9 ms·

This comment below the article triggered something deep inside me: "So a 7 year old who refuses to read or practice reading is healthy anti-authority individual

This comment below the article triggered something deep inside me: "So a 7 year old who refuses to read or practice reading is healthy anti-authority individual?". Let me tell you that when I was a kid I loved to read, I read voraciously everything I could find, and I did because nobody made me do it. I can assure you that if a teacher had sat me down and forced me to read something boring at that young age, I would have hated the teacher, hated reading, and hated school and I would hated anyone who tried to get me to do it again, forever. Believe me, some kids just love freedom! Please, if there are any teachers out here reading this, do not kill the fragile thing in your kids that loves to learn by forcing them to read or do something boring with no explanation except, do it because you said so!

coroutines 11y ago
You definitely have a point. I imagine there is no good, scientific method to determining how someone should be motivated that we can train teachers with. Just have to trust they're human enough to see our inspirations before they apply their method. We can't all be amazing psychiatrists, and adults have a lot of influence on us at that age. I too benefited from a stand-offish approach to learning. I wish the better teachers were paid more to be in our schools - I had a teacher that completely ruined my love for animation. Largely I think schools exhaust kids to get them to change/conform.
- Alex3917 11y ago
  > I imagine there is no good, scientific method to determining how someone should be motivated that we can train teachers with. http://www.amazon.com/No-Contest-Case-Against-Competition/dp/0395631254/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458915029&sr=8-1&keywords=no+contest+the+case+against+competition http://www.amazon.com/No-Contest-Case-Against-Competition/dp... http://www.amazon.com/Punished-Rewards-Trouble-Incentive-Praise/dp/0618001816/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458915006&sr=8-1&keywords=punished+by+rewards http://www.amazon.com/Punished-Rewards-Trouble-Incentive-Pra...
- stray 11y ago
  The Montessori method pretty much nails it.
Aeolos 11y ago
I recall reading a study about how school destroys creativity. IIRC, they found that 70% of children entering school exhibited some form of creativity. By the time they finished 6 years of primary school, that number had fallen to 1%. We train ourselves to become mindless drones, and then put anyone who doesn't on medication.
- ewzimm 11y ago
  I still remember the shock of entering first grade, how structured everything was, how the teacher used a false high-pitched voice with exaggerated expressions to sound friendlier, how everyone thought that was normal and how she used that rapport to teach us to stand in lines for everything, agree with the group. When we were asked to work on the simplest math problems in a group, it was hard to reason with anyone because they would always go with the majority opinion instead of listening to arguments. I did end up getting a lot of respect when the teacher validated me. We definitely infantilize our children in schools, teach them to act stupidly in order to get them to behave. Then we wonder why we have problems like youth gang violence.
  - specialist 11y ago
    I volunteered quite a bit in my child's school. I hear and acknowledge you. I would only point out that group activities and socialization in the capable hands of a talented teacher are a wonder to behold. Some of my happiest memories are watching my child and his classmates lock in, help each other, having fun learning. Empowering. Alas, those talents aren't common.
  - cema 11y ago
    I think you have hit an important point: forced infantilization as a result of the group-based teaching environment in modern schools.
- avian 11y ago
  Whenever I hear about studies like that, I wonder what the control group was. As in, how many children that did not enter school exhibited creativity 6 years later?
Spooky23 11y ago
I hated reading anything to do with school assignments, but loved reading. I was a consistent B student, but when I got to do more AP and similar, more independent classes, I was able to really apply that knowledge I picked up through independent study. For a section on the Boer war, the teacher actually let me do the lecture!
specialist 11y ago
I don't think we're even close to understanding the hows and whys of rebellion, motivation. I don't feel peer pressure, even though I'm an extrovert. I fight for the underdog. I challenge unfair rules. Whereas I have very clever friends who observe, analyze, and find a way to move forward, I storm the castle. The result of abuse, neglect, innate traits, nature, nurture, birth order, luck of the draw? Who knows. In contrast to you, my reading and exploring were escapes, outlets, coping mechanisms. I was discouraged, coerced to be more like the other kids. Every person has their own way out. What's magical to me is that for many kids, there can be 2 or 3 "angels" (mentors) to help them find their way. Instead of expecting every authority figure and their subjects to behave in some idealized manner, I wish that every kid has a chance to meet their "uncle" or "granny" figure role that makes life bearable.
