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So the solution is basically "teach to the test" for teachers? I don't agree. The problems in our education system go way, way beyond teacher quality. Several

So the solution is basically "teach to the test" for teachers? I don't agree. The problems in our education system go way, way beyond teacher quality. Several of my friends are teachers, they're brilliant people, and they're hindered by the very structure of the system: standardized testing, unions, the very notion that one person lecturing to 20 students - a "push" educational supply system really works. We have the internet now... I prefer to pull what I want to know when I need to know it. Remember that the U.S. education system has only really been around for what? 150 years? Our species has been learning for 10,000 years.. we got along OK before it. We shouldn't take anything about that system as holy writ. How much institutional learning do we use in our everyday lives? I would argue very little, and that the best way to learn how to do a job is generally to go do it, and to ask questions along the way.

maxerickson 11y ago
Marcus Aurelius wrote fondly of having avoided public schooling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius#cite_ref-35 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius#cite_ref-35
shriphani 11y ago
Push models work well when you have an established career and know what is needed to advance. We've been stumped by Meno's paradox since Plato's time. I wouldn't trust the average high-schooler's judgement about educational choices. At that age it is far too easy to give up. Skip calculus, differential equations and the whole shebang and suddenly you're woefully underprepared for that dream career building drones and military aircraft. I certainly am happy there was some structure to my curriculum (even at the expense of a low student:teacher ratio). I was a very stupid kid - thought myself above the curriculum and all that. Were I allowed to chart my own course I would've been in a very bad place.
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
Indeed, the only complete solution to the schooling system's deficiencies will be its abolition. Education and the accumulation of knowledge should be understood as a subsidiary and decentralized activity, one heavily driven by autodidacticism. Autodidacticism is and always has been the primary force of education, not any formal regimented institution. One does not enter a school and come out "educated" by the receipt of a degree. In fact, the very idea that there can be such a thing as an "education system" is a complete perversity, a self-negating ideal of a social planner. Schooling should be strongly differentiated from the formation of academic and learning communities. People can still partake in seminars, gather for lectures and conferences, form study groups and even build schools with regular curricula to voluntarily participate in, if such a structure is deemed useful. The accreditation process should be repealed, and a boom in alternative schools (free, democratic, Sudbury, etc.) would likely follow. Research universities should remain as academic communities, rather than be bogged down by an auxiliary function of serving as ritual prerequisites for entering the labor market.
crpatino 11y ago
> We have the internet now... I prefer to pull what I want to know when I need to know it. This meme needs to be put to rest; preferably with a stake thru the hearth, the head chopped off and the mouth full of garlic. Information is just an encoded sequence of symbols, but knowledge inside a living mind is structured. Beyond a certain point[1], you cannot just pull whatever you want to know - Matrix style, please - because in order to decode the information you need to have built an scafold of prerequisite knowledge over the last few years. And your past self did not have any way to predict with both precision and accuracy what you would want to learn today. And that is the reason why, every kid must be forced to learn a basic set of common facts and skills at an early age. The purpose is to create the foundations of an scafold that is good enough for most people purposes, and to develop the skills to keep growing it as needs arise. One could argue that the US so-called-education system has strayed away from that noble goal to such a degree that it is almost impossible to recognize it's original intent. And yes, that is a shame. But it is simply false that you can "pull whatever I need to know, on demand, from Google"... and for every person for whom this is still more or less true, there is one of us here at Hacker News waiting for the chance to automate their job away and split their wage with their boss. Damned, it is hard enough even to google what you think you need to know if you don't know what's the name of the thing you are looking for!!! [1] There's a triving industry of Infotainment that makes their money by puting together mildly interesting facts, packaging those in an engaging presentation and selling it to customers that like to think of themselves as "well learned". The difference with true knowledge is that the consumers of such products lack the context to put that information to good, practical, use. In the same way that looking at a lot of martial arts movies does not make you a good fighter, looking a lot of documentaries do not make you a scientist.

maxerickson 11y ago

Marcus Aurelius wrote fondly of having avoided public schooling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius#cite_ref-35 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius#cite_ref-35

shriphani 11y ago

Push models work well when you have an established career and know what is needed to advance. We've been stumped by Meno's paradox since Plato's time. I wouldn't trust the average high-schooler's judgement about educational choices. At that age it is far too easy to give up. Skip calculus, differential equations and the whole shebang and suddenly you're woefully underprepared for that dream career building drones and military aircraft. I certainly am happy there was some structure to my curriculum (even at the expense of a low student:teacher ratio). I was a very stupid kid - thought myself above the curriculum and all that. Were I allowed to chart my own course I would've been in a very bad place.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago

Indeed, the only complete solution to the schooling system's deficiencies will be its abolition. Education and the accumulation of knowledge should be understood as a subsidiary and decentralized activity, one heavily driven by autodidacticism. Autodidacticism is and always has been the primary force of education, not any formal regimented institution. One does not enter a school and come out "educated" by the receipt of a degree. In fact, the very idea that there can be such a thing as an "education system" is a complete perversity, a self-negating ideal of a social planner. Schooling should be strongly differentiated from the formation of academic and learning communities. People can still partake in seminars, gather for lectures and conferences, form study groups and even build schools with regular curricula to voluntarily participate in, if such a structure is deemed useful. The accreditation process should be repealed, and a boom in alternative schools (free, democratic, Sudbury, etc.) would likely follow. Research universities should remain as academic communities, rather than be bogged down by an auxiliary function of serving as ritual prerequisites for entering the labor market.

crpatino 11y ago

> We have the internet now... I prefer to pull what I want to know when I need to know it. This meme needs to be put to rest; preferably with a stake thru the hearth, the head chopped off and the mouth full of garlic. Information is just an encoded sequence of symbols, but knowledge inside a living mind is structured. Beyond a certain point[1], you cannot just pull whatever you want to know - Matrix style, please - because in order to decode the information you need to have built an scafold of prerequisite knowledge over the last few years. And your past self did not have any way to predict with both precision and accuracy what you would want to learn today. And that is the reason why, every kid must be forced to learn a basic set of common facts and skills at an early age. The purpose is to create the foundations of an scafold that is good enough for most people purposes, and to develop the skills to keep growing it as needs arise. One could argue that the US so-called-education system has strayed away from that noble goal to such a degree that it is almost impossible to recognize it's original intent. And yes, that is a shame. But it is simply false that you can "pull whatever I need to know, on demand, from Google"... and for every person for whom this is still more or less true, there is one of us here at Hacker News waiting for the chance to automate their job away and split their wage with their boss. Damned, it is hard enough even to google what you think you need to know if you don't know what's the name of the thing you are looking for!!! [1] There's a triving industry of Infotainment that makes their money by puting together mildly interesting facts, packaging those in an engaging presentation and selling it to customers that like to think of themselves as "well learned". The difference with true knowledge is that the consumers of such products lack the context to put that information to good, practical, use. In the same way that looking at a lot of martial arts movies does not make you a good fighter, looking a lot of documentaries do not make you a scientist.