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I disagree with your comment about better teachers. Teachers are simply a conduit for learning. They don't scale, which is why there is still a power-law distri

I disagree with your comment about better teachers. Teachers are simply a conduit for learning. They don't scale, which is why there is still a power-law distribution in educational outcomes despite tons or research and data and training and testing that should combat that. Basically rich people get richer because all rich people who are generationally consistently rich have one thing in common. They are autodidacts. If you can learn on your own, and have the capacity to recognize when the assumptions underpinning the status-quo are no longer correct, you can consistently remain wealthy relative to everyone else. True rich families understand this and teach it implicitly/explicitly to their children. Who end up being the fertile ground on which 'good teachers' have a multiplicative effect. This does not work for the poor as they lack the necessary base skills and knowledge to benefit from good teaching. Poor people still break through because circumstance often teaches people, like everyone who came from nothing on this message board, how to learn on their own without help or assistance from others. Advocating more assistance from others is not the solution. And for the same reason that sending $1T in aid to Africa has had mixed results. Knowledge cannot be taught it must be learned.

NiftyFifty 11y ago
Knowledge cannot be taught it must be inferred.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Exactly. Knowledge and insight is what you get when you take the facts you've been taught (or learned yourself) and internalize them. Schools nowadays focus too much on the first at the cost of the second, because former is easily testable and the latter takes time.
  - mhuffman 11y ago
    One of the goals of Common Core was to fix that situation ... but then, you know, teaching to the test kind of defeated it.
    - analog31 11y ago
      Interestingly enough, when the schools in my locale started talking about Common Core, I decided to look it up. I found that one or more states had published complete curriculum guides written around CC, and since I like math, I looked through the math curricula. My impression is that the CC curriculum (neglecting variations that I haven't seen) is so ostentatiously mainstream, that I can't fathom how it became controversial, except that people mistakenly associate it with standardized testing.
guimarin 11y ago
And just to be clear. The answer for children is to make learning to love learning play. And the way to do that in a way that scales is through a video game. That is the future of education. Games for children that teach them how to learn, that they then use to set their own educational path. With teachers, schools, mentors, and advisors helping along the way.
- tonydiv 11y ago
  If you truly believe this, I would love to share what I'm working on with you: http://playlingoland.com http://playlingoland.com We are building a World of Warcraft-esque game for students learning languages, and we have people playing for 3-5 hours upon signing up (we had one student who signed up and played 10 hours within the first 24 hours of signing up). Students absolutely LOVE it. I do believe the future of education is gaming. Unfortunately most of the world believes that it is gamifying things that aren't games inherently. MMORPGs with levels, items, and avatars are games. Flashcards with points are not.
- Afton 11y ago
  > And the way to do that in a way that scales is through a video game. Well, that's one way. Any teacher who has used word-searches, acting, rhyming games, etc has found other ways. Don't get me wrong, there are a wealth of awesome startups in this space making apps, and I think they have a lot of potential, but they are certainly not the whole story, until we have something out of "The Diamond Age: A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer". Lots of good actual science takes place in the real world, and a video game can certainly be part of the solution, but there's a lot of room for engineering and whatnot that can be part of an autodidactical solution that won't live in an app.
- douche 11y ago
  I blame video games for making me into a history buff. And maybe Legos, combined with the History Channel before it was the RedneckAliensJesus Channel. Civilization, Lords of the Realm, Caesar II, Robert E. Lee: Civil War General, Close Combat, Total War, Pirates!, Anno 1602, Europa Universalis/Crusader Kings/Victoria/Hearts of Iron, Age of Empires Or to go way back, Math/Word Rescue, Treasure Mountain, Midnight Rescue, Carmen Sandiego, Oregon Trail, the crazy game that was part of Encarta, Dr Brain, Maxis Sim games all taught me math, geography, history, logic, physics, etc.
JDiculous 11y ago
That's what I hate about school. It doesn't teach or encourage autodidactism. Instead, it rewards those who do what they're told and follow the status quo. You see it a lot in straight A students where they're basically just really good at jumping through hoops given to them and have no creativity. Being able to answer problem sets from a textbook is great, but independent and original thought often requires you to step outside the box and question things.
- alttab 11y ago
  I have not hired capable "homework programmers" for this very reason. If you do not code outside of your CS degree you are toast in this industry.
  - hawkice 11y ago
    While the overwhelming majority of my professional respect goes to those who are builders at their core, I think you're using 'toast' in a way that demonstrably includes six figure salaries. The only X-factor is how many (N < 5) years it takes to get there, without any real initiative or personal projects.
justinhj 11y ago
Your comments about rich families ignore completely the effect of status in life. Knowledge alone does not generate wealth. That needs work directed in the right direction which is also a lot easier if you have the society connections and the capital to pull off your ideas. The rich get richer because they can invest and buy successful businesses. Sending your kids to Eton to rub shoulders with royalty has far more to do with status than education.
- guimarin 11y ago
  While I agree with you, your point is ultimately a semantic difference and not related to the parent discussion on how to fix education. Certainly 'status' defined this way is a necessity of being rich but not sufficient. Being an autodidact is both necessary and sufficient for long-term multi-generational success. eg. 2 generations can live off the fruits of one, but then you're out. whereas if you teach your kids how to learn on their own, you can sustain quite easily for many.
vacri 11y ago
I disagree. I'm an autodidact, but I'm not rich. As a kid I did things like repeatedly read every volume of the encyclopaedia cover-to-cover. On a tour group a few years ago I was nicknamed "google [vacri]" because I knew a bit about everything and people started asking all sorts of esoteric stuff. But I didn't earn average wage until my late 30s (median wage early 30s) and didn't earn above average wage until this year (42). There's lots of people out there like me, who love learning about all sorts of things, but don't learn about the specific things to make one wealthy. What makes rich families generationally rich is not autodidactism, but skill transfer and network effects. For example, it's easier to handle money when you've been around people who know a lot about finance and money movements than it is to autodidact-learn about money.