vasaulys 11y ago
As an American going to school in Canada, I've wondered how American this idea is of "being your own man" and "don't tell me what to do." I certainly feel the same, but many of my peers seem to only do something if an authority spurs them on.
CyberDildonics 11y ago
Merging the discussion of kids and adults is a fallacy anyways since authority figures in a child's life hopefully know about preparing for the future and have the child's interests at heart to some extent. As people grow up though authority figures have more of their own incentives and the people they are commanding have the figure things out for themselves which makes for a much larger grey area.
- oska 11y ago
  > authority figures in a child's life hopefully know about preparing for the future and have the child's interests at heart to some extent The immense popularity of Roald Dahl books which continually portray a lot of adult authority figures as not having the children's best interest at heart but rather their own, speaks against the idea that children agree with you. Anti-authoritarianism, as the article points out, is not against all authority; it's against authority which is thrust upon you and not by your own choosing. This is an immense part of the experience of many or most children. It doesn't necessarily have to be that way, indeed most children are very good at choosing who to trust and who to invest authority in and who not to. Taking that choice away is immensely frustrating for children.
6502nerdface 11y ago
> Let me tell you that when I was a kid I loved to read, I read voraciously everything I could find, and I did because nobody made me do it. Completely agreed, and this has been argued since antiquity. In Plato's Republic: Socrates: Therefore, calculation, geometry, and all the preliminary education required for dialectic must be offered to the future rulers in childhood, and not in the shape of compulsory learning either. Glaucon: Why's that? Socrates: Because no free person should learn anything like a slave. Forced bodily labor does no harm to the body, but nothing taught by force stays in the soul. Glaucon: That's true. Socrates: Then don't use force to train the children in these subjects; use play instead. That way you'll also see better what each of them is naturally fitted for.
- labster 11y ago
  I don't think an appeal to authority is gonna work in this thread.
  - steamer25 11y ago
    Have an upvote. While I find your comment humorous, it's also insightful. I don't see why others would downvote it.
    - 6502nerdface 11y ago
      Yeah, GP is making a clever allusion to TFA, not actually accusing me of appeal to authority :)
      - labster 11y ago
        Exactly and thanks. While Plato is something of an authority (and thus the best target for the joke), he does show his work. HN is pretty good about avoiding appeal to authority. But it is a frightfully common logical fallacy, and the perhaps the only one we spend so much time educating our children to use. Largely by example.
snowwrestler 11y ago
> I can assure you that if a teacher had sat me down and forced me to read something boring at that young age I added emphasis on an important word here. Of course kids don't like to be made to read something boring. Where things get serious is when a kid refuses to read AT ALL, or worse, is demonstrably incapable of focusing long enough to read. While I think that ADD is over-diagnosed in kids, I also know from personal experience that some people (not just kids) really do have ADD and benefit from therapeutic intervention. To me it seems just as dangerous to over-diagnose political anti-authoritarianism as it is to over-diagnose medical ADD. Anyway, 7-year-olds do not actually have an anti-authoritarian streak; they crave the attention, acceptance, and approval of their parents and teachers. But they are in the process of establishing an independent mental model of themselves, which means they experiment to find out where the boundaries are. Kids don't employ political thinking to reject authority, they are still stuck in the process of discovering and defining what authority actually is.
- nostrebored 11y ago
  I think that things you are forced to read are generally more boring. Even things in college that I was interested in became monotonous when I was forced to read the subject material, whereas things that I decided to research organically were always entertaining and I could spend hours looking into the subject without feeling fatigued. Thinking that kids are different or incapable of learning on their own is just people wanting kids to go through the same meat grinder of education that they did. My partner was unschooled, and after talking to her and getting over the initial reaction of "that's nuts" I feel like it actually makes a ton of sense. The data support it. I don't care if you're kid can't read at 7 -- if it's not due to a disability such as dyslexia -- and neither does their future education.
