4 ms·

> "One of the problems here is that everybody has a pre-formed opinion and does not seem to want to risk having to modify it with the evidence of experience."

by whack 10y ago

> "One of the problems here is that everybody has a pre-formed opinion and does not seem to want to risk having to modify it with the evidence of experience." That's probably the most accurate description of HN comments I've seen. People see a headline related to something they already have pre-existing beliefs about, they read a few paragraphs just to make sure they're on point, and then they jump straight to the comments to argue in favor of what they already know to be true. I'm willing to wager $10000 that a significant majority of HN commenters in any thread do not read the article in full, and even among those who do, a smaller minority actually post comments addressing the meat of what the article is saying.

alistproducer2 10y ago
I concur with this. I have to fight the urge to do it myself.
agentgt 10y ago
> I'm willing to wager $10000 that a significant majority of HN commenters in any thread do not read the article in full, and even among those who do, a smaller minority actually post comments addressing the meat of what the article is saying. I'm curious... did you read the article in full? I'm not saying you're wrong but it would be funny if you didn't read it as well :) One of the things I like about Scientific America is they have an Executive Summary at the start of the article. So while folks may not have the details they at least have the correct gist. I skimmed the article. Do I have pre-formed opinions... I do. Would they have changed after reading the article in detail ... they might have if there was some hard evidence other than the obvious stat that the US is bad in math. My question (I'm having my first child with in a month) is what do I do as a parent other than be patient: "Training teachers in a new way of thinking will take time, and American parents will need to be patient. In Japan, the transition did not happen overnight. When Takahashi began teaching in the new style, parents initially complained about the young instructor experimenting on their children." My father forced my brother and I into Kumon. Kumon was hardly imaginative. Did it work? I think a little bit. Education techniques particularly math has changed so many times that it is beginning to look like diet and exercises. We are all a little jaded so I can understand the plethora of pre-formed opinions.
- jimhefferon 10y ago
  > My question (I'm having my first child with in a month) is what do I do as a parent other than be patient: You could look into how your local public school system teaches. Taking to the people who teach there, for instance, is helpful. Expressing support for an NCTM-like approach, if you find you do support it, would also be great. > Education techniques particularly math has changed so many times that it is beginning to look like diet and exercises. We are all a little jaded so I can understand the plethora of pre-formed opinions. I understand and as a person who teaches math, and teaches teachers too, I feel the same impatience. I want to know why we don't just go out and see, on actual students, what actually makes them better at understanding and being able to solve problems. Try different things and see what works. Review video tapes. Give before and after tests, and focus groups, and see what the people in the class learn the most from. Train teachers in the details of doing the job, as an engineer or doctor would be trained in details. The thing is, that's what the folks described here are doing. Have they got the final answer? I doubt it, particularly as the impacts of tech is so little understood even now. But they are making progress, at least it seems that way to me. (If you are interested, Building a Better Teacher is a source that would give you more of an understanding of what the discussion is. This article was part of the marketing people's plants for the book.)
  - mordocai 10y ago
    > I want to know why we don't just go out and see, on actual students, what actually makes them better at understanding and being able to solve problems. Try different things and see what works. Review video tapes. Give before and after tests, and focus groups, and see what the people in the class learn the most from. Probably because parents don't want their kids to be one on the receiving end of an experimental technique that doesn't work and sets back their child's learning and development by an unknown amount.
  - bpyne 10y ago
    This comment is related to your muse starting with "I want to know why..." I'm simply pondering and looking for feedback from someone who is actually a teaching professional unlike myself. "There [my comment: Finland], as in Japan, teachers teach for 600 or fewer hours each school year, leaving them ample time to prepare, revise and learn. By contrast, American teachers spend nearly 1,100 hours with little feedback." This line took my notice. I have to wonder if their school systems are such that teachers do not have to be in front of students 6 continuous hours daily as my daughter's teachers do. (My daughter is in elementary school.) By the time her teachers finish with students, attend after-school meetings and grade, I can see there being precious little mental energy left for professional development. My friend Scott made a career change a decade ago. After being a software developer for 22 years, he switched to teaching tech in a middle school. His comment to me after his first year was that teaching is much more exhausting because you have to be "on" 5-6 hours daily. If you're "off", students pick up on it and reflect it. His opinion hasn't changed after a decade.
ap22213 10y ago
Isn't that the problem with Internet discussions in general? It's so rare to find a person whose opinion has changed after reading a different perspective on the Internet.
- phorkyas 10y ago
  begun the circlejerk has.
SubiculumCode 10y ago
To be fair, most times articles coming from mainstream news organizations do not offer anything new to learn for the professional readers of HN, readers likely to have already encountered the arguments presented therein from years past of reading and learning. That is, NYTimes articles and the like frequently make weak arguments that support a preexisting opinion or agenda, and are meant for consumption by the non-professional general populace. There was a time, for example, that NPR and PBS provided informative information to me, but as I grew I began to realize that I knew what they were going to say before they said it and that further growth required better information sources.
jknoepfler 10y ago
Hmm, I wonder at what ratio of readers to non-readers you'd be able to get action at even odds... 1:5? 1:10? At what ratio would you be willing to wager against this bet? You set the ratio at 1:2 which I would not take even odds against. If you'd said 1:20 I'd think about it depending on how strictly "in full" were defined and how we decided to operationalize it.
TorKlingberg 10y ago
This goes especially for bike shed topics where everyone thinks they have it figured out. HN's favorites seem to me nutrition and schooling. Those threads never fail to get 300 comments.

