6 ms·

School only kills creativity if you let it. Unfortunately, in general, to really succeed at school (and I say 'at school' to mean school as a system), you canno

by tkahn6 16y ago

School only kills creativity if you let it. Unfortunately, in general, to really succeed at school (and I say 'at school' to mean school as a system), you cannot take risks. It's a simple transaction: You give us your time (and that is really what you are giving up) and we give you a good grade. Points off for deviating from or questioning the standard model. I just graduated high school. My English teacher, who's class I found interesting most of the time, said for a final grade: memorize 25 lines of Shakespeare and recite for an A. Fuck that, I'll go learn C or something. (To his credit, he didn't count the grade when I flat out refused to do the assignment) School, for the most part, is about memorizing and convincing teachers to give you a good grade. That's all it is. It's a game where the goal is to get the highest GPA regardless of what it's supposed to represent. Every one once in a while, I would get a teacher who understood that the purpose of school is education, that students are there to learn. Definitely those were my favorite classes. And while we're talking about schools I'd like to rant about AP Computer Science: I find it offensive that they actually have the balls to call it 'Computer Science'. I took the AP test, got a 5. It should be called "Can You Recall Some Peculiarities of Java Off Hand?". Thousands of kids have taken this class, they've memorized a few facts about Java, and now they think that's what Computer Science is all about.

julius_geezer 16y ago
Frankly, there are a lot of worse ways to spend your time than memorizing some lines of Shakespeare. Of course, one would prefer to have one's choice and not get stuck with a real dog of a passage.
- GiraffeNecktie 16y ago
  I wish I could upvote you higher. The ability to commit complex information to memory is an immensely valuable building block for creativity. It's sad when education is only memorization and it's equally sad when education neglects memorization.
  - tkahn6 16y ago
    I fail to see how lines from Shakespeare are 'complex [pieces of] information'. They're just words arranged in a particular order. When memorization happens out of convenience that's a great thing. I have no problem asking students to memorize the derivatives of transcendental functions after they have derived them. It's good to memorize things that appear frequently in the line of work. For what purpose does memorizing Shakespeare serve?
    - pstuart 16y ago
      They're just words arranged in a particular order That ordering of words might actually convey some insights into life, love, and other such follies. Maybe in the act of memorizing it this may come through.
      - tkahn6 16y ago
        That ordering of words might actually convey some insights into life, love, and other such follies. Definitely. Hamlet has some amazing passages that are beautiful and thought-provoking. Maybe in the act of memorizing it this may come through. In my experience, understanding the text and memorizing it are entirely orthogonal endeavors.
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
    - shadowfox 16y ago
      > They're just words arranged in a particular order Hmm. That can be said of any piece of text
      - tkahn6 16y ago
        Correct. I was talking about it in terms of information. I can memorize the particular order of the symbols in Schrödinger's Wave Equation and still not understand what it means.
- tkahn6 16y ago
  I'm surprised you have any upvotes. You haven't actually made a substantial claim. All you've said is that memorizing Shakespeare is not the worst use of one's time. I don't know how anyone could disagree with such a statement when obviously memorizing Shakespeare is better use of one's time than say, joining a gang or watching paint dry.
  - alec 16y ago
    I think it's a good use of time, especially in an English class, because the beauty of Shakespeare never really came out for me until I read it word by word and knew enough to perform a bit of it. It wasn't created to be read, it was created to be performed, and I didn't pick up on all the nuances, humor, and craft that make it really good until I freed myself from reading it from paper. I'm likely a better writer because I've been forced to read poetry and plays in that way. I expect that he didn't substantiate his claim for the same reason the original poster didn't substantiate his claim that learning C is a good use of time - people around here who have done both likely appreciate the value of the task. Meta-point: I think a lot of people around here who argue "school is worthless, why am I doing this useless task" will point to this sort of exercise without asking or understanding why it's done. I certainly felt the same way when I was memorizing Shakespeare. While it's important to think for yourself, it's also important to take the advice of those who have more experience than you do, and when I see these threads I think many of the commentators haven't learned both lessons.
    - tkahn6 16y ago
      I agree with everything you've said. I think you would understand my position better if I clarified that it was memorization of the lines I was being graded on not the understanding of what the lines meant. That is the issue I took with the assignment. Learning C is an objectively better use of ones time than memorizing X because learning C requires that you think whereas memorizing X requires that you simply spend time committing the order of symbols to memory.
scott_s 16y ago
College is different. Maybe your first few classes will not be, but quickly you will find that pure memorization is not enough. And the great thing about college is that if the prior statement is not true, then it's your fault. For the first time, you are responsible for your own education. If you only have easy classes, that's because you did not seek out the challenging ones.
- tkahn6 16y ago
  If what you say is true, I'm very excited and I'm actually going to VT! I convinced the undergrad CS department to let me start taking CS classes first semester despite the fact that Exploring Engineering is a prerequisite. Do you think you could help me get in to audit a few classes? I'm basically not allowed to take any more math/science classes this semester because I don't have the prerequisites. I was thinking about trying to get into MATH-3134 Applied Combinatorics. Also, you might appreciate this web app/program that I wrote. http://hokienotify.me http://hokienotify.me It will notify you when a class you want has available seats. It syncs its database every 10 minutes or so with VT's.
  - rortian 16y ago
    One of the best pieces of advice I can give you is to not obsess over the college catalog. Freshmen year is about making friends and enjoying your new found freedom. If you want to learn more the best thing you can do is be a good student. If a topic interests you, stay after class and discuss it with a professor, or visit them at office hours. Opportunities abound for this sort of thing, usually in smaller classes though. I'd recommend getting used to college in your first year and then hitting up professors more when you have found your place at school.
  - Zev 16y ago
    I entered college three years ago thinking almost the exact same way as you did. I even had to memorize a soliloquy from Shakespeare in my HS English class; How all occasions do inform against me.... Yet I'm about to enter my senior year to graduate with a Political Science degree, only having a minor in Art and in CS. If you're like me (it sounds like you may be), you're smart. Just wait until you figure out that there are other ways to gratify your intellect than coding. Take a class that has nothing to do with any sciences. One that you want to, not one that you're forced to. You just may enjoy it :) Personal experience: I was very far ahead of what I needed to do in order to graduate very early on (credits that came in from HS combined with taking 17-18 credits a semester, every semester). As a result, I would either wind up graduating a year early, or I could take random classes in whatever I thought would be interesting (without falling behind!). I chose the latter. Due to that, I'm in what I think is a pretty unique situation; I can graduate in the next year with an undergrad degree in three completely unrelated fields, if I wanted to.
tsally 16y ago
A note for when you go to college: On the surface college may seem like it rewards risk even less than high school. Don't be fooled. You just have to intelligently optimize your GPA (I wrote about optimization a bit here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1132222 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1132222). If you take this approach, the challenge is no longer getting offered a job, but getting the interview in the first place. I've been offered a job for every interview I've had, but damn did I have to work hard to get my foot in the door. Once you DO get your foot in the door, you're pretty much guaranteed the job because your risk taking puts you many technical miles ahead of the competition. I hope (but have no empirical evidence yet) that the same effect will be true when applying to graduate school. Just use your ingenuity to get around the screening process. :) EDIT: One last thing I thought of. You may be one of those people that will be able to get a 4.0 GPA and have time to work on creative processes. Your 4.0 GPA is still a waste of time. There is always more you can do that is ultimately more impressive than a high GPA (i.e. publishing in competitive conferences, starting a highly technical and useful open source project, working on the Linux/BSD kernel, etc).
- tkahn6 16y ago
  This was generally my philosophy in high school. So I fully understand your point. The honors program I'm in requires a 3.5 but I never realized how fulfilling undergraduate research can be. That's definitely something I will look in to.
  - tsally 16y ago
    I should have qualified. The only reason that might be reasonable to maintain a high GPA is an honors program or some other program with an arbitrary GPA requirement (i.e. 5 years BS/MS http://www.cs.vt.edu/undergraduate/degrees/5yr-BS-MS http://www.cs.vt.edu/undergraduate/degrees/5yr-BS-MS). I will say that I started my college career in the honors program and on the 5 year BS/MS track. I just couldn't wait long enough to start doing real work. ;)