  - giltleaf 11y ago
    What does "unschooled" mean? Did they just test into a GED/college, or have they never been in an educational institution? What do they do now (feel free not to answer that kind of personal question, but I honestly never really thought of "unschooled as a concept and this is sending me down a rabbit hole)?
savanaly 11y ago
Aren't there also a whole lot of kids who no one is forcing to read and also never feel like reading (mainly because they never see their parents or adult role models reading)? How do they fit into the picture you paint?
- fallingfrog 11y ago
  Well, I would say that they might benefit from somebody reading things to them, or telling a story from a book, and if that doesn't work, I can guarantee that if it isn't reading there is definitely something that lights up this kids face, and maybe our role as adults is more to allow the child to explore what that might be than to force them to practice the skill of our choosing. And then you can show the kid how reading can be a doorway to that skill in turn.
  - tunap 11y ago
    I know an 87yo man who did not learn to read until his 40's. He is off the charts intelligent, a very accomplished business man and a widely recognized/awarded artisan. Times were different in his adolescence, and he has done plenty of reading in his latter life(classics, technical) but he professes his depth of success would not have been possible if he were distracted by "fairy tales" & the daily assault on our senses of modern(pre-digital) media & marketing. As a result, I sometimes question my thousands of hours reading fiction as a kid instead of honing my historical knowledge or technical skills. Ultimately however, I do not regret the multitude of stories I have experienced & cherish the imaginitive depths I experience in my mind's eye, I won't ever be the "best of the best of the best" of anything, but I will be good and I will be the best I can be while I enjoy life's distractions. He respects that attitude & has expressed his envy, too. The grass really is greener on every other side, I guess. edit: added last two sentences, needed a point to the post. I am flighty, but I digress...
malkia 11y ago
My father knew this about me, and forbid me to read too many programming books (but instead had to concetrate on real literature). Later he told me, that by doing this he actually made me read (in secret) lots of programming books (and damn... he knew about it :)).
- dec0dedab0de 11y ago
  I am currently doing this with my son with just reading in general. I'll tell him he has to goto bed, and he'll ask if he can read, and I'll say no and turn out the light. Even though I know he has a flashlight in his room and stays up about 45 minutes after I close the door.
  - Swizec 11y ago
    But how did you teach him to be antiauthoritative first? My mum has done similar tricks to me and still does now that I'm grown up and out of her hair. But what if I just folded over and said "Okay" and went to bed when she told me to?
    - alanwatts 11y ago
      It's purely natural. All life strives to push the boundaries laid by former life. For kids it's a game to see who can get away with the most without getting in trouble
    - munchbunny 11y ago
      The brilliance is knowing that you would disobey. If you were the type that folded over she would have just asked you to read more.
0xdeadbeefbabe 11y ago
What if you are kidnapped by a secret band of Kumite fighters and they demand you learn Karate? Also preparing for the olympics is boring. Learning to do boring things has really paid off. I'm not sure any teacher should take your advice just because you "love freedom". Aren't the authoritarians the very people who make you (!) love freedom in the first place?
nathan_f77 11y ago
This was my experience with learning Mandarin Chinese. I loved learning it when I was a teenager. I got out all the books in the library, and was practicing flash cards with our Chinese friends. Then I decided that I may as well do it at school, so I started taking lessons, and they started giving me homework. And so then it became a chore, and I gave it up at the end of the year. Same for piano lessons, actually.
- seivan 11y ago
  Same experience here. Programming was boring in high school. More fun before and after.
tn13 11y ago
