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Or just change the way we do school. I teach in a small school in Alaska, and we get to do school the way it makes sense for everyone, not just the way that mak

by japhyr 9y ago

Or just change the way we do school. I teach in a small school in Alaska, and we get to do school the way it makes sense for everyone, not just the way that makes it easiest for administrators and students. At our school, everyone's in classes like any other school. But towards the end of a session, after most of the teaching has been done and everyone's working on final projects, students are free to go at their own pace. If you finish before the end of the session, you can do an extension and earn more credit, not just a higher grade. If you don't finish your work by the end of the session you keep working on that class until you're finished, and you don't start a new class until you've finished your existing work. This is working really well. The culture of our school has shifted from students feeling like teachers are giving them work, to students looking at us as the educational resources we're supposed to be. Students are in charge of their own pace to a large degree; there's no concrete expectation that everyone will graduate in exactly four years. The range is closer to 3-5 years. Coworking spaces sounds great for a high school. Access to remote experts sounds great. But "all teachers are remote" sounds really stifling.

ryandrake 9y ago
I look at some of these replies and I think back to my own High School many moons ago. None of these ideas would have worked. You guys might as well be describing schools from another planet. In my school, 5% of the class (probably less) were actually there to learn, were on a college track of some sort, and would take advantage of educational resources. Their parents took an active role in their education and pushed them. A good 70% or so were pretty much furniture. They were there because they had to be, and their parents saw school as free babysitting service. They would end up in a trade school afterward if they were lucky, or a more likely future drifting between unemployment and Walmart/McDonalds employment. Then there were the 25% who were actively opposed to learning. They existed to disrupt everything, start fights, and waste all of the teachers' and administrators' time. Most of them were into gangs, selling drugs, etc. and their presence detracted from everyone else's experience. This group is likely dead or in prison today. Aside from the political reasons already covered by other posters (school boards playing politics and being more interested in mandating and banning things than furthering education), there is this reality that education startups ignore: The vast majority of their end users will not want to be end users.
- dwater 9y ago
  I spent nearly the last decade teaching high school math in public schools in the US and this is my attitude as well. Most of your intended users are adversarial; most students enter the classroom not wanting to learn most of the subjects they are required to. The district I worked in the longest had one laptop per student at the secondary level and we tried lots of different products. What I saw with my students was that those few who were self-motivated would be successful and those that were not motivated would just drag along, no matter how much interaction and gamification was involved. So the outcome was the same as if you just gave them textbooks, except that textbooks don't have the web to distract users.
- japhyr 9y ago
  > A good 70% or so were pretty much furniture. They were there because they had to be, and their parents saw school as free babysitting service. They would end up in a trade school afterward if they were lucky, or a more likely future drifting between unemployment and Walmart/McDonalds employment. Then there were the 25% who were actively opposed to learning. They existed to disrupt everything, start fights, and waste all of the teachers' and administrators' time. Most of them were into gangs, selling drugs, etc. and their presence detracted from everyone else's experience. This group is likely dead or in prison today. There is so much here that can be looked at critically if we want to change how education is done. Looking at people as furniture is really telling about what you think of their potential. If you're people like this from a student's perspective, I can understand this. But anyone carrying this mindset as an educator should leave the profession. I have spent my life teaching the kinds of students you describe. They're the people whose father died when they were 8 or 10 years old, and whose mom had to try and hold their family together. They're the kids who have never known sober parents. They're the kids of parents who are angry at the world. They're the kids of parents who have been arguing and hitting each other their entire lives. They're the kids whose parents never opened a book with them by the time they got to first grade. Yes, there are some kids who grew up like this and inherently took school seriously and flourished. But they're the exception, and we can't expect everyone to respond like that. Schools really need to be restructured to truly meet kids where they are at, and work from there. It can be done, and it's not overly difficult. We tend to meet kids where they're at for a little bit, and then expect them to catch up to everyone else and stay there. There is a small portion of the population that is really difficult to reach. But schools can do a lot more to bend to students' needs than they're currently doing, which is asking everyone to change to meet the schools' needs.

by japhyr 9y ago

ryandrake 9y ago

I look at some of these replies and I think back to my own High School many moons ago. None of these ideas would have worked. You guys might as well be describing schools from another planet. In my school, 5% of the class (probably less) were actually there to learn, were on a college track of some sort, and would take advantage of educational resources. Their parents took an active role in their education and pushed them. A good 70% or so were pretty much furniture. They were there because they had to be, and their parents saw school as free babysitting service. They would end up in a trade school afterward if they were lucky, or a more likely future drifting between unemployment and Walmart/McDonalds employment. Then there were the 25% who were actively opposed to learning. They existed to disrupt everything, start fights, and waste all of the teachers' and administrators' time. Most of them were into gangs, selling drugs, etc. and their presence detracted from everyone else's experience. This group is likely dead or in prison today. Aside from the political reasons already covered by other posters (school boards playing politics and being more interested in mandating and banning things than furthering education), there is this reality that education startups ignore: The vast majority of their end users will not want to be end users.

dwater 9y ago
I spent nearly the last decade teaching high school math in public schools in the US and this is my attitude as well. Most of your intended users are adversarial; most students enter the classroom not wanting to learn most of the subjects they are required to. The district I worked in the longest had one laptop per student at the secondary level and we tried lots of different products. What I saw with my students was that those few who were self-motivated would be successful and those that were not motivated would just drag along, no matter how much interaction and gamification was involved. So the outcome was the same as if you just gave them textbooks, except that textbooks don't have the web to distract users.
japhyr 9y ago
> A good 70% or so were pretty much furniture. They were there because they had to be, and their parents saw school as free babysitting service. They would end up in a trade school afterward if they were lucky, or a more likely future drifting between unemployment and Walmart/McDonalds employment. Then there were the 25% who were actively opposed to learning. They existed to disrupt everything, start fights, and waste all of the teachers' and administrators' time. Most of them were into gangs, selling drugs, etc. and their presence detracted from everyone else's experience. This group is likely dead or in prison today. There is so much here that can be looked at critically if we want to change how education is done. Looking at people as furniture is really telling about what you think of their potential. If you're people like this from a student's perspective, I can understand this. But anyone carrying this mindset as an educator should leave the profession. I have spent my life teaching the kinds of students you describe. They're the people whose father died when they were 8 or 10 years old, and whose mom had to try and hold their family together. They're the kids who have never known sober parents. They're the kids of parents who are angry at the world. They're the kids of parents who have been arguing and hitting each other their entire lives. They're the kids whose parents never opened a book with them by the time they got to first grade. Yes, there are some kids who grew up like this and inherently took school seriously and flourished. But they're the exception, and we can't expect everyone to respond like that. Schools really need to be restructured to truly meet kids where they are at, and work from there. It can be done, and it's not overly difficult. We tend to meet kids where they're at for a little bit, and then expect them to catch up to everyone else and stay there. There is a small portion of the population that is really difficult to reach. But schools can do a lot more to bend to students' needs than they're currently doing, which is asking everyone to change to meet the schools' needs.