5 ms·

Bill Gates is wrong about education

32 points by rajlego 6y ago

m12k 6y ago
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sebmellen 6y ago
> Last but not least, could Gates's approach be an afterglow of his dropping out from Harvard. I see that over and over again, dropouts seem to suffer from this life-long hangover about what could have been? They tend to over-appreciate the power of schooling or the power of college. In the same way, I might be under-appreciating my own degrees. Gates is the opposite of Peter Thiel who studiously climbed the educational ladder until he stumbled to see the light. Thiel is now one of the staunchest critics of college. I have wondered the same, and often felt this longing for "what could have been" myself. (I'm a college dropout who pursued a rather unconventional startup path.) Even though I've found myself surprisingly well-equipped to tackle most challenges, even when working with researchers, I have a very strong sense of impostor syndrome. I feel that I don't know enough about what I don't know. Sometimes, I think that if I'd spent more time learning, I would know where to look to learn the next thing. Perhaps this is just imagination. I'm sure I would feel the same kind of longing had I spent more time in college. A funny predicament. EDIT: If the page doesn't load at first, reload the page. It should load right away.
- toast0 6y ago
  I've worked with people in tech who dropped out, and people with bachelors, masters, and phD, and those with degrees in the arts. I personally have a bachelors in computer engineering. I'm sure there's surviorship bias, but the people who dropped out are probably some of the best. There's certainly some value in a CS/CE bachelor's curriculum, and occasionally, something would come up where knowledge from a course was useful; but mostly a 4 year degree in CS/CE is a certificate of sticking to hard things that are computer related. You've probably got some project under your belt that shows you can stick to hard things that are computer related, even if it's not as formalized. If it really bothers you, work through The Art of Computer Programming by Knuth. If it bothers you a little, but not that much, maybe borrow it from a library and look through the table of contents and read a few sections that look interesting.
  - sebmellen 6y ago
    I bet you're right about the survivorship bias, but it's nonetheless reassuring (comforting?) to hear that. That's also been my impression, though it's hard to actually believe schooling doesn't accomplish more. On that note: Had I stayed in college, I would've been a senior this year. I recently brought over a college friend to discuss a paid internship at my company with him, and was very underwhelmed with what he had accomplished during his university tenure (this being a quite prestigious institution). From the stories he told of professors assigning grindingly futile projects to his lack of knowledge about relatively widespread concepts like distributed hash tables, it was a rather disappointing conversation. I still think the institution of the university is hard to replicate elsewhere, but the content (and maybe the people) certainly need an update! Thank you for the note about Knuth's book. I'll check it out in more depth — I have the PDF version sitting in my downloads folder. My startup is currently being acquired, but once that's settled I'll have time for some holiday reading :).
- paganel 6y ago
  I’m also a college dropout (granted, I’m orders of magnitude less wealthy compared to Gates) but I don’t have any beliefs in the “power of college”. As a matter of fact, that “power” evaporated pretty quickly 20 years ago while I was attending one of most prestigious CS schools in my country and when I saw that the powers that be were doing absolutely nothing to handle/address the student suicides that were happening during each exam session (presumably because of the stress).
  - sebmellen 6y ago
    On the one hand, there is something rotten in the university ecosystem. I have met a ton of people who laboured their way through degrees (even in sought-after fields) who have now ended up working minimum wage jobs at Starbucks or something equivalent. In the US, these people are also usually in debt, between ~$20-150k. On the other hand, the gatekeeping that a degree offers does seem to be important. I think this is mainly because degrees serve as a sort of stamina test, of the kind which is hard to replicate elsewhere. Someone who plodded their way through a coding bootcamp is unlikely to have the same grit and determination as someone with a Bachelor's degree. Perhaps we just need a better way of gatekeeping, and then the universities can once again serve as centres of education and learning. I think it would also help if employment guarantees were offered, so universities would be incentivized to teach their students relevant skills.
viburnum 6y ago
Does Bill Gates send his kids to austere charter schools, or to expensive, nurturing, creative private schools?
- bergstromm466 6y ago
  Not only that, but he is paying for documentaries that attack the public school system, yet paint him and other pro-charter 'thought leaders' in a positive light: "'Waiting for Superman' is a new documentary film that is being lauded as a path-breaking exposé of the problems with public schools in this country, and as a vehicle to pretend that some hard-working, school “reform” experts, have the solutions. [...] But the movie is remarkable for the “facts” it doesn’t show: how public money has been handed over to corporations and banks, resulting in public schools closing, students being jammed into overcrowded classrooms, with no equipment, books, or sometimes, not even toilet paper. It doesn’t show how so-called top leaders in education summits are primarily CEOs and charter school operators, as well as Wall Street “Investment” bankers and representatives from foundations pushing the agendas of billionaires like Bill Gates and Eli Broad." [1] Rick Ayers on DemocracyNow: "In a way, it reminds me of the Horatio Alger stories in the nineteenth century, when there was great union agitation for raising up the working class, and these Horatio Alger stories would be these wonderful individual stories of individuals who worked hard and did what they were told and became successful, so we do not need a union movement, we just need individuals to succeed under capitalism. And these stories about individuals making it out of the ghetto and the very moving examples of the scholarship student who gets out are put forward precisely to avoid any talk about real problems of poverty, real problems of access, real problems all the students are facing in a place like Harlem." [1] https://the-spark.net/np879404.html https://the-spark.net/np879404.html [2] https://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/1/waiting_for_superman_critics_say_much https://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/1/waiting_for_superman_...