by whack 10y ago

alistproducer2 10y ago

I concur with this. I have to fight the urge to do it myself.

agentgt 10y ago

> I'm willing to wager $10000 that a significant majority of HN commenters in any thread do not read the article in full, and even among those who do, a smaller minority actually post comments addressing the meat of what the article is saying. I'm curious... did you read the article in full? I'm not saying you're wrong but it would be funny if you didn't read it as well :) One of the things I like about Scientific America is they have an Executive Summary at the start of the article. So while folks may not have the details they at least have the correct gist. I skimmed the article. Do I have pre-formed opinions... I do. Would they have changed after reading the article in detail ... they might have if there was some hard evidence other than the obvious stat that the US is bad in math. My question (I'm having my first child with in a month) is what do I do as a parent other than be patient: "Training teachers in a new way of thinking will take time, and American parents will need to be patient. In Japan, the transition did not happen overnight. When Takahashi began teaching in the new style, parents initially complained about the young instructor experimenting on their children." My father forced my brother and I into Kumon. Kumon was hardly imaginative. Did it work? I think a little bit. Education techniques particularly math has changed so many times that it is beginning to look like diet and exercises. We are all a little jaded so I can understand the plethora of pre-formed opinions.

jimhefferon 10y ago
> My question (I'm having my first child with in a month) is what do I do as a parent other than be patient: You could look into how your local public school system teaches. Taking to the people who teach there, for instance, is helpful. Expressing support for an NCTM-like approach, if you find you do support it, would also be great. > Education techniques particularly math has changed so many times that it is beginning to look like diet and exercises. We are all a little jaded so I can understand the plethora of pre-formed opinions. I understand and as a person who teaches math, and teaches teachers too, I feel the same impatience. I want to know why we don't just go out and see, on actual students, what actually makes them better at understanding and being able to solve problems. Try different things and see what works. Review video tapes. Give before and after tests, and focus groups, and see what the people in the class learn the most from. Train teachers in the details of doing the job, as an engineer or doctor would be trained in details. The thing is, that's what the folks described here are doing. Have they got the final answer? I doubt it, particularly as the impacts of tech is so little understood even now. But they are making progress, at least it seems that way to me. (If you are interested, Building a Better Teacher is a source that would give you more of an understanding of what the discussion is. This article was part of the marketing people's plants for the book.)
- mordocai 10y ago
  > I want to know why we don't just go out and see, on actual students, what actually makes them better at understanding and being able to solve problems. Try different things and see what works. Review video tapes. Give before and after tests, and focus groups, and see what the people in the class learn the most from. Probably because parents don't want their kids to be one on the receiving end of an experimental technique that doesn't work and sets back their child's learning and development by an unknown amount.
- bpyne 10y ago
  This comment is related to your muse starting with "I want to know why..." I'm simply pondering and looking for feedback from someone who is actually a teaching professional unlike myself. "There [my comment: Finland], as in Japan, teachers teach for 600 or fewer hours each school year, leaving them ample time to prepare, revise and learn. By contrast, American teachers spend nearly 1,100 hours with little feedback." This line took my notice. I have to wonder if their school systems are such that teachers do not have to be in front of students 6 continuous hours daily as my daughter's teachers do. (My daughter is in elementary school.) By the time her teachers finish with students, attend after-school meetings and grade, I can see there being precious little mental energy left for professional development. My friend Scott made a career change a decade ago. After being a software developer for 22 years, he switched to teaching tech in a middle school. His comment to me after his first year was that teaching is much more exhausting because you have to be "on" 5-6 hours daily. If you're "off", students pick up on it and reflect it. His opinion hasn't changed after a decade.

ap22213 10y ago

Isn't that the problem with Internet discussions in general? It's so rare to find a person whose opinion has changed after reading a different perspective on the Internet.

phorkyas 10y ago
begun the circlejerk has.

SubiculumCode 10y ago

To be fair, most times articles coming from mainstream news organizations do not offer anything new to learn for the professional readers of HN, readers likely to have already encountered the arguments presented therein from years past of reading and learning. That is, NYTimes articles and the like frequently make weak arguments that support a preexisting opinion or agenda, and are meant for consumption by the non-professional general populace. There was a time, for example, that NPR and PBS provided informative information to me, but as I grew I began to realize that I knew what they were going to say before they said it and that further growth required better information sources.

jknoepfler 10y ago

Hmm, I wonder at what ratio of readers to non-readers you'd be able to get action at even odds... 1:5? 1:10? At what ratio would you be willing to wager against this bet? You set the ratio at 1:2 which I would not take even odds against. If you'd said 1:20 I'd think about it depending on how strictly "in full" were defined and how we decided to operationalize it.

TorKlingberg 10y ago

This goes especially for bike shed topics where everyone thinks they have it figured out. HN's favorites seem to me nutrition and schooling. Those threads never fail to get 300 comments.