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>They are fully democratic and focus on producing empowered self directed citizens who understand how to share limited resources and cooperate. The more pertin

by mordant 10y ago

>They are fully democratic and focus on producing empowered self directed citizens who understand how to share limited resources and cooperate. The more pertinent question is whether the citizens they produce can read and write, know how to multiply and divide, can name the parts of speech, and have at least a passing notion of the history and culture of their respective countries, regions, and locales. Somehow, I doubt it.

barry-cotter 10y ago
> The more pertinent question is whether the citizens they produce can read and write, know how to multiply and divide, can name the parts of speech, and have at least a passing notion of the history and culture of their respective countries, regions, and locales. They learn how to read and write. Children are learning machines. They figure out how to do things that are a lot more complicated than learning how to read and write using an alphabet in a culture saturated with writing. A guy I know here in Shanghai has a Taiwanese mother and an American father. He went to American schools all the way through his education. He can read Chinese perfectly, and write when he's using a phone or computer though his handwriting is quite limited. Another guy I know whose parents speak German to him grew up in Ireland and was educated through English. His spelling and grammar when writing in German is not great but he has never studied German other than as a foreign language for an easy grade, nor has he ever lived in a German speaking country. John Taylor Gatto has written that he can teach a 9 year old to read in 40 contact hours. People learn to perform quite complicated mathematical operations in the course of their lives, through experience. If you're interested in this there's a lot of research on unschooled children. Street children who buy and sell things learn all the mathematical skills they need in their lives, which is most of what most people need. Knowing the parts of speech is almost perfectly useless. It has no effect on how well one writes, not even for people who are writing in a language they learned after adolescence. The only things that research shows improving writing are practice and critique. People learn about their culture by living in it. Ditto for their history. As someone with way above average historical knowledge I can also say that history education through at least middle school is worthless. It's pre digested pap with no acknowledgment of nuance or shades of gray.
- Ntrails 10y ago
  > People learn to perform quite complicated mathematical operations in the course of their lives, through experience. With the greatest of respect, I do not think a child is going to learn significant mathematics beyond arithmetic by "living". Give them a book and an interest? Sure. A little direction and help? Better. But the number of people who can invent calculus from scratch is pretty low. > most of what most people need Ugh.
  - barry-cotter 10y ago
    Knowing calculus and linear algebra has been of about as much use to me as my knowledge of history; none bar intellectual satisfaction. I feel the same way about people who force their interests and prejudices on others even when I share those prejudices. Those people are st best obnoxious. I derived neither enjoyment nor any discernible benefit from having to do P.E. in school. I am not in favour of forcing Math or anything else on anybody for whom it holds no interest. If you can't persuade them to learn it it probably isn't something they're ever going to be interested in. As to your distaste I feel the same way about many, many things but I'm not the one supporting making everybody "learn" things they have neither interest in nor a facility for.
    - Ntrails 10y ago
      You want to let a 10 year old decide for themselves whether or not they'll want to do any branch of science/Engineering that relies on mathematics at university level? This is not about forcing an interest, this is about shaping opportunity. The ideal of school is to have provided a well rounded education such that the individual at 16 or 18 can start to make informed decisions about their life. I get that calculus isn't very useful for the largest proportion of society. I can't remember the last time knowing how to derive the volume of a sphere was useful to me. The concepts, the mode of thought, is useful. History? Should have been teaching you about sources. Bias. Propaganda. Analysis. Argument. Things you need to learn to be able to generate a position on something in life. I can assure you that my knowledge of medical history through the ages has yet to be useful - but that doesn't mean that what I learned in that class hasn't been? Maybe I'm wrong, and the rest of the world isn't like me. Maybe the rest of the world are motivated self starters with insatiable curiosity and infinite capacity for broad self directed learning. Me? I'd have picked the couple of things I enjoyed, learned sod all else, and once I realised there were no consequences to slacking off? I'd have done that, heck I did do that. In other words. Parents make children eat vegetables because we know what is good for them, better than they do at least. Abdicating responsibility for that by passing it off to the child just seems mad

by mordant 10y ago

barry-cotter 10y ago

> The more pertinent question is whether the citizens they produce can read and write, know how to multiply and divide, can name the parts of speech, and have at least a passing notion of the history and culture of their respective countries, regions, and locales. They learn how to read and write. Children are learning machines. They figure out how to do things that are a lot more complicated than learning how to read and write using an alphabet in a culture saturated with writing. A guy I know here in Shanghai has a Taiwanese mother and an American father. He went to American schools all the way through his education. He can read Chinese perfectly, and write when he's using a phone or computer though his handwriting is quite limited. Another guy I know whose parents speak German to him grew up in Ireland and was educated through English. His spelling and grammar when writing in German is not great but he has never studied German other than as a foreign language for an easy grade, nor has he ever lived in a German speaking country. John Taylor Gatto has written that he can teach a 9 year old to read in 40 contact hours. People learn to perform quite complicated mathematical operations in the course of their lives, through experience. If you're interested in this there's a lot of research on unschooled children. Street children who buy and sell things learn all the mathematical skills they need in their lives, which is most of what most people need. Knowing the parts of speech is almost perfectly useless. It has no effect on how well one writes, not even for people who are writing in a language they learned after adolescence. The only things that research shows improving writing are practice and critique. People learn about their culture by living in it. Ditto for their history. As someone with way above average historical knowledge I can also say that history education through at least middle school is worthless. It's pre digested pap with no acknowledgment of nuance or shades of gray.

Ntrails 10y ago
> People learn to perform quite complicated mathematical operations in the course of their lives, through experience. With the greatest of respect, I do not think a child is going to learn significant mathematics beyond arithmetic by "living". Give them a book and an interest? Sure. A little direction and help? Better. But the number of people who can invent calculus from scratch is pretty low. > most of what most people need Ugh.
- barry-cotter 10y ago
  Knowing calculus and linear algebra has been of about as much use to me as my knowledge of history; none bar intellectual satisfaction. I feel the same way about people who force their interests and prejudices on others even when I share those prejudices. Those people are st best obnoxious. I derived neither enjoyment nor any discernible benefit from having to do P.E. in school. I am not in favour of forcing Math or anything else on anybody for whom it holds no interest. If you can't persuade them to learn it it probably isn't something they're ever going to be interested in. As to your distaste I feel the same way about many, many things but I'm not the one supporting making everybody "learn" things they have neither interest in nor a facility for.
  - Ntrails 10y ago
    You want to let a 10 year old decide for themselves whether or not they'll want to do any branch of science/Engineering that relies on mathematics at university level? This is not about forcing an interest, this is about shaping opportunity. The ideal of school is to have provided a well rounded education such that the individual at 16 or 18 can start to make informed decisions about their life. I get that calculus isn't very useful for the largest proportion of society. I can't remember the last time knowing how to derive the volume of a sphere was useful to me. The concepts, the mode of thought, is useful. History? Should have been teaching you about sources. Bias. Propaganda. Analysis. Argument. Things you need to learn to be able to generate a position on something in life. I can assure you that my knowledge of medical history through the ages has yet to be useful - but that doesn't mean that what I learned in that class hasn't been? Maybe I'm wrong, and the rest of the world isn't like me. Maybe the rest of the world are motivated self starters with insatiable curiosity and infinite capacity for broad self directed learning. Me? I'd have picked the couple of things I enjoyed, learned sod all else, and once I realised there were no consequences to slacking off? I'd have done that, heck I did do that. In other words. Parents make children eat vegetables because we know what is good for them, better than they do at least. Abdicating responsibility for that by passing it off to the child just seems mad