7 ms·

>My objection is that all this talk about STEM is just the latest way to keep our schools focused exclusively on vocational training, to prepare our children fo

by dfdz 7y ago

>My objection is that all this talk about STEM is just the latest way to keep our schools focused exclusively on vocational training, to prepare our children for those mythological "jobs of tomorrow," jobs that may exist today, but are unlikely to exist two decades from now when our preschoolers are seeking to enter the job market... Anyone who claims to know the specific skills required for the jobs of tomorrow is just blowing smoke. They are wrong and they have always been wrong. It seems that Teacher Tom is missing the point about early STEM education (this seems particularly worrying given that he is a teacher). The point is not to teach preschoolers how to use, for example, TensorFlow so that they can develop deep learning models (who are predict if this would have any relevance for the future?). Instead, the point is to help kids to develop a background in math, physics, chemistry, etc. whose basic foundations haven't changed in the fundamental way in the past 50 years. In particular, developing an understanding of math takes time, and seems likely to required for many jobs for tomorrow. Would Teacher Tom contest the point that math will be necessary for jobs of the future? Perhaps Teacher Tom's object was just to write a provocative article to generate blog traffic, (fair enough) but the argument presented in the blog does not seem very well reasoned.

p1necone 7y ago
It seems to be a common thing for people who didn't get a decent education in maths and science to decry the teaching of maths and science.
- rayiner 7y ago
  > people who didn't get a decent education in maths and science Guess who teaches our kids?
  - brighton36 7y ago
    The state assimilates children. It's the job of the parents to make them exceptional. That's the way it's always been. That's the way it has to be.
    - rtisdale 7y ago
      >That's the way it's always been. That's the way it has to be. My sarcasm detector may be off so if it was, please forgive me. Why must it continue to be that way? It's possible we must expect and accept that children from broken, impoverished, or abusive homes will just be, well, screwed in comparison to their better off peers. Can't we instead look for a better way? - Improve the funding and education of our public schools (particularly by the decoupling of property taxes being the primary source of school funding). - Take a hard look at our current minimum wage and find a way to make it easier for hard working people to make ends meet, allowing them more time to nurture and teach their children. Giving up on hard luck children is by extension giving up on our societies future. To me at least, thats simply untenable.
      - brighton36 7y ago
        Because exceptionalism requires knowledge asymmetry, relative to the mean. I think it's definitional that You can't have a macro-scale program that delivers exceptional results to all participants. I don't think mediocre is unacceptable. But, I do think the country's achievement systems do. And yes, we should look for better systems. I don't think funding will improve the education system much, unfortunately. Probably we would be better off spending that money reducing the number of single parent families. (Somehow...)
        saiya-jin 7y ago
        I think I get the downvotes, although there is some truth. If everybody is exceptional, nobody is. For better or worse, we still live in system where parents are responsible for their kids wellbeing. You can't just outsource good parenting to school teachers. Just because somebody has this high paying job and doesn't have time for your kids at all, the reality won't reshuffle itself to make them feel like success. Do your god damn job as a parent, and don't just throw money at the problem. On the other side, we all would benefit from good quality education for everybody. I mean proper benefit for whole mankind for generations, golden age and whatnot. Currently, in many places which prefer predatory mindset (looking at you too, US), its everybody for themselves, fuck the rest, the higher I am above everybody else the better I am off. Well, not really if you actually want to live in society. Otherwise you end up walled in your luxury home like in South Africa, with private security, but afraid to go out after dark, carrying guns everywhere, high crime rate etc.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    This seems needlessly nasty. Are you sure that's a thing you want to have said, and that there wasn't a better, narrower way to have put it?
- jhanschoo 7y ago
  To go on a tangent, one very important topic (even more than STEM) that I don't think is formally taught at all is governance. I think children should get a proper education formally and practically on how to balance and how to meet the political (in the sense that these are needs that are solved at the societal / collective level) needs of a group of people. It doesn't have to be a large group; along the lines of the entire school or talking about the needs of a district or city would do. I think that such education would go a long way to help people understand what is important in governance, and be more resistant to political ideology that is harmful to these things.
  - hnuser123456 7y ago
    Not sure I follow. In a government, the primary need is that the people feel free, feel like they're not being ordered around by a dictator, that they can have fun or do what they want or set their own rules. Any rigid structure of governance that is focused on anything else will eventually fail. The constitution is a list of things the government can't do.
