4 ms·

Take ten smart kids and stick them under an oak tree and you'll have a better school than a 100 million dollar facility full of idiots. That's the real problem

Take ten smart kids and stick them under an oak tree and you'll have a better school than a 100 million dollar facility full of idiots. That's the real problem, and there's no solving it.

skybrian 16y ago
The teacher is oddly missing in your scenario.
- waterlesscloud 16y ago
  Huh.
- whatusername 16y ago
  I have a feeling - that was the point.
- borisk 16y ago
  They have wireless Internet ;-)
- psawaya 16y ago
  Perhaps he was alluding a school structured something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school
  - ollerac 16y ago
    I have a few friends who went to the original Sudbury school, Sudbury Valley School. One of them recently suggested that supplementing their school's non-curriculum with Sal Khan's online exercises (explained here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRf6XiEZ_Y8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRf6XiEZ_Y8) might make for something close to an ideal education.
    - aik 16y ago
      Do you feel like your friends got a good education? Did they feel like they did?
      - ollerac 16y ago
        She got an excellent education in being an independent thinker and a very creative person -- but she's been using the Khan Academy over the past few weeks to learn Algebra II.
mahmud 16y ago
I am not sure if that's a solution for education, or the summary of a certain Pink Floyd song.
replicatorblog 16y ago
What if you just have middling kids? I agree with the gist of your statement, but I'd back up a bit. Put 10 kids from families where education is a key concern under an oak tree and they will do better than 10 similar kids at the fancy school. I'm all for making teacher's unions more responsible, but they aren't whats failing inner city/rural schools. Its culture, family, and community. If a respect for education doesn't exist in a community no amount of money, technology, teacher reform, or grants will make a difference.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  I disagree. While all those things you note (culture and family) are extremely important... remember that kids spend a LOT of time in school. In fact it might be the majority of their waking hours. Schools make a huge difference. And good teachers do too. I've seen great teachers in horrible schools make a huge difference. The tough part though is that follow-up with kids is tough. You see a class make incredible improvements one year and then over the next four years have less than stellar teachers again. They slowly give back what thy've gained. This is why the Harlem Children Zone is an example of the right step.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    You realize that the Harlem Children's Zone was not particularly effective, and simply benefited from a downward drift in difficulty of tests, right? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/education/01schools.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/education/01schools.html
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      I'm familiar with this data. I'm not sure a downward drift is an accurate way to state it -- some said it became too predictable. All they did was simply change the line for what is considered "proficient". The actual test scores from year to year didn't really change though. Here's a nice graphic from the NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/08/01/education/01schoools-graphic2.html?ref=education http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/08/01/education/01sch... The real problem is that we have an artificial line for proficiency. If you look at the graphics you can see that they can move that line once again, and again largely affect minority schools downward, even if they make substantial gains over the next few years. It would be far better to have each school release mean/median/stdev or deciles of their scores. This will really give you a much better idea of the improvement in a school. But anyways, back to HCZ. They've still shown great improvement, even if proficiency has taken a step back from 100% in some cases due to a change in the proficiency line.
dasil003 16y ago
So what you're saying is that all problems are caused by idiots, and things are as good as they possibly can be given the existence of idiots and the fact that they are apparently in majority, therefore it's futile for us enlightened folks to try to improve education in general, and the best course of action is to join Mensa and home school our kids.
mfukar 16y ago
You have a point, but guidance is important. Without it, there's no structure (which is worse than a rigid structure, imo), hence no directed focus, hence no learning except by accident. A teacher, or parent, or anything else that would fulfil the role of a guide in a child's thought process and experimentation yet at the same time "step out of their way", if you will, is what educational systems should be striving for, in my humble opinion. Of course, since I'm so humble, I may be wrong and ignored. :-)

Take ten smart kids and stick them under an oak tree and you'll have a better school than a 100 million dollar facility full of idiots. That's the real problem, and there's no solving it.

skybrian 16y ago

The teacher is oddly missing in your scenario.

waterlesscloud 16y ago
Huh.
whatusername 16y ago
I have a feeling - that was the point.
borisk 16y ago
They have wireless Internet ;-)
psawaya 16y ago
Perhaps he was alluding a school structured something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school
- ollerac 16y ago
  I have a few friends who went to the original Sudbury school, Sudbury Valley School. One of them recently suggested that supplementing their school's non-curriculum with Sal Khan's online exercises (explained here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRf6XiEZ_Y8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRf6XiEZ_Y8) might make for something close to an ideal education.
  - aik 16y ago
    Do you feel like your friends got a good education? Did they feel like they did?
    - ollerac 16y ago
      She got an excellent education in being an independent thinker and a very creative person -- but she's been using the Khan Academy over the past few weeks to learn Algebra II.

mahmud 16y ago

I am not sure if that's a solution for education, or the summary of a certain Pink Floyd song.

replicatorblog 16y ago

What if you just have middling kids? I agree with the gist of your statement, but I'd back up a bit. Put 10 kids from families where education is a key concern under an oak tree and they will do better than 10 similar kids at the fancy school. I'm all for making teacher's unions more responsible, but they aren't whats failing inner city/rural schools. Its culture, family, and community. If a respect for education doesn't exist in a community no amount of money, technology, teacher reform, or grants will make a difference.

kenjackson 16y ago
I disagree. While all those things you note (culture and family) are extremely important... remember that kids spend a LOT of time in school. In fact it might be the majority of their waking hours. Schools make a huge difference. And good teachers do too. I've seen great teachers in horrible schools make a huge difference. The tough part though is that follow-up with kids is tough. You see a class make incredible improvements one year and then over the next four years have less than stellar teachers again. They slowly give back what thy've gained. This is why the Harlem Children Zone is an example of the right step.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  You realize that the Harlem Children's Zone was not particularly effective, and simply benefited from a downward drift in difficulty of tests, right? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/education/01schools.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/education/01schools.html
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    I'm familiar with this data. I'm not sure a downward drift is an accurate way to state it -- some said it became too predictable. All they did was simply change the line for what is considered "proficient". The actual test scores from year to year didn't really change though. Here's a nice graphic from the NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/08/01/education/01schoools-graphic2.html?ref=education http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/08/01/education/01sch... The real problem is that we have an artificial line for proficiency. If you look at the graphics you can see that they can move that line once again, and again largely affect minority schools downward, even if they make substantial gains over the next few years. It would be far better to have each school release mean/median/stdev or deciles of their scores. This will really give you a much better idea of the improvement in a school. But anyways, back to HCZ. They've still shown great improvement, even if proficiency has taken a step back from 100% in some cases due to a change in the proficiency line.

dasil003 16y ago

So what you're saying is that all problems are caused by idiots, and things are as good as they possibly can be given the existence of idiots and the fact that they are apparently in majority, therefore it's futile for us enlightened folks to try to improve education in general, and the best course of action is to join Mensa and home school our kids.

mfukar 16y ago

You have a point, but guidance is important. Without it, there's no structure (which is worse than a rigid structure, imo), hence no directed focus, hence no learning except by accident. A teacher, or parent, or anything else that would fulfil the role of a guide in a child's thought process and experimentation yet at the same time "step out of their way", if you will, is what educational systems should be striving for, in my humble opinion. Of course, since I'm so humble, I may be wrong and ignored. :-)