4 ms·

"Has modern education become so jaded that it now plays out as farce, where learning is not the goal but gaming the system is?" In a word, yes. You see, educa

by oz 16y ago

"Has modern education become so jaded that it now plays out as farce, where learning is not the goal but gaming the system is?" In a word, yes. You see, education, for most people, is NOT about learning. It's about getting a job. We HN types value learning for its own sake, and would happily curl up with a copy of SICP or TAOCP and feel content. The average person wants the whole thing to be over as quickly and painlessly as possible. In the words of some of my classmates, concerning cheating: "Better to cheat than to repeat." or perhaps more poignantly: "Don't be a hero and get zero." We, my dear grellas, are not normal.

liuhenry 16y ago
> "You see, education, for most people, is NOT about learning. It's about getting a job." That is exactly true. But I challenge that "learning for its own sake" is not normal; rather, the educational system is atrocious in its ability to foster "learning" in kids who never experienced truly mastering something in the first place. I daresay that the sense of accomplishment from solving a problem or truly learning something is a universal human response. The problem lies with the educational system.
- oz 16y ago
  Upvoted. I see your point. Question for you: Is there any way it could be different, given the constraints the education system faces, such as limited time, untalented teachers, and the human need to quantify?
  - liuhenry 16y ago
    That's a very good question, and one I think everyone needs to be asking. I can't claim to be an expert on education, but we can all speak from experience. Being currently in the educational system, I honestly think it's about inspiration vs. motivation. The current system is fairly good at motivating students, but this is on a superficial level - grades, getting into a good college/job, or the threat of failure. In general, though, I can't say that I've really been inspired to learn, apart from a few teachers whom I deeply respect. The crucial difference between the 2 - motivation only works as long as the motivator is there, and people have no problem with cheating. Inspiration is what drives people, and what education is missing. So where does inspiration come from? Both internally and externally - the intrinsic value or joy of learning, and being able to apply what we learn to life. I think there are 2 places where real improvement could be seen: TL;DR - In short, I think we need to develop internal inspiration when students are young, and then tie that into external inspiration as we get older. 1. Childhood education - Learning is something that really needs to be made fun, and internalized. I think that this is where most people gain an initial passion for learning. There is an intrinsic joy to truly learning something or solving a problem, but we need to teach perseverance - there was some study which showed that, given an impossible problem, U.S. students spent far less time on it than some students from other countries. Anecdotally, though, we tend to give up too easily; most of the rewards are from completion, but we never get there in the first place. We need to show our kids both the value in challenging yourself and also the value in the end result. I think a large part of this comes from parents and your home environment, rather than formalized education. 2. Middle/HS - Most of us have that one teacher that really inspired us. I think we need to look for teachers that may not be great at teaching, but rather are visionaries and are able to inspire. In the end, all of us learn in different ways, and arguably a lot of it is done outside of the classroom. Especially given the problem of limited time, teachers need to in inspire students first, and teach second - if a student wants to learn, they will, regardless of their resources or environment. Granted, that's hyperbole, but think about the lengths you go to if you really want to do something. The best teachers are the ones that are truly passionate about what they teach, and are able to impart that on the students. We need to show students that what they are learning has real value, and can be applied to whatever the student is interested in.
  - azanar 16y ago
    You make what you measure, and usually, you can only measure a few things often enough to really make a difference. So, you need to be damn certain you pick the right metrics ahead of time, otherwise you will end up with nothing near what you want. So, what are our metrics. As a few examples: 1. The graduation rate of the student body. 2. Standardized test scores. 3. Rates of subsequent employment after graduation. 4. Salary of subsequent employment. 5. The relative prestige of the employing companies. What we are measuring here is the rate by which people default, and with the expressed goal that we maximize these. What we actually want to end up maximizing is a meta-level or two up from these metrics, but what we've come up with so far is measuring a set of consequences that might kind of indicate that we are maximizing what we actually want. Of course, we forget that these implications only go one way. What we may end up maximizing might have the same symptoms as our goal. The other question really becomes how you develop a metric to gauge "curiosity". It's really quite subjective, but it is something we would have to do if we'd want to maximize it to any appreciable degree. Here's my thoughts about this. In the large, it just isn't possible. Psychological motivation is not a multiple-choice test. In order to know someone is curious, you have to expose them to situations that will bring that sort of curiosity out. What you'd need to do is observe and interact with someone, and gauge their reaction to stimuli that would bring about curiosity. But even then, once you start measuring it, how do you maximize it within a