NiftyFifty 11y ago

Knowledge cannot be taught it must be inferred.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Exactly. Knowledge and insight is what you get when you take the facts you've been taught (or learned yourself) and internalize them. Schools nowadays focus too much on the first at the cost of the second, because former is easily testable and the latter takes time.
- mhuffman 11y ago
  One of the goals of Common Core was to fix that situation ... but then, you know, teaching to the test kind of defeated it.
  - analog31 11y ago
    Interestingly enough, when the schools in my locale started talking about Common Core, I decided to look it up. I found that one or more states had published complete curriculum guides written around CC, and since I like math, I looked through the math curricula. My impression is that the CC curriculum (neglecting variations that I haven't seen) is so ostentatiously mainstream, that I can't fathom how it became controversial, except that people mistakenly associate it with standardized testing.

guimarin 11y ago

And just to be clear. The answer for children is to make learning to love learning play. And the way to do that in a way that scales is through a video game. That is the future of education. Games for children that teach them how to learn, that they then use to set their own educational path. With teachers, schools, mentors, and advisors helping along the way.

tonydiv 11y ago
If you truly believe this, I would love to share what I'm working on with you: http://playlingoland.com http://playlingoland.com We are building a World of Warcraft-esque game for students learning languages, and we have people playing for 3-5 hours upon signing up (we had one student who signed up and played 10 hours within the first 24 hours of signing up). Students absolutely LOVE it. I do believe the future of education is gaming. Unfortunately most of the world believes that it is gamifying things that aren't games inherently. MMORPGs with levels, items, and avatars are games. Flashcards with points are not.
Afton 11y ago
> And the way to do that in a way that scales is through a video game. Well, that's one way. Any teacher who has used word-searches, acting, rhyming games, etc has found other ways. Don't get me wrong, there are a wealth of awesome startups in this space making apps, and I think they have a lot of potential, but they are certainly not the whole story, until we have something out of "The Diamond Age: A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer". Lots of good actual science takes place in the real world, and a video game can certainly be part of the solution, but there's a lot of room for engineering and whatnot that can be part of an autodidactical solution that won't live in an app.
douche 11y ago
I blame video games for making me into a history buff. And maybe Legos, combined with the History Channel before it was the RedneckAliensJesus Channel. Civilization, Lords of the Realm, Caesar II, Robert E. Lee: Civil War General, Close Combat, Total War, Pirates!, Anno 1602, Europa Universalis/Crusader Kings/Victoria/Hearts of Iron, Age of Empires Or to go way back, Math/Word Rescue, Treasure Mountain, Midnight Rescue, Carmen Sandiego, Oregon Trail, the crazy game that was part of Encarta, Dr Brain, Maxis Sim games all taught me math, geography, history, logic, physics, etc.

JDiculous 11y ago

That's what I hate about school. It doesn't teach or encourage autodidactism. Instead, it rewards those who do what they're told and follow the status quo. You see it a lot in straight A students where they're basically just really good at jumping through hoops given to them and have no creativity. Being able to answer problem sets from a textbook is great, but independent and original thought often requires you to step outside the box and question things.

alttab 11y ago
I have not hired capable "homework programmers" for this very reason. If you do not code outside of your CS degree you are toast in this industry.
- hawkice 11y ago
  While the overwhelming majority of my professional respect goes to those who are builders at their core, I think you're using 'toast' in a way that demonstrably includes six figure salaries. The only X-factor is how many (N < 5) years it takes to get there, without any real initiative or personal projects.

justinhj 11y ago

Your comments about rich families ignore completely the effect of status in life. Knowledge alone does not generate wealth. That needs work directed in the right direction which is also a lot easier if you have the society connections and the capital to pull off your ideas. The rich get richer because they can invest and buy successful businesses. Sending your kids to Eton to rub shoulders with royalty has far more to do with status than education.

guimarin 11y ago
While I agree with you, your point is ultimately a semantic difference and not related to the parent discussion on how to fix education. Certainly 'status' defined this way is a necessity of being rich but not sufficient. Being an autodidact is both necessary and sufficient for long-term multi-generational success. eg. 2 generations can live off the fruits of one, but then you're out. whereas if you teach your kids how to learn on their own, you can sustain quite easily for many.

vacri 11y ago

I disagree. I'm an autodidact, but I'm not rich. As a kid I did things like repeatedly read every volume of the encyclopaedia cover-to-cover. On a tour group a few years ago I was nicknamed "google [vacri]" because I knew a bit about everything and people started asking all sorts of esoteric stuff. But I didn't earn average wage until my late 30s (median wage early 30s) and didn't earn above average wage until this year (42). There's lots of people out there like me, who love learning about all sorts of things, but don't learn about the specific things to make one wealthy. What makes rich families generationally rich is not autodidactism, but skill transfer and network effects. For example, it's easier to handle money when you've been around people who know a lot about finance and money movements than it is to autodidact-learn about money.