by tkahn6 16y ago

julius_geezer 16y ago

Frankly, there are a lot of worse ways to spend your time than memorizing some lines of Shakespeare. Of course, one would prefer to have one's choice and not get stuck with a real dog of a passage.

GiraffeNecktie 16y ago
I wish I could upvote you higher. The ability to commit complex information to memory is an immensely valuable building block for creativity. It's sad when education is only memorization and it's equally sad when education neglects memorization.
- tkahn6 16y ago
  I fail to see how lines from Shakespeare are 'complex [pieces of] information'. They're just words arranged in a particular order. When memorization happens out of convenience that's a great thing. I have no problem asking students to memorize the derivatives of transcendental functions after they have derived them. It's good to memorize things that appear frequently in the line of work. For what purpose does memorizing Shakespeare serve?
  - pstuart 16y ago
    They're just words arranged in a particular order That ordering of words might actually convey some insights into life, love, and other such follies. Maybe in the act of memorizing it this may come through.
    - tkahn6 16y ago
      That ordering of words might actually convey some insights into life, love, and other such follies. Definitely. Hamlet has some amazing passages that are beautiful and thought-provoking. Maybe in the act of memorizing it this may come through. In my experience, understanding the text and memorizing it are entirely orthogonal endeavors.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
  - shadowfox 16y ago
    > They're just words arranged in a particular order Hmm. That can be said of any piece of text
    - tkahn6 16y ago
      Correct. I was talking about it in terms of information. I can memorize the particular order of the symbols in Schrödinger's Wave Equation and still not understand what it means.
tkahn6 16y ago
I'm surprised you have any upvotes. You haven't actually made a substantial claim. All you've said is that memorizing Shakespeare is not the worst use of one's time. I don't know how anyone could disagree with such a statement when obviously memorizing Shakespeare is better use of one's time than say, joining a gang or watching paint dry.
- alec 16y ago
  I think it's a good use of time, especially in an English class, because the beauty of Shakespeare never really came out for me until I read it word by word and knew enough to perform a bit of it. It wasn't created to be read, it was created to be performed, and I didn't pick up on all the nuances, humor, and craft that make it really good until I freed myself from reading it from paper. I'm likely a better writer because I've been forced to read poetry and plays in that way. I expect that he didn't substantiate his claim for the same reason the original poster didn't substantiate his claim that learning C is a good use of time - people around here who have done both likely appreciate the value of the task. Meta-point: I think a lot of people around here who argue "school is worthless, why am I doing this useless task" will point to this sort of exercise without asking or understanding why it's done. I certainly felt the same way when I was memorizing Shakespeare. While it's important to think for yourself, it's also important to take the advice of those who have more experience than you do, and when I see these threads I think many of the commentators haven't learned both lessons.
  - tkahn6 16y ago
    I agree with everything you've said. I think you would understand my position better if I clarified that it was memorization of the lines I was being graded on not the understanding of what the lines meant. That is the issue I took with the assignment. Learning C is an objectively better use of ones time than memorizing X because learning C requires that you think whereas memorizing X requires that you simply spend time committing the order of symbols to memory.