collective? Is it even possible to change the frame of mind of a collective of people? There are 25 of them with a frame of mind they come into the school system with from their parents, and there is one of you telling them that their collective sense of reality isn't the only perspective available. False consciousness is hard enough to overcome one-on-one. I really think it has to be a grassroots process, if it is going to work at all. You need to convince your friends who don't already believe it that it is worth having faith in continuous learning as a net benefit to one's life. Then they can pass this frame of mind down to their children, who will hopefully become numerous enough eventually that the positive feedback loop starts. How to do that is left as an exercise to the reader; I've made a difference in the perspectives of a few people, but I have no idea which argument or combination of arguments I made worked. I don't think I could know, to be honest.
  - angrycoder 16y ago
    One thing that would help is if people like the author in this article looked at this a chance to mentor or tutor students who weren't getting it rather than perpetuating the problem by doing their work for them.
  - derefr 16y ago
    No, but for far more general reasons than you're explicating. Large-scale systems, like education, are borne of incentives, not single decisions here or there. No matter what little initiatives you try to foist upon them, they reach a new dynamic equilibrium that's just as bad in some other way, because they are incentivized to do so in some way. According to Robin Hanson, the incentives the school system has are to make children more obedient to non-empathetic authority (people who haven't personally proved themselves as being worth following, but rather just hold positions of power), and to teach self-control: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/08/functions-of-school.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/08/functions-of-school.ht... Both of these functions have been "absorbed" into the education system, not through any explicitly-stated goals, but rather by setting the incentives. Teachers must grade; children must pass. Therefore, children will be compared by their grades, and learn to feel like they can be, on the whole, quantified and valuated—in other words, objectivized.
- azanar 16y ago
  I don't think it is reasonable to lay this at the feet of the education system. In fact, it is somewhat difficult to lay this at the feet of any system, to be honest. It is a systemic failure of both the system, and the people who depend upon it to do either what they can't do, or what they wish not to do. As for the system encouraging people to get a job, it is just responding to popular sentiment. The gauge people use for evaluating any educational system, public or private, is the number of people who move along to the next step of a pre-determined timeline. If you are in secondary school, you move on to college; if you are in college, you move on to employment. It's not that the schools want people to not learn, it's that the people who rely on the schools don't care if the schools foster this attitude. It's not that we are actively trained to be beholden to the executives of society; it's that we apathetically punt to them, because we just don't give enough of a damn, or believe that it is worth giving a damn. You have to believe something is worth caring about before you will expend energy to care about. It just isn't that important to us, as a general population, because we believe it won't make a fucking difference anyway. So we punt, and so do the schools. I daresay that the sense of accomplishment from solving a problem or truly learning something is a universal human response. It may be, but never underestimate the power of socialization in general upon any sort of universal human response. There are so many things we have elevated to the level of faux pas; is it really such a stretch to believe that demonstrated learning could not be elevated to the same level? It is easy to cast aspersion at the system, but it is worth digging several levels of implication deep, and seeing how much of the system is just a reflection of ourselves.
  - liuhenry 16y ago
    You have to believe something is worth caring about before you will expend energy to care about. I completely agree with this, but I think this is something the educational system should be able to impart. There are so many things we have elevated to the level of faux pas; is it really such a stretch to believe that demonstrated learning could not be elevated to the same level? What exactly do you mean by this? I think you're right in that the system reflects popular sentiment, but I also think it's cyclical in that regard. Popular sentiment about the educational system as a whole is as a result of the experiences the majority had with the system. As far as a reflection of ourselves -- how did we get here? and do you think it could be changed? Perhaps it's naive, but I can't imagine why people wouldn't care. Maybe not about the system itself, but it seems backwards not to care about "learning" - isn't this contrary to humanity and human development for the last thousand-ish years?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
arethuza 16y ago
My wife, who has a grand total of four degrees (two undergrad, two postgrad) as well as a number of difficult to get professional qualifications jokes about it as "collecting the badges" - she is serious about learning but has no illusions about how these things are viewed by others.
derefr 16y ago
I think everyone values learning for its own sake to some degree; however, they value having a job more. If you were guaranteed a job whether or not you did well in school (not that that's a good idea), I think a lot more people would venture to actually challenge themselves in classes, because it would be a game (i.e. low stakes) rather than a trial.