otabdeveloper4 6y ago
> Do not invest in schooling in the industrialized world. This brings miniscule returns on investment. Invest in bringing the web to all kids in all corners of the world. This will change this planet! Wow, was this written in 1995 or something? Reads ridiculously out of date and wrong today. "The web" today is Facebook and Instagram and exploitative mobile games. Not what you want your kids to be exposed to.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  The web is also access to almost all knowledge ever acquired by humanity
  - xrisk 6y ago
    The web is useless without basic priors.
    - mhh__ 6y ago
      So is a library, a hospital etc.
      - bilbo0s 6y ago
        Sure, but there are safeguards against crack pot theories being employed in a hospital. To make that analogy work, you would have to compare building out access to the web to building out access to public healing centers that don't require the use of clean water, nor the sterilization of instruments, nor doctors and nurses with any medical training. All while encouraging the provision wildly unproven treatments.
        mhh__ 6y ago
        There are also safeguards against writing crackpot material on Wikipedia. Medical malpractice happens all the time, the comparison isn't invalid. The difference is the cost to the user, i.e. building yourself an echo chamber is free whereas even a suspiciously cheap (say) plastic surgeon is not. This argument works on multiple levels, the internet has crackpots on it but it also has easily indexable alternatives who are only n degrees away from offline authority figures. The issue is more to do with psychology than the internet's intrinsic (sociological) properties.
fxtentacle 6y ago
This strikes me as a very elitist article. Bill Gates wants to help the 99% by improving school life for them. This article argues that instead of slightly raising the average among the 99%, we should instead help the top 1% and given that we now focus our budget on a lot less people, each of them will see bigger improvements. Among other things, the article says "healthy childhood of few concerns without the relegation to daycare is the root of greatness". Unless they are independently wealthy before having kids, most normal parents will need daycare because they still need to work for money. My personal opinion is that recent years have clearly shown us that we live in a winner takes all system and that wealth doesn't usually dribble down. Large companies keep billions in profit offshore, where they don't pay taxes (that could help education) and where the money surely won't help the middle class find jobs with livable wages.
- stinos 6y ago
  that wealth doesn't usually dribble down You're not alone with that opinion, in fact I thought it was established by now the trickle-down effect in economics is a myth (or at least I read so)?
  - gotstad 6y ago
    Well trickle-down was always a matter of how much, not if. And yes, it seems pretty much established that it is a lot less than what we usually plan for when using it as argument in an economic plan.
- birdsbirdsbirds 6y ago
  If the winner takes it all, what good is it to help the 99%? Parents don't need daycare if they only work half of the time. (Of course, this means owning less.) Offshore money doesn't matter for the economy. Actually it improves the life of the 99% because the value of their money would decrease if the offshore money would join the onshore money circulation.
  - eecc 6y ago
    That’s an odd take. That money is labor taken out of economic activity and left rotting away in a vault. Surplus needs to reinvested in the cycle, otherwise the overall economy will shrink. What’s being quarreled about in the last generational policy struggle, is who gets to dictate how to spend it. The Jeff Bezos-es, the neoliberal technocrats, or the political establishment. Or something else
DavidPiper 6y ago
This was a bizarre read. On the one hand it came across as a (well-tempered) rant against Bill Gates. On the other hand, the author seems to want the world to produce more people like Bill Gates: > He looks at education from a societal point of view, while I look at the brain of an individual. He wants to move the masses to high achievement, while I want to produce more little Bill Gateses. > Unlike myself, Bill Gates does not focus on having more Bill Gateses. He focuses on helping the poor, in boosting qualifications of the middle class, and adds "you can't run a society on top 5%". He is right, however, that top 5% can forge a path in education that would inspire all the rest. They cannot be run through a compulsory system set on pushing through the remaining 95%. I see where the author is coming from here, but I question whether "the education system" is at fault for the lack of excess Bill Gateses in the world. (I would attribute it more to things like genetics, money and luck). My own view at the moment leans towards "a rising tide lifts all boats". No, the education system doesn't work for everyone, and it's certainly not just the top 5% that it doesn't work for. (Sir Ken Robinson has had some interesting things to say about this - I highly recommend his books and TED talks.) The education system in every country (and state in many cases) is different, and every individual's experience of their education is different. > My approach is probably more suited to well-developed nations where the industrial approach makes people sick of schooling. This is a really interesting observation - let's just talk about ways the education systems can be improved in Income-Level 4 countries then (https://www.gapminder.org/topics/four-income-levels/ https://www.gapminder.org/topics/four-income-levels/), and leave Bill Gates out of it completely.
- rajlego 6y ago
  > I see where the author is coming from here, but I question whether "the education system" is at fault for the lack of excess Bill Gateses in the world. (I would attribute it more to things like genetics, money and luck). https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Problem_of_Schooling https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Problem_of_Schooling I would read this from the same author. He attributed failure of education system largely to coercion, which makes sense if you read the part on pleasure of learning/learn drive
Jamie9912 6y ago
Looks like it's down.. Why do people have webservers that fall over after a few hundred requests?
tigertigertiger 6y ago
In the whole article the word Intelligence or IQ wasn't mentioned once. The whole Bill Gates success formula is "healