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I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

scotthyoung.com

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Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#541

Post by graemep »

bccdee wrote: post #514
graemep wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does work in my experience. > I am 4. I have many interests. I would love to read books about those interests, but in order to do this, I have to do phonics drills and practice sounding out words. But I am 4, and I do not have the cognitive skills to force myself to do unpleasant practice to acquire a skill which I will some day cherish. I must be made to learn. My kids learned to read without being forced. They d…

I'm glad you've experienced success with these strategies, but unfortunately you can't generalize that. > They did not do phonics, they learned to read whole words from flashcards. Whole language learning is a perfect example of this: The fifth word on the Wikipedia page for whole language is "discredited." [1] It's been linked to systemic regressions in literacy among children. Clever kids with lots of support can s…

The wikipedia article you cite is marked as needing citations.

The research shows whole word learning does not work well in a classroom setting. it works well one to one. If parents do it as a game with kids it works. Its worked for at least two generations in my family and we all learned to read at least a bit before we went to school, or outside school, or in a different language and alphabet (English at home) we learned in school. Well ahead of school in the latter cases, despite a phonetic alphabet in school!

> t is great for kids to be intrinsically motivated & I think the course material should be as engaging as possible, but often the kids are disengaged regardless

They disengage because they are forced to do things that are disengaging. As other have commented kids enter schooling enjoy learning, and a few years later have lost it.

> A lot of them just won't be that interested in long division,

Why do long division? There is lots of maths that is interesting. We are talking past each other here. I am saying the curriculum learning demotivating, and your answer is that kids need to be forced to do curriculum learning. I have specifically discussed maths in other comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48409430 and there are links to more detail about some of my experiences with maths from the blog post I linked to already.

> Alternative approaches always irritated the hell out of me as a kid. "Aren't you inspired? Don't you feel creative?"

If they needed to ask, they are already doing it wrong. I certainly never did anything like that. I cannot even imagine why you would ask a child that.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#542

Post by bluGill »

somenameforme wrote: post #536
bluGill wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The US still is doing well and so we have no reason to believe any system is better.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#543

Post by camgunz »

rustcleaner wrote: post #313

One revolution that backfired massively: the departure from phonics reading to some sort of contextual whole-word one, where students were reprimanded for trying to sound the word out. By extension the loss of basic Greek & Latin has had a terrible impact; at least teach just enough to learn that most English words are compounds of simpler Greek/Latin words strung together (like German's adjectiveadjectiveadjectiveno…

It's way more comprehensive than just phonics:

- Mandatory screening of students in grades K-3, three times a year, using approved assessment tools, to monitor how early reading skills are developing

- Focused efforts to improve curriculum quality in schools— for phonics and other aspects of literacy

- Large-scale efforts to train teachers

- Retention policies to hold back students who aren’t reading successfully by the end of third grade

Lifted directly from https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/is-mississippi-cooking-the-...

It's also worth saying a lot of the gains evaporate when you factor in learning loss from COVID and Mississippi suddenly screening/helping kids for dyslexia (etc). But, still there's something to learn, just not simply phonics.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#544

Post by somenameforme »

bluGill wrote: post #542
somenameforme wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The US still is doing well and so we have no reason to believe any system is better.

It's hard to say because the US was, by far, the most dominant economic power in the world in decades past, and now we're losing that role, or already have depending on how you measure things. But the nature of going from #1 to #1 (or #2 as it may be) means you have no real basis for comparison how things might have been.

But what I'd observe is that by many metrics the US hasn't really made major progress since our glory days. For instance real median wages from 1979 to present have increased by less than 13%. [1] It'd be disingenuous to compare that to China because they started from much less so obviously you expect dramatically higher growth, but I think it's reasonable to claim that we could have, and should have, done dramatically better than 13% growth in almost 50 years.

Another point is that the US was able to 'artificially' strengthen its economy owing to the dominance of the dollar and being the center of the tech boom. I say artificially because those things were obviously going to be liminal. We needed to leverage those advantages into something long-term. Instead it looks like we've been mostly treading water and largely wasted it all.

And now pair all of this with contemporary times with a sharply divided population, unsustainably low fertility rates, terrible education outcomes, and more. And no, I don't think it's reasonable to claim that the US is doing well, let alone to the point of being able to rest on our laurels as you're implying.

[1] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#545

Post by rootusrootus »

stickfigure wrote: post #190
ckw wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Approximate shares of undergraduate enrollment by sex: Year Male Female 1970 58% 42% 1975 53% 47% 1980 48% 52% 1985 46% 54% 1990 45% 55% 1995 44.5% 55.5% 2000 43.9% 56.1% 2005 43.3% 56.7% 2010 43.0% 57.0% 2015 43.6% 56.4% 2020 42.7% 57.3% 2025 42.7% 57.3% So men have been in the minority for at least 46 years, and the skew is as large as it was in 1970, but reversed.

This is true and interesting but it's also incomplete. Men still dominate most STEM degrees, and unlike law or business it doesn't seem to be evening out over time. I'm not sure what conclusions we can draw from this.

> I'm not sure what conclusions we can draw from this.

My suggestion would be: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Take your thumb off the scale."