by oz 16y ago

liuhenry 16y ago

> "You see, education, for most people, is NOT about learning. It's about getting a job." That is exactly true. But I challenge that "learning for its own sake" is not normal; rather, the educational system is atrocious in its ability to foster "learning" in kids who never experienced truly mastering something in the first place. I daresay that the sense of accomplishment from solving a problem or truly learning something is a universal human response. The problem lies with the educational system.

oz 16y ago
Upvoted. I see your point. Question for you: Is there any way it could be different, given the constraints the education system faces, such as limited time, untalented teachers, and the human need to quantify?
- liuhenry 16y ago
  That's a very good question, and one I think everyone needs to be asking. I can't claim to be an expert on education, but we can all speak from experience. Being currently in the educational system, I honestly think it's about inspiration vs. motivation. The current system is fairly good at motivating students, but this is on a superficial level - grades, getting into a good college/job, or the threat of failure. In general, though, I can't say that I've really been inspired to learn, apart from a few teachers whom I deeply respect. The crucial difference between the 2 - motivation only works as long as the motivator is there, and people have no problem with cheating. Inspiration is what drives people, and what education is missing. So where does inspiration come from? Both internally and externally - the intrinsic value or joy of learning, and being able to apply what we learn to life. I think there are 2 places where real improvement could be seen: TL;DR - In short, I think we need to develop internal inspiration when students are young, and then tie that into external inspiration as we get older. 1. Childhood education - Learning is something that really needs to be made fun, and internalized. I think that this is where most people gain an initial passion for learning. There is an intrinsic joy to truly learning something or solving a problem, but we need to teach perseverance - there was some study which showed that, given an impossible problem, U.S. students spent far less time on it than some students from other countries. Anecdotally, though, we tend to give up too easily; most of the rewards are from completion, but we never get there in the first place. We need to show our kids both the value in challenging yourself and also the value in the end result. I think a large part of this comes from parents and your home environment, rather than formalized education. 2. Middle/HS - Most of us have that one teacher that really inspired us. I think we need to look for teachers that may not be great at teaching, but rather are visionaries and are able to inspire. In the end, all of us learn in different ways, and arguably a lot of it is done outside of the classroom. Especially given the problem of limited time, teachers need to in inspire students first, and teach second - if a student wants to learn, they will, regardless of their resources or environment. Granted, that's hyperbole, but think about the lengths you go to if you really want to do something. The best teachers are the ones that are truly passionate about what they teach, and are able to impart that on the students. We need to show students that what they are learning has real value, and can be applied to whatever the student is interested in.
- azanar 16y ago
  You make what you measure, and usually, you can only measure a few things often enough to really make a difference. So, you need to be damn certain you pick the right metrics ahead of time, otherwise you will end up with nothing near what you want. So, what are our metrics. As a few examples: 1. The graduation rate of the student body. 2. Standardized test scores. 3. Rates of subsequent employment after graduation. 4. Salary of subsequent employment. 5. The relative prestige of the employing companies. What we are measuring here is the rate by which people default, and with the expressed goal that we maximize these. What we actually want to end up maximizing is a meta-level or two up from these metrics, but what we've come up with so far is measuring a set of consequences that might kind of indicate that we are maximizing what we actually want. Of course, we forget that these implications only go one way. What we may end up maximizing might have the same symptoms as our goal. The other question really becomes how you develop a metric to gauge "curiosity". It's really quite subjective, but it is something we would have to do if we'd want to maximize it to any appreciable degree. Here's my thoughts about this. In the large, it just isn't possible. Psychological motivation is not a multiple-choice test. In order to know someone is curious, you have to expose them to situations that will bring that sort of curiosity out. What you'd need to do is observe and interact with someone, and gauge their reaction to stimuli that would bring about curiosity. But even then, once you start measuring it, how do you maximize it within a collective? Is it even possible to change the frame of mind of a collective of people? There are 25 of them with a frame of mind they come into the school system with from their parents, and there is one of you telling them that their collective sense of reality isn't the only perspective available. False consciousness is hard enough to overcome one-on-one. I really think it has to be a grassroots process, if it is going to work at all. You need to convince your friends who don't already believe it that it is worth having faith in continuous learning as a net benefit to one's life. Then they can pass this frame of mind down to their children, who will hopefully become numerous enough eventually that the positive feedback loop starts. How to do that is left as an exercise to the reader; I've made a difference in the perspectives of a few people, but I have no idea which argument or combination of arguments I made worked. I don't think I could know, to be honest.