    - jhanschoo 7y ago
      > In a government, the primary need is that the people feel free, feel like they're not being ordered around by a dictator, that they can have fun or do what they want or set their own rules. > Any rigid structure of governance that is focused on anything else will eventually fail. I don't think we are contradicting each other. The need to feel free and have flexibility in certain aspects of governance is a political need that needs to be balanced. An education in governance should address this aspect so that citizens are more tuned-in to abuses of office and institutions that infringe on freedoms that most citizens have not chosen to yield to the government. Even though we were not contradicting each other, I do not completely agree with this. > In a government, the primary need is that the people feel free, feel like they're not being ordered around by a dictator, that they can have fun or do what they want or set their own rules. I think you recognize that this freedom here is quite qualified. The freedom to do what we want or set our own rules certainly need to be qualified at least around to the extent that they do not cause negative consequences to other people. Where the exact boundaries are are always shifting depending on the specific circumstances and population, and this is why various needs need to be balanced by government; i.e. the extent of this freedom is being balanced by other societal needs. Hence I would say that prima facie, a primary objective is a balance of freedom and well-being of the citizenry, with neither need superior over the other. On the other hand, > [the freedom to] set their own rules may sometimes be done most efficiently and reliably through governmental institutions, using government institutions to conduct certain self-funded voluntary programs.
- taneq 7y ago
  From what I've seen they tend to go to either extreme. Some decry the technical subjects they missed out on as useless, some laud them as the pathway to a golden future.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  Sort of how people with no education in philosophy and art decry them?
mrits 7y ago
It is amazing that almost 20 years in my career I can finally use some of my more advanced math because I now have an interest in PyTorch. I've forgotten a lot of calculus but I was really surprised how quickly a lot of it came back.
PunchTornado 7y ago
can't this be said about every subject? understanding of history takes time, of philosophy, of literature, text etc. He is asking why focus on STEM more instead of art? The answer put forward by people is that there are more STEM jobs now. Will there be more STEM jobs tomorrow rather than artistic jobs? We don't know. Kids have a limited learning time per day, so if you put more STEM time, then you take time from other subjects.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  The answer is that art is not a reliable job and never was. This it is not likely to become one. Even if you extend it to writing, making music, advertisements, taking pictures and making GUI. Unlike these, mathematics (the M in STEM) is almost every other non-physical job that is not data entry. T is the remaining ones that are physical (mechanic, electrician, hydraulic). S covers additionally the teachers themselves, doctors and biologists who don't need as much math. Heck, even modern agriculture. The remainder is probably building, some service works such as sales, nursing, care for small children, purely physical labor, parts of logistics, gardening and forestry.
C1sc0cat 7y ago
Yes as some one who did go the vocational route in the UK a while back - you had to have passed maths chemistry physics etc to even be accepted. Ironically for careers like banks which are now grad entry the requirements back then for a vocational track where 50% higher than it was for an entry level Bank job, I had to have 6 o levels and I had to do an extra 1/2 day a week for the first year to get technical drawing
- mrec 7y ago
  Well, "careers like banks" have changed a lot since the days of O-levels. Pretty much all the customer-facing stuff has gone, along with much of the more routine (and therefore automatable) back-office work.
  - C1sc0cat 7y ago
    Only up to a point other vocational jobs that where x o levels have gone grad entry but haven't changed the scientific civil service for example.
honestoHeminway 7y ago
I think the actual usefull training, would be - the generalizable abilitys- managers, programers, they need to be able to budget time, to think abstract, to take steps back, think about the overlap of all the fields people migrate- and you have what should be schooled. But that is very difficult to train for.. cause abstract abilitys without direct application dont stick, unless you felt the pain.
pgeorgi 7y ago
> Instead, the point is to help kids to develop a background in math, physics, chemistry, etc. whose basic foundations haven't changed in the fundamental way in the past 50 years. Nice theory, and I agree wholeheartedly. It takes a special kind of teacher though to implement that against the push back of students ("what will this ever be good for?"), parents ("get our of your ivory tower and teach my kids skills that will give them a good job") and politicians ("we need more specialists and it must cost $0"). That would be easier if that pedagogical approach were the norm and vocational training the exception, but in addition to these three interest groups, such a teacher often also has to deal with other teachers who are not interested in a trouble maker colleague who may create additional work for them.

