4 ms·

From a systemantic perspective, the "purpose of a system is what it does" not what it says it does. A large number of people are chasing a small (and decreasi

by terra_t 16y ago

From a systemantic perspective, the "purpose of a system is what it does" not what it says it does. A large number of people are chasing a small (and decreasing) number of good opportunities so a major function of education is to weed people out and make them blame their failures on themselves, not to maximize the development of human talent. We have a "meritocracy" that occasionally allows an exceptionally talented person to rise, generally allows the mediocre to inherit the status of their parents, and sometimes puts the kibosh on non-housebroken children of the elite. Athletic coaching tends to be a lot more honest. Few of us expect to be judged on how we do in PE classes and extracurricular sports, we do it for fun, and hopefully give it our best. Good coaches work in that spirit. Now, if you're one of the lucky people who'll go far in sports, performance is open ended (the top score isn't 100%) and, unlike schoolwork, you need unique training to develop your potential.

roc 16y ago
> "if you're one of the lucky people who'll go far in sports, performance is open ended (the top score isn't 100%) and, unlike schoolwork, you need unique training to develop your potential." And that's how everything should be. Because that's true of learning in any other context. Sports, Music, Art, Mechanics, Science ... learning is learning and it's all open-ended. The only limits are self-imposed. And that's why our educational system is assembly-line garbage.
lionhearted 16y ago
> A large number of people are chasing a small (and decreasing) number of good opportunities The number of good opportunities is dramatically increasing all over the world... every breakthrough we make opens like five new potential avenues for breakthroughs. Every generation thinks the sky is falling because old industries are being obsoleted or automated - subsistence farmers, shoemakers, textiles, horse buggy whip makers, horse breeders, typewriter makers and typists, telegraph operators. Paper mills, traditional publishing, traditional media/television, and music are all happening now. Old industries go by the wayside or become automated. But that's exactly where opportunity and progress comes from - here's tons more opportunity now than ever before. I can't think of any past era I'd rather live - I can see infinitely more opportunity today than at any point in history.
- terra_t 16y ago
  There's some truth in that (creative destruction and all) but we've also seen an incredible concentration of wealth from about 1980 onward. Much of this has gone to people working in just a few industries, such as finance and law. What we've seen is an expansion of the bottom and the top and a "hollowing out" at the middle. The system of private retirement accounts based on 401K and IRA accounts has largely failed. The largest asset that many in the baby boom generation will have in their retirement will be their Medicare benefits. The ultimate interpretation of the financial crisis is that the financial sector is currently unable to match capital with places where it can be invested properly. The power that this sector has over government and the culture of impunity surrounds it makes it possible that this situation will stretch on for another 10 to 30 years. Sure, failing industries in the recession are going to create a few opportunities for people to do amazing things in the next 10 years or so, but look for rapid advances in A.I. to essentially wipe out white collar work within 20 years.
- powellc 16y ago
  Subsistance farming is not obsolete, indeed it can't be. Not to shift topics dramatically, but industrial farming is not a perfect substitute for diversified subsistance farms and we will reap what we sow, if not now then 10, 25 or 50 years from now. Back to the subject at hand, the industrial revolution led to a dearth of skilled positions and the growth of unskilled positions. What happens when China's middle class starts needing inexpensive labor to feed it's needs? India? Eastern Europe? Africa? Labor markets, like our global ecology, are not infinite resources and if we do not engender a sense of self-sufficiency and resourcefulness all we become are slaves of our slaves. At the heart of all of this is the fact that schools have adopted a factory model of production. Inputs go in, outputs come out. And much like our industrial factory model, school factory models are fundamentally flawed as you begin to assume you can reduce all inputs to simple boolean logic. Teacher certified? Yes. Lunch served? Yes. Pre-K program offered? Yes. Children motivated to become productive members of society with a sense of ownership of their community and environment. Consistently and unequivocally, maybe, it depends on their parents and the few members of the school and town community who actually take an active interest in developing their character. But none of that math works at bureaucratic level. If results can't be measured and studied in groups of fewer than 1,000 students it wont gain traction except amongst local administrators. But local administrators almost always come up through the system themselves. It's a feedback loop.

by terra_t 16y ago

roc 16y ago

> "if you're one of the lucky people who'll go far in sports, performance is open ended (the top score isn't 100%) and, unlike schoolwork, you need unique training to develop your potential." And that's how everything should be. Because that's true of learning in any other context. Sports, Music, Art, Mechanics, Science ... learning is learning and it's all open-ended. The only limits are self-imposed. And that's why our educational system is assembly-line garbage.

lionhearted 16y ago

> A large number of people are chasing a small (and decreasing) number of good opportunities The number of good opportunities is dramatically increasing all over the world... every breakthrough we make opens like five new potential avenues for breakthroughs. Every generation thinks the sky is falling because old industries are being obsoleted or automated - subsistence farmers, shoemakers, textiles, horse buggy whip makers, horse breeders, typewriter makers and typists, telegraph operators. Paper mills, traditional publishing, traditional media/television, and music are all happening now. Old industries go by the wayside or become automated. But that's exactly where opportunity and progress comes from - here's tons more opportunity now than ever before. I can't think of any past era I'd rather live - I can see infinitely more opportunity today than at any point in history.

terra_t 16y ago
There's some truth in that (creative destruction and all) but we've also seen an incredible concentration of wealth from about 1980 onward. Much of this has gone to people working in just a few industries, such as finance and law. What we've seen is an expansion of the bottom and the top and a "hollowing out" at the middle. The system of private retirement accounts based on 401K and IRA accounts has largely failed. The largest asset that many in the baby boom generation will have in their retirement will be their Medicare benefits. The ultimate interpretation of the financial crisis is that the financial sector is currently unable to match capital with places where it can be invested properly. The power that this sector has over government and the culture of impunity surrounds it makes it possible that this situation will stretch on for another 10 to 30 years. Sure, failing industries in the recession are going to create a few opportunities for people to do amazing things in the next 10 years or so, but look for rapid advances in A.I. to essentially wipe out white collar work within 20 years.
powellc 16y ago
Subsistance farming is not obsolete, indeed it can't be. Not to shift topics dramatically, but industrial farming is not a perfect substitute for diversified subsistance farms and we will reap what we sow, if not now then 10, 25 or 50 years from now. Back to the subject at hand, the industrial revolution led to a dearth of skilled positions and the growth of unskilled positions. What happens when China's middle class starts needing inexpensive labor to feed it's needs? India? Eastern Europe? Africa? Labor markets, like our global ecology, are not infinite resources and if we do not engender a sense of self-sufficiency and resourcefulness all we become are slaves of our slaves. At the heart of all of this is the fact that schools have adopted a factory model of production. Inputs go in, outputs come out. And much like our industrial factory model, school factory models are fundamentally flawed as you begin to assume you can reduce all inputs to simple boolean logic. Teacher certified? Yes. Lunch served? Yes. Pre-K program offered? Yes. Children motivated to become productive members of society with a sense of ownership of their community and environment. Consistently and unequivocally, maybe, it depends on their parents and the few members of the school and town community who actually take an active interest in developing their character. But none of that math works at bureaucratic level. If results can't be measured and studied in groups of fewer than 1,000 students it wont gain traction except amongst local administrators. But local administrators almost always come up through the system themselves. It's a feedback loop.