- angrycoder 16y ago
  One thing that would help is if people like the author in this article looked at this a chance to mentor or tutor students who weren't getting it rather than perpetuating the problem by doing their work for them.
- derefr 16y ago
  No, but for far more general reasons than you're explicating. Large-scale systems, like education, are borne of incentives, not single decisions here or there. No matter what little initiatives you try to foist upon them, they reach a new dynamic equilibrium that's just as bad in some other way, because they are incentivized to do so in some way. According to Robin Hanson, the incentives the school system has are to make children more obedient to non-empathetic authority (people who haven't personally proved themselves as being worth following, but rather just hold positions of power), and to teach self-control: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/08/functions-of-school.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/08/functions-of-school.ht... Both of these functions have been "absorbed" into the education system, not through any explicitly-stated goals, but rather by setting the incentives. Teachers must grade; children must pass. Therefore, children will be compared by their grades, and learn to feel like they can be, on the whole, quantified and valuated—in other words, objectivized.
azanar 16y ago
I don't think it is reasonable to lay this at the feet of the education system. In fact, it is somewhat difficult to lay this at the feet of any system, to be honest. It is a systemic failure of both the system, and the people who depend upon it to do either what they can't do, or what they wish not to do. As for the system encouraging people to get a job, it is just responding to popular sentiment. The gauge people use for evaluating any educational system, public or private, is the number of people who move along to the next step of a pre-determined timeline. If you are in secondary school, you move on to college; if you are in college, you move on to employment. It's not that the schools want people to not learn, it's that the people who rely on the schools don't care if the schools foster this attitude. It's not that we are actively trained to be beholden to the executives of society; it's that we apathetically punt to them, because we just don't give enough of a damn, or believe that it is worth giving a damn. You have to believe something is worth caring about before you will expend energy to care about. It just isn't that important to us, as a general population, because we believe it won't make a fucking difference anyway. So we punt, and so do the schools. I daresay that the sense of accomplishment from solving a problem or truly learning something is a universal human response. It may be, but never underestimate the power of socialization in general upon any sort of universal human response. There are so many things we have elevated to the level of faux pas; is it really such a stretch to believe that demonstrated learning could not be elevated to the same level? It is easy to cast aspersion at the system, but it is worth digging several levels of implication deep, and seeing how much of the system is just a reflection of ourselves.
- liuhenry 16y ago
  You have to believe something is worth caring about before you will expend energy to care about. I completely agree with this, but I think this is something the educational system should be able to impart. There are so many things we have elevated to the level of faux pas; is it really such a stretch to believe that demonstrated learning could not be elevated to the same level? What exactly do you mean by this? I think you're right in that the system reflects popular sentiment, but I also think it's cyclical in that regard. Popular sentiment about the educational system as a whole is as a result of the experiences the majority had with the system. As far as a reflection of ourselves -- how did we get here? and do you think it could be changed? Perhaps it's naive, but I can't imagine why people wouldn't care. Maybe not about the system itself, but it seems backwards not to care about "learning" - isn't this contrary to humanity and human development for the last thousand-ish years?
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

arethuza 16y ago

My wife, who has a grand total of four degrees (two undergrad, two postgrad) as well as a number of difficult to get professional qualifications jokes about it as "collecting the badges" - she is serious about learning but has no illusions about how these things are viewed by others.

derefr 16y ago

I think everyone values learning for its own sake to some degree; however, they value having a job more. If you were guaranteed a job whether or not you did well in school (not that that's a good idea), I think a lot more people would venture to actually challenge themselves in classes, because it would be a game (i.e. low stakes) rather than a trial.