Everyone should get the opportunity to program, but school is a waste of time

School is not about education, it is about childcare and about indoctrination and socialisation. Some education occurs but that's not what school is for.School is for getting people to do as they're told, when they're told to, for inuring people to being ranked and judged.

http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html

Re: Everyone should get the opportunity to program, but school is a waste of time

#6

Post by barry-cotter » Mon, Mar 04, 2013, 2:56 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #3

daGrevis wrote: post #2

I couldn't agree more.

I couldn't agree less. PS: I think the greatest hubris of youth is that there time is worth much, and they have any idea what they will be doing in 20 years.

Their time may not be worth much but their suffering is just as real as yours. Being forced to endure the company of people you did not choose in an artificial society with no inherent meaning or goals probably isn't healthy for many, but it's a hell for some and purgatory for others. I don't really have much to say about primary school but most of secondary school was a waiting room for real life. It would have been worse if I'd known what I was missing, I'm sure.

Re: Everyone should get the opportunity to program, but school is a waste of time

#7

Post by NateDad » Mon, Mar 04, 2013, 2:59 PM UTC

daGrevis wrote: post #2

I couldn't agree more.

I couldn't agree less. If you can't write a proper essay, then you can't write a paper on the new algorithm you invented, you can't write legible documentation for the library you wrote, and you can't argue effectively about the merits of one technology vs. another (change out the terminology for whatever communication is required in your field).

Basic math (up to and including algebra and geometry) is used all the time in every day activities. You don't have to be a math whiz and remember every last formula... but remembering that it's possible to figure out the third side of a triangle when you have the other sides and the angle between them, or being able to figure out what the original price of an item was if it's $60 now and is marked down 20% from its original price.

Knowing history and social studies can help you understand the way the world works on a macro level, which is useful for figuring out if that new startup idea is going to be successful or just sit on the shelf with the rest of the bad ideas.

Real life does revolve around math, history, English, and science. Perhaps the author is smart enough that he picked this stuff up without doing any of the work, so he failed the classes but learned what he needed to anyway. But that doesn't mean you don't need to learn it.

Should we try to help people who don't do well in traditional school environments? Definitely. But that doesn't mean we throw out traditional schooling. There's a basic level of knowledge that everyone should have to be a productive member of society. And you have to test kids, otherwise you can't know if they're actually learning anything. But that doesn't mean we should be shaming kids who don't test well. We should be helping them learn, and changing how we test so that we are testing the knowledge rather than raw fact regurgitation.

Now, if you're talking college, I can agree a lot more. Taking literature in college when you're in a CS program is more than dumb, it's a huge waste of time and money. College should be about teaching you skills for a career. For STEM careers, that doesn't mean reading Shakespeare.... but it might mean statistics and probability. The time wasted on a shakespeare class could be better spent taking a class on compilers or assembly.

Re: Everyone should get the opportunity to program, but school is a waste of time

#8

Post by rm999 » Mon, Mar 04, 2013, 3:00 PM UTC

I hate these articles that argue for drastic changes in schooling without the deep analysis those changes deserve. It takes a certain kind of arrogance to go from "I wasn't good at X" to "X is useless; let's get rid of it."

I also struggled in high school because I couldn't choose my own curriculum (as do a lot of people), but what school reinforced in me is the concept that not everything in life is easy - successful people can turn a challenge into something constructive. I could go on about all the benefits of a standardized, well-rounded education, but every time one of these articles pops up a lot of people do that for me :)

Re: Everyone should get the opportunity to program, but school is a waste of time

#9

Post by barry-cotter » Mon, Mar 04, 2013, 3:03 PM UTC

cafard wrote: post #4

Santayana said "[even] In the best schools, most time is wasted...", but frankly I don't think that anyone has come up with a better system.

Montessori and Steiner schools. The general level of math and science education among their graduates is lower than in normal schools but the children don't receive so much training in what it is to be someone else's minion.

School time isn't wasted unless you think school is for educating children. They get all the education they need and there's childcare and socialisation in first and second place.

Re: Everyone should get the opportunity to program, but school is a waste of time

#10

Post by philliphaydon » Mon, Mar 04, 2013, 3:06 PM UTC

NateDad wrote: post #7

daGrevis wrote: post #2

I couldn't agree more.

I couldn't agree less. If you can't write a proper essay, then you can't write a paper on the new algorithm you invented, you can't write legible documentation for the library you wrote, and you can't argue effectively about the merits of one technology vs. another (change out the terminology for whatever communication is required in your field). Basic math (up to and including algebra and geometry) is used all the t…

I'm not suggesting we don't teach kids Math/English, I still think that is important, but the approach we take by shoving kids the same age in the same class doesn't work.

Some kids learn faster than others, we shouldn't hold some kids back simply because they are years younger than other kids. If a 7yo is racing through maths and enjoys it, put him with kids of his skill level, when you put a 7yo who is already years ahead in math, with kids his own age learning what he already knows, he messes around out of boredom.

Just because a few kids work well in a traditional environment doesn't mean we should hold those kids back, but we do. And likewise slower learning kids who could be exceptional at subjects are rushed through school and declared 'slow' or we blame the parents or homework etc for their lack of apparent intelligence.