habits are something that you personally have fairly high control over and can change with reasonable ease/effort. Society at large does not have the same characteristics and unless you have the means to live outside of society, you do have to deal with its realities.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#539

Post by thaumasiotes » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 9:07 AM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #492

thaumasiotes wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm suggesting that in Chinese culture, academic success is an effective way to impress girls.

Or ... for them to impress guys?

No, I'm going to stand by the phrasing I provided.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#540

Post by graemep » Sat, Jun 06, 2026, 9:21 AM UTC

HappMacDonald wrote: post #493

graemep wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No its not, its why use your brains for useless things. Because my kids did not spend as much time on arithmetic and rote learning they learned algebra much earlier than most do. My older daughter did IGCSE physics when she was 11 and maths when she was 12 as a result. Their ability to read was always well ahead of average for their age.

Learning to read must have meant memorizing vocabulary though, right? A multiplication table is just a single-digit multiplication vocabulary.

Except you do no need to sit with a list of vocabulary to learn. You pick it up by reading stories etc.