I have not read the original article but I think the context matters. Growing up in India, "English medium education" was a big thing. I had learned mathematical tables in my local language prior going to school and when I entered an English school I had to learn everything again which teacher taught to us as "Two Two Za Four". I was very curious about the "Za" and with my mother's help figured out that it is in fact "Two Twoes are Four". When in class I started saying tables in the same fashion with more clearer pronunciation my teacher branded me "stupid" for not conforming to the usual pronunciation. It only made me realize the teacher is stupid. A child refusing to read is not necessary refusing to read everything. May be the child is refusing to read what teacher prescribed to read. May be the child hates the specific content. A good and empathetic teacher must see what is wrong here and help the child develop curiosity about reading instead of branding the child stupid. In another story in my childhood in India: "elocution competitions" were very popular and all mothers wanted their kids to win the first prize. "Experts" had selected few stories that "built character" and we were supposed to memorize it and then reproduce it with acting. (You must bring tears in your eyes when describing the mother's pain in the story- teacher said). Despite being a crazy reader I never excelled in this and my mother was very upset. Today I am author of several children's story books which are popular too. The reason why I failed to tell a story on stage is because I could never relate to the "character building story" that someone else selected for me. I wanted to tell a story from Alif Laila or some Bollywood movie not the "character building story" meant to instill value. Even though your point that a "child refusing to read is not necessarily anti-authority" is correct, I think there is a good chance that the child's individuality and individual preferences are at play. American liberalism is moving very fast towards "everyone must be like everyone else and have same opinions" and probably affecting public education system too.
the_ancient 11y ago
You assume Schools and Teachers have the desire, the goal of Education. They do not. They have the desire the goal to create a work force, soldiers, and compliant citizens for society,. Not to create educated free thinking persons
- kpil 11y ago
  I don't know. For most of then it's just a job. It's rewarding sometimes and sometimes not. A few of then really burn for it and make wonders. Others burned out. I think a surprisingly large percentage are not particularly suited to be a teacher,and they suffer as they are not in control of the situation. A few are probably really bad apples and should not be allowed to work with children since they are paedophiles or sadists. But I doubt that even more than a few teachers are thinking in the terms of creating a 'compliant' workforce.
  - the_ancient 11y ago
    >But I doubt that even more than a few teachers are thinking in the terms of creating a 'compliant' workforce. Consciously, no probably not. They probably genuinely believe they are educating.. That is the by design.. After all the Students and Parents are not aware most of the time of the manipulation being done upon them either. After all students do learn things... They have to in order to be a use as workers, soldiers, etc. They however must learn not question authority, not question their masters, must not have critical thinking skills, or skills that lesson their dependency on Corporations or Government. The Underground History of American Education: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWRqZrCMqbA&list=PL8v6e5jkrm1FvaQv7GuZe41o4fPfreV0O https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWRqZrCMqbA&list=PL8v6e5jkrm...
- macavity23 11y ago
  You're confusing the motivations of individuals (Teachers) with the emergent properties of systems (Schools). It's entirely possible to have systems where all actors' motivations are positive, yet the outcomes are not.
  - 11y ago
vacri 11y ago
The problem here is that there are no one-size-fits-all approaches. Autodidacts will train themselves, but most people aren't autodidacts.
andrei_says_ 11y ago
It's not the teachers per se, it's the school system that turns them into henchmen. Institutionalized oppression. Still haven't figured out that forcing kids to do things against their will does not make them love doing it. Another level of perversion is singling out kids who stand up for themselves and refuse to (or just cannot) fit in the extremely unnatural and unhealthy environment that school is, often labeling them abnormal and often pushing for medicating them. Atrocious. A great book on the topic is "Punished by Rewards" by Alfie Kohn. Lots and lots of research showing how attempts for extrinsic motivation kill intrinsic motivation. For parents reading this: Praise kills motivation. Encouragement kills motivation. Rewards kill motivation (it shifts onto the rewards). Punishment destroys trust and creates motivation to not be caught. ;)
EvanPlaice 11y ago
Wait til we see the first generation of kids forced to code in school. As much as politicians want tomtreat programming as the 'new literacy' i can think of no better strategy to destroy an entire generation's intrinsic passion to learn technology. Not to mention, the vast majority of teachers are woefully incapable of effectively teaching a subject they they, themselves don't begin to grasp. There's no money in teaching so those with the background required to be 'good' teachers will inevitably pursue other, better opportunities.