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#546

Post by rootusrootus »

bluGill wrote: post #145
SubmarineClub wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It turns out that when you level the playing field, girls do better than boys. Why is it that when boys/men where outperforming and out-earning women, people were willing to move heaven and earth to correct this terrible injustice, but now when outcomes have reversed (for years at this point) it's considered acceptable to say "Welp, that's just how it goes. Boys just aren't good enough." Hmmm...almost like, it's no…

Until someone can show a real biological difference we should level the playing field. We do know boys mature later which may be reason to not level the field completely, but we should still not allow that as an excuse. If someone shows another difference I will have to think in depth about the details before I can comment.

> We do know boys mature later which may be reason to not level the field completely, but we should still not allow that as an excuse.

I am quite a long ways from right-leaning but this sure does lend credence to their claims of discrimination. If it weren't boys, we'd say that a biological disadvantage is absolutely acceptable as an excuse, and we should try to correct for it.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#547

Post by rootusrootus »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #83
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…

Boys have been sitting down, focusing, and producing work that meets a certain standard for most of recorded history. That ability is really not a uniquely feminine trait, and suggesting it is is honestly bizarre. Boys have also been doing more destructive things, but that's a different issue. Boys and girls do struggle with different issues socially and culturally, which is upstream of struggling with them academica…

> One stereotype has been challenged, the other seems to have replaced it, and younger men have almost been encouraged to live down to it.

Orthogonal to age and gender both, we got to witness an entire third of the US take "deplorable" as an aspirational goal and live down to it.

> I don't think as a culture we're emotionally mature enough

You can say that again.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#548

Post by FloorEgg »

tshaddox wrote: post #523
FloorEgg wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the parent comment author, but my guess is that they probably meant persuade or inspire as much if not more than coerce. Most respectful interpretation and all... Why is it obvious that an educator should do their best to teach a student something even when they don't want to learn? Well for one, it's their job, and two... Children especially are not good judges of which knowledge and skills will benefit them…

I'm sorry if I was uncharitable. That certainly was not my intention. The only usage of "coerce" I'm aware of is in direct opposition to "persuade" or "inspire," and I'm not aware of any serious debate about whether children should be persuaded/inspired/encouraged to learn things.

> I'm not aware of any serious debate about whether children should be persuaded/inspired/encouraged to learn things.

Kind of an odd thing to say given decades of pedagogy research in this debate exactly. Maybe you are just entirely uninformed about this topic?

E.g. self-directed education, self-determination theory, zone of proximal development, cognitive load theory...

Are you saying that you don't think educators should try and teach students when they don't want to learn?

Or that educators shouldn't try to get students to want to learn when they don't?

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#549

Post by bigthymer »

hunterpayne wrote: post #57
bigthymer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having multiple parallel tracks for different types of students is controversial. Schooling tends to be cyclical with periods with more tracking is popular shifting to periods of less tracking and more classroom mixing. It really depends on what you want to optimize for. More tracking benefits the highest achievers. Less tracking raises the bottom and the average but at the cost of not maximizing the outcome of the t…

"Having multiple parallel tracks for different types of students is controversial." It shouldn't be. The research overwhelming says its a good practice. The type of people who say this type of thing are the exact type of ideologically motivated people who are destroying school systems in blue districts. Ironically this group both hates private schools and creates the environment that pushes parents to pay for private…

> The research overwhelming says its a good practice.

I disagree. From what I've read, the data is more mixed. More tracking optimizes for the top achievers. Less tracking optimizes for the lower and middle. Less tracking probably maximizes average metrics.

> The type of people who say this type of thing are the exact type of ideologically motivated people who are destroying school systems in blue districts. Ironically this group both hates private schools and creates the environment that pushes parents to pay for private schools. I've personally seen the bad consequences of schools that do this and I know people who aren't here anymore because of it.

I agree. However, I think the counter solution these people imagine is a similar scenario as described here https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/sd3in2/...>.

> So please, for the love of god, stop talking about topics you know nothing about.

Let's be civil. There is no need to attack me personally. You're welcome to disagree with my ideas, share your opinion, and present support. I think a reasonable person can find support for both opinions.

Re: I'm skeptical about efforts to revolutionize schooling

#550

Post by bluGill »

somenameforme wrote: post #544
bluGill wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US still is doing well and so we have no reason to believe any system is better.

It's hard to say because the US was, by far, the most dominant economic power in the world in decades past, and now we're losing that role, or already have depending on how you measure things. But the nature of going from #1 to #1 (or #2 as it may be) means you have no real basis for comparison how things might have been. But what I'd observe is that by many metrics the US hasn't really made major progress since our…

While China's improvements are amazing, don't be fooled, overall China is still behind. They have more people and so totals can look good, but the common person has much improvement left before they beat the US. Ultimately, I think your argument comes down to, when you're on top, it is very hard to improve much more, while, when you're starting at the bottom, you can improve a lot very quickly and easily. Indeed, China's growth numbers have been slowing a bit recently, which supports my thesis. Only time will tell of course

Also there is plenty of reason to think that China isn't giving honest numbers, but what's the true numbers are is impossible to know

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