scott_s 16y ago

College is different. Maybe your first few classes will not be, but quickly you will find that pure memorization is not enough. And the great thing about college is that if the prior statement is not true, then it's your fault. For the first time, you are responsible for your own education. If you only have easy classes, that's because you did not seek out the challenging ones.

tkahn6 16y ago
If what you say is true, I'm very excited and I'm actually going to VT! I convinced the undergrad CS department to let me start taking CS classes first semester despite the fact that Exploring Engineering is a prerequisite. Do you think you could help me get in to audit a few classes? I'm basically not allowed to take any more math/science classes this semester because I don't have the prerequisites. I was thinking about trying to get into MATH-3134 Applied Combinatorics. Also, you might appreciate this web app/program that I wrote. http://hokienotify.me http://hokienotify.me It will notify you when a class you want has available seats. It syncs its database every 10 minutes or so with VT's.
- rortian 16y ago
  One of the best pieces of advice I can give you is to not obsess over the college catalog. Freshmen year is about making friends and enjoying your new found freedom. If you want to learn more the best thing you can do is be a good student. If a topic interests you, stay after class and discuss it with a professor, or visit them at office hours. Opportunities abound for this sort of thing, usually in smaller classes though. I'd recommend getting used to college in your first year and then hitting up professors more when you have found your place at school.
- Zev 16y ago
  I entered college three years ago thinking almost the exact same way as you did. I even had to memorize a soliloquy from Shakespeare in my HS English class; How all occasions do inform against me.... Yet I'm about to enter my senior year to graduate with a Political Science degree, only having a minor in Art and in CS. If you're like me (it sounds like you may be), you're smart. Just wait until you figure out that there are other ways to gratify your intellect than coding. Take a class that has nothing to do with any sciences. One that you want to, not one that you're forced to. You just may enjoy it :) Personal experience: I was very far ahead of what I needed to do in order to graduate very early on (credits that came in from HS combined with taking 17-18 credits a semester, every semester). As a result, I would either wind up graduating a year early, or I could take random classes in whatever I thought would be interesting (without falling behind!). I chose the latter. Due to that, I'm in what I think is a pretty unique situation; I can graduate in the next year with an undergrad degree in three completely unrelated fields, if I wanted to.

tsally 16y ago

A note for when you go to college: On the surface college may seem like it rewards risk even less than high school. Don't be fooled. You just have to intelligently optimize your GPA (I wrote about optimization a bit here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1132222 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1132222). If you take this approach, the challenge is no longer getting offered a job, but getting the interview in the first place. I've been offered a job for every interview I've had, but damn did I have to work hard to get my foot in the door. Once you DO get your foot in the door, you're pretty much guaranteed the job because your risk taking puts you many technical miles ahead of the competition. I hope (but have no empirical evidence yet) that the same effect will be true when applying to graduate school. Just use your ingenuity to get around the screening process. :) EDIT: One last thing I thought of. You may be one of those people that will be able to get a 4.0 GPA and have time to work on creative processes. Your 4.0 GPA is still a waste of time. There is always more you can do that is ultimately more impressive than a high GPA (i.e. publishing in competitive conferences, starting a highly technical and useful open source project, working on the Linux/BSD kernel, etc).

tkahn6 16y ago
This was generally my philosophy in high school. So I fully understand your point. The honors program I'm in requires a 3.5 but I never realized how fulfilling undergraduate research can be. That's definitely something I will look in to.
- tsally 16y ago
  I should have qualified. The only reason that might be reasonable to maintain a high GPA is an honors program or some other program with an arbitrary GPA requirement (i.e. 5 years BS/MS http://www.cs.vt.edu/undergraduate/degrees/5yr-BS-MS http://www.cs.vt.edu/undergraduate/degrees/5yr-BS-MS). I will say that I started my college career in the honors program and on the 5 year BS/MS track. I just couldn't wait long enough to start doing real work. ;)