coroutines 11y ago

You definitely have a point. I imagine there is no good, scientific method to determining how someone should be motivated that we can train teachers with. Just have to trust they're human enough to see our inspirations before they apply their method. We can't all be amazing psychiatrists, and adults have a lot of influence on us at that age. I too benefited from a stand-offish approach to learning. I wish the better teachers were paid more to be in our schools - I had a teacher that completely ruined my love for animation. Largely I think schools exhaust kids to get them to change/conform.

Alex3917 11y ago
> I imagine there is no good, scientific method to determining how someone should be motivated that we can train teachers with. http://www.amazon.com/No-Contest-Case-Against-Competition/dp/0395631254/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458915029&sr=8-1&keywords=no+contest+the+case+against+competition http://www.amazon.com/No-Contest-Case-Against-Competition/dp... http://www.amazon.com/Punished-Rewards-Trouble-Incentive-Praise/dp/0618001816/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458915006&sr=8-1&keywords=punished+by+rewards http://www.amazon.com/Punished-Rewards-Trouble-Incentive-Pra...
stray 11y ago
The Montessori method pretty much nails it.

Aeolos 11y ago

I recall reading a study about how school destroys creativity. IIRC, they found that 70% of children entering school exhibited some form of creativity. By the time they finished 6 years of primary school, that number had fallen to 1%. We train ourselves to become mindless drones, and then put anyone who doesn't on medication.

ewzimm 11y ago
I still remember the shock of entering first grade, how structured everything was, how the teacher used a false high-pitched voice with exaggerated expressions to sound friendlier, how everyone thought that was normal and how she used that rapport to teach us to stand in lines for everything, agree with the group. When we were asked to work on the simplest math problems in a group, it was hard to reason with anyone because they would always go with the majority opinion instead of listening to arguments. I did end up getting a lot of respect when the teacher validated me. We definitely infantilize our children in schools, teach them to act stupidly in order to get them to behave. Then we wonder why we have problems like youth gang violence.
- specialist 11y ago
  I volunteered quite a bit in my child's school. I hear and acknowledge you. I would only point out that group activities and socialization in the capable hands of a talented teacher are a wonder to behold. Some of my happiest memories are watching my child and his classmates lock in, help each other, having fun learning. Empowering. Alas, those talents aren't common.
- cema 11y ago
  I think you have hit an important point: forced infantilization as a result of the group-based teaching environment in modern schools.
avian 11y ago
Whenever I hear about studies like that, I wonder what the control group was. As in, how many children that did not enter school exhibited creativity 6 years later?

Spooky23 11y ago

I hated reading anything to do with school assignments, but loved reading. I was a consistent B student, but when I got to do more AP and similar, more independent classes, I was able to really apply that knowledge I picked up through independent study. For a section on the Boer war, the teacher actually let me do the lecture!

specialist 11y ago

I don't think we're even close to understanding the hows and whys of rebellion, motivation. I don't feel peer pressure, even though I'm an extrovert. I fight for the underdog. I challenge unfair rules. Whereas I have very clever friends who observe, analyze, and find a way to move forward, I storm the castle. The result of abuse, neglect, innate traits, nature, nurture, birth order, luck of the draw? Who knows. In contrast to you, my reading and exploring were escapes, outlets, coping mechanisms. I was discouraged, coerced to be more like the other kids. Every person has their own way out. What's magical to me is that for many kids, there can be 2 or 3 "angels" (mentors) to help them find their way. Instead of expecting every authority figure and their subjects to behave in some idealized manner, I wish that every kid has a chance to meet their "uncle" or "granny" figure role that makes life bearable.

vasaulys 11y ago

As an American going to school in Canada, I've wondered how American this idea is of "being your own man" and "don't tell me what to do." I certainly feel the same, but many of my peers seem to only do something if an authority spurs them on.

CyberDildonics 11y ago

Merging the discussion of kids and adults is a fallacy anyways since authority figures in a child's life hopefully know about preparing for the future and have the child's interests at heart to some extent. As people grow up though authority figures have more of their own incentives and the people they are commanding have the figure things out for themselves which makes for a much larger grey area.

oska 11y ago
> authority figures in a child's life hopefully know about preparing for the future and have the child's interests at heart to some extent The immense popularity of Roald Dahl books which continually portray a lot of adult authority figures as not having the children's best interest at heart but rather their own, speaks against the idea that children agree with you. Anti-authoritarianism, as the article points out, is not against all authority; it's against authority which is thrust upon you and not by your own choosing. This is an immense part of the experience of many or most children. It doesn't necessarily have to be that way, indeed most children are very good at choosing who to trust and who to invest authority in and who not to. Taking that choice away is immensely frustrating for children.

6502nerdface 11y ago

> Let me tell you that when I was a kid I loved to read, I read voraciously everything I could find, and I did because nobody made me do it. Completely agreed, and this has been argued since antiquity. In Plato's Republic: Socrates: Therefore, calculation, geometry, and all the preliminary education required for dialectic must be offered to the future rulers in childhood, and not in the shape of compulsory learning either. Glaucon: Why's that? Socrates: Because no free person should learn anything like a slave. Forced bodily labor does no harm to the body, but nothing taught by force stays in the soul. Glaucon: That's true. Socrates: Then don't use force to train the children in these subjects; use play instead. That way you'll also see better what each of them is naturally fitted for.

labster 11y ago
I don't think an appeal to authority is gonna work in this thread.
- steamer25 11y ago
  Have an upvote. While I find your comment humorous, it's also insightful. I don't see why others would downvote it.
  - 6502nerdface 11y ago
    Yeah, GP is making a clever allusion to TFA, not actually accusing me of appeal to authority :)
    - labster 11y ago
      Exactly and thanks. While Plato is something of an authority (and thus the best target for the joke), he does show his work. HN is pretty good about avoiding appeal to authority. But it is a frightfully common logical fallacy, and the perhaps the only one we spend so much time educating our children to use. Largely by example.

snowwrestler 11y ago

> I can assure you that if a teacher had sat me down and forced me to read something boring at that young age I added emphasis on an important word here. Of course kids don't like to be made to read something boring. Where things get serious is when a kid refuses to read AT ALL, or worse, is demonstrably incapable of focusing long enough to read. While I think that ADD is over-diagnosed in kids, I also know from personal experience that some people (not just kids) really do have ADD and benefit from therapeutic intervention. To me it seems just as dangerous to over-diagnose political anti-authoritarianism as it is to over-diagnose medical ADD. Anyway, 7-year-olds do not actually have an anti-authoritarian streak; they crave the attention, acceptance, and approval of their parents and teachers. But they are in the process of establishing an independent mental model of themselves, which means they experiment to find out where the boundaries are. Kids don't employ political thinking to reject authority, they are still stuck in the process of discovering and defining what authority actually is.

nostrebored 11y ago
I think that things you are forced to read are generally more boring. Even things in college that I was interested in became monotonous when I was forced to read the subject material, whereas things that I decided to research organically were always entertaining and I could spend hours looking into the subject without feeling fatigued. Thinking that kids are different or incapable of learning on their own is just people wanting kids to go through the same meat grinder of education that they did. My partner was unschooled, and after talking to her and getting over the initial reaction of "that's nuts" I feel like it actually makes a ton of sense. The data support it. I don't care if you're kid can't read at 7 -- if it's not due to a disability such as dyslexia -- and neither does their future education.
- giltleaf 11y ago
  What does "unschooled" mean? Did they just test into a GED/college, or have they never been in an educational institution? What do they do now (feel free not to answer that kind of personal question, but I honestly never really thought of "unschooled as a concept and this is sending me down a rabbit hole)?

savanaly 11y ago

Aren't there also a whole lot of kids who no one is forcing to read and also never feel like reading (mainly because they never see their parents or adult role models reading)? How do they fit into the picture you paint?

fallingfrog 11y ago
Well, I would say that they might benefit from somebody reading things to them, or telling a story from a book, and if that doesn't work, I can guarantee that if it isn't reading there is definitely something that lights up this kids face, and maybe our role as adults is more to allow the child to explore what that might be than to force them to practice the skill of our choosing. And then you can show the kid how reading can be a doorway to that skill in turn.
- tunap 11y ago
  I know an 87yo man who did not learn to read until his 40's. He is off the charts intelligent, a very accomplished business man and a widely recognized/awarded artisan. Times were different in his adolescence, and he has done plenty of reading in his latter life(classics, technical) but he professes his depth of success would not have been possible if he were distracted by "fairy tales" & the daily assault on our senses of modern(pre-digital) media & marketing. As a result, I sometimes question my thousands of hours reading fiction as a kid instead of honing my historical knowledge or technical skills. Ultimately however, I do not regret the multitude of stories I have experienced & cherish the imaginitive depths I experience in my mind's eye, I won't ever be the "best of the best of the best" of anything, but I will be good and I will be the best I can be while I enjoy life's distractions. He respects that attitude & has expressed his envy, too. The grass really is greener on every other side, I guess. edit: added last two sentences, needed a point to the post. I am flighty, but I digress...

malkia 11y ago

My father knew this about me, and forbid me to read too many programming books (but instead had to concetrate on real literature). Later he told me, that by doing this he actually made me read (in secret) lots of programming books (and damn... he knew about it :)).

dec0dedab0de 11y ago
I am currently doing this with my son with just reading in general. I'll tell him he has to goto bed, and he'll ask if he can read, and I'll say no and turn out the light. Even though I know he has a flashlight in his room and stays up about 45 minutes after I close the door.
- Swizec 11y ago
  But how did you teach him to be antiauthoritative first? My mum has done similar tricks to me and still does now that I'm grown up and out of her hair. But what if I just folded over and said "Okay" and went to bed when she told me to?
  - alanwatts 11y ago
    It's purely natural. All life strives to push the boundaries laid by former life. For kids it's a game to see who can get away with the most without getting in trouble
  - munchbunny 11y ago
    The brilliance is knowing that you would disobey. If you were the type that folded over she would have just asked you to read more.

0xdeadbeefbabe 11y ago

What if you are kidnapped by a secret band of Kumite fighters and they demand you learn Karate? Also preparing for the olympics is boring. Learning to do boring things has really paid off. I'm not sure any teacher should take your advice just because you "love freedom". Aren't the authoritarians the very people who make you (!) love freedom in the first place?

nathan_f77 11y ago

This was my experience with learning Mandarin Chinese. I loved learning it when I was a teenager. I got out all the books in the library, and was practicing flash cards with our Chinese friends. Then I decided that I may as well do it at school, so I started taking lessons, and they started giving me homework. And so then it became a chore, and I gave it up at the end of the year. Same for piano lessons, actually.

seivan 11y ago
Same experience here. Programming was boring in high school. More fun before and after.

tn13 11y ago

I have not read the original article but I think the context matters. Growing up in India, "English medium education" was a big thing. I had learned mathematical tables in my local language prior going to school and when I entered an English school I had to learn everything again which teacher taught to us as "Two Two Za Four". I was very curious about the "Za" and with my mother's help figured out that it is in fact "Two Twoes are Four". When in class I started saying tables in the same fashion with more clearer pronunciation my teacher branded me "stupid" for not conforming to the usual pronunciation. It only made me realize the teacher is stupid. A child refusing to read is not necessary refusing to read everything. May be the child is refusing to read what teacher prescribed to read. May be the child hates the specific content. A good and empathetic teacher must see what is wrong here and help the child develop curiosity about reading instead of branding the child stupid. In another story in my childhood in India: "elocution competitions" were very popular and all mothers wanted their kids to win the first prize. "Experts" had selected few stories that "built character" and we were supposed to memorize it and then reproduce it with acting. (You must bring tears in your eyes when describing the mother's pain in the story- teacher said). Despite being a crazy reader I never excelled in this and my mother was very upset. Today I am author of several children's story books which are popular too. The reason why I failed to tell a story on stage is because I could never relate to the "character building story" that someone else selected for me. I wanted to tell a story from Alif Laila or some Bollywood movie not the "character building story" meant to instill value. Even though your point that a "child refusing to read is not necessarily anti-authority" is correct, I think there is a good chance that the child's individuality and individual preferences are at play. American liberalism is moving very fast towards "everyone must be like everyone else and have same opinions" and probably affecting public education system too.

the_ancient 11y ago

You assume Schools and Teachers have the desire, the goal of Education. They do not. They have the desire the goal to create a work force, soldiers, and compliant citizens for society,. Not to create educated free thinking persons

kpil 11y ago
I don't know. For most of then it's just a job. It's rewarding sometimes and sometimes not. A few of then really burn for it and make wonders. Others burned out. I think a surprisingly large percentage are not particularly suited to be a teacher,and they suffer as they are not in control of the situation. A few are probably really bad apples and should not be allowed to work with children since they are paedophiles or sadists. But I doubt that even more than a few teachers are thinking in the terms of creating a 'compliant' workforce.
- the_ancient 11y ago
  >But I doubt that even more than a few teachers are thinking in the terms of creating a 'compliant' workforce. Consciously, no probably not. They probably genuinely believe they are educating.. That is the by design.. After all the Students and Parents are not aware most of the time of the manipulation being done upon them either. After all students do learn things... They have to in order to be a use as workers, soldiers, etc. They however must learn not question authority, not question their masters, must not have critical thinking skills, or skills that lesson their dependency on Corporations or Government. The Underground History of American Education: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWRqZrCMqbA&list=PL8v6e5jkrm1FvaQv7GuZe41o4fPfreV0O https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWRqZrCMqbA&list=PL8v6e5jkrm...
macavity23 11y ago
You're confusing the motivations of individuals (Teachers) with the emergent properties of systems (Schools). It's entirely possible to have systems where all actors' motivations are positive, yet the outcomes are not.
- 11y ago

vacri 11y ago

The problem here is that there are no one-size-fits-all approaches. Autodidacts will train themselves, but most people aren't autodidacts.

andrei_says_ 11y ago

It's not the teachers per se, it's the school system that turns them into henchmen. Institutionalized oppression. Still haven't figured out that forcing kids to do things against their will does not make them love doing it. Another level of perversion is singling out kids who stand up for themselves and refuse to (or just cannot) fit in the extremely unnatural and unhealthy environment that school is, often labeling them abnormal and often pushing for medicating them. Atrocious. A great book on the topic is "Punished by Rewards" by Alfie Kohn. Lots and lots of research showing how attempts for extrinsic motivation kill intrinsic motivation. For parents reading this: Praise kills motivation. Encouragement kills motivation. Rewards kill motivation (it shifts onto the rewards). Punishment destroys trust and creates motivation to not be caught. ;)

EvanPlaice 11y ago

Wait til we see the first generation of kids forced to code in school. As much as politicians want tomtreat programming as the 'new literacy' i can think of no better strategy to destroy an entire generation's intrinsic passion to learn technology. Not to mention, the vast majority of teachers are woefully incapable of effectively teaching a subject they they, themselves don't begin to grasp. There's no money in teaching so those with the background required to be 'good' teachers will inevitably pursue other, better opportunities.