by dfdz 7y ago

p1necone 7y ago

It seems to be a common thing for people who didn't get a decent education in maths and science to decry the teaching of maths and science.

rayiner 7y ago
> people who didn't get a decent education in maths and science Guess who teaches our kids?
- brighton36 7y ago
  The state assimilates children. It's the job of the parents to make them exceptional. That's the way it's always been. That's the way it has to be.
  - rtisdale 7y ago
    >That's the way it's always been. That's the way it has to be. My sarcasm detector may be off so if it was, please forgive me. Why must it continue to be that way? It's possible we must expect and accept that children from broken, impoverished, or abusive homes will just be, well, screwed in comparison to their better off peers. Can't we instead look for a better way? - Improve the funding and education of our public schools (particularly by the decoupling of property taxes being the primary source of school funding). - Take a hard look at our current minimum wage and find a way to make it easier for hard working people to make ends meet, allowing them more time to nurture and teach their children. Giving up on hard luck children is by extension giving up on our societies future. To me at least, thats simply untenable.
    - brighton36 7y ago
      Because exceptionalism requires knowledge asymmetry, relative to the mean. I think it's definitional that You can't have a macro-scale program that delivers exceptional results to all participants. I don't think mediocre is unacceptable. But, I do think the country's achievement systems do. And yes, we should look for better systems. I don't think funding will improve the education system much, unfortunately. Probably we would be better off spending that money reducing the number of single parent families. (Somehow...)
      - saiya-jin 7y ago
        I think I get the downvotes, although there is some truth. If everybody is exceptional, nobody is. For better or worse, we still live in system where parents are responsible for their kids wellbeing. You can't just outsource good parenting to school teachers. Just because somebody has this high paying job and doesn't have time for your kids at all, the reality won't reshuffle itself to make them feel like success. Do your god damn job as a parent, and don't just throw money at the problem. On the other side, we all would benefit from good quality education for everybody. I mean proper benefit for whole mankind for generations, golden age and whatnot. Currently, in many places which prefer predatory mindset (looking at you too, US), its everybody for themselves, fuck the rest, the higher I am above everybody else the better I am off. Well, not really if you actually want to live in society. Otherwise you end up walled in your luxury home like in South Africa, with private security, but afraid to go out after dark, carrying guns everywhere, high crime rate etc.
- tptacek 7y ago
  This seems needlessly nasty. Are you sure that's a thing you want to have said, and that there wasn't a better, narrower way to have put it?
jhanschoo 7y ago
To go on a tangent, one very important topic (even more than STEM) that I don't think is formally taught at all is governance. I think children should get a proper education formally and practically on how to balance and how to meet the political (in the sense that these are needs that are solved at the societal / collective level) needs of a group of people. It doesn't have to be a large group; along the lines of the entire school or talking about the needs of a district or city would do. I think that such education would go a long way to help people understand what is important in governance, and be more resistant to political ideology that is harmful to these things.
- hnuser123456 7y ago
  Not sure I follow. In a government, the primary need is that the people feel free, feel like they're not being ordered around by a dictator, that they can have fun or do what they want or set their own rules. Any rigid structure of governance that is focused on anything else will eventually fail. The constitution is a list of things the government can't do.
  - jhanschoo 7y ago
    > In a government, the primary need is that the people feel free, feel like they're not being ordered around by a dictator, that they can have fun or do what they want or set their own rules. > Any rigid structure of governance that is focused on anything else will eventually fail. I don't think we are contradicting each other. The need to feel free and have flexibility in certain aspects of governance is a political need that needs to be balanced. An education in governance should address this aspect so that citizens are more tuned-in to abuses of office and institutions that infringe on freedoms that most citizens have not chosen to yield to the government. Even though we were not contradicting each other, I do not completely agree with this. > In a government, the primary need is that the people feel free, feel like they're not being ordered around by a dictator, that they can have fun or do what they want or set their own rules. I think you recognize that this freedom here is quite qualified. The freedom to do what we want or set our own rules certainly need to be qualified at least around to the extent that they do not cause negative consequences to other people. Where the exact boundaries are are always shifting depending on the specific circumstances and population, and this is why various needs need to be balanced by government; i.e. the extent of this freedom is being balanced by other societal needs. Hence I would say that prima facie, a primary objective is a balance of freedom and well-being of the citizenry, with neither need superior over the other. On the other hand, > [the freedom to] set their own rules may sometimes be done most efficiently and reliably through governmental institutions, using government institutions to conduct certain self-funded voluntary programs.
taneq 7y ago
From what I've seen they tend to go to either extreme. Some decry the technical subjects they missed out on as useless, some laud them as the pathway to a golden future.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
Sort of how people with no education in philosophy and art decry them?

mrits 7y ago

It is amazing that almost 20 years in my career I can finally use some of my more advanced math because I now have an interest in PyTorch. I've forgotten a lot of calculus but I was really surprised how quickly a lot of it came back.

PunchTornado 7y ago

can't this be said about every subject? understanding of history takes time, of philosophy, of literature, text etc. He is asking why focus on STEM more instead of art? The answer put forward by people is that there are more STEM jobs now. Will there be more STEM jobs tomorrow rather than artistic jobs? We don't know. Kids have a limited learning time per day, so if you put more STEM time, then you take time from other subjects.

AstralStorm 7y ago
The answer is that art is not a reliable job and never was. This it is not likely to become one. Even if you extend it to writing, making music, advertisements, taking pictures and making GUI. Unlike these, mathematics (the M in STEM) is almost every other non-physical job that is not data entry. T is the remaining ones that are physical (mechanic, electrician, hydraulic). S covers additionally the teachers themselves, doctors and biologists who don't need as much math. Heck, even modern agriculture. The remainder is probably building, some service works such as sales, nursing, care for small children, purely physical labor, parts of logistics, gardening and forestry.

C1sc0cat 7y ago

Yes as some one who did go the vocational route in the UK a while back - you had to have passed maths chemistry physics etc to even be accepted. Ironically for careers like banks which are now grad entry the requirements back then for a vocational track where 50% higher than it was for an entry level Bank job, I had to have 6 o levels and I had to do an extra 1/2 day a week for the first year to get technical drawing

mrec 7y ago
Well, "careers like banks" have changed a lot since the days of O-levels. Pretty much all the customer-facing stuff has gone, along with much of the more routine (and therefore automatable) back-office work.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  Only up to a point other vocational jobs that where x o levels have gone grad entry but haven't changed the scientific civil service for example.

honestoHeminway 7y ago

I think the actual usefull training, would be - the generalizable abilitys- managers, programers, they need to be able to budget time, to think abstract, to take steps back, think about the overlap of all the fields people migrate- and you have what should be schooled. But that is very difficult to train for.. cause abstract abilitys without direct application dont stick, unless you felt the pain.

pgeorgi 7y ago

> Instead, the point is to help kids to develop a background in math, physics, chemistry, etc. whose basic foundations haven't changed in the fundamental way in the past 50 years. Nice theory, and I agree wholeheartedly. It takes a special kind of teacher though to implement that against the push back of students ("what will this ever be good for?"), parents ("get our of your ivory tower and teach my kids skills that will give them a good job") and politicians ("we need more specialists and it must cost $0"). That would be easier if that pedagogical approach were the norm and vocational training the exception, but in addition to these three interest groups, such a teacher often also has to deal with other teachers who are not interested in a trouble maker colleague who may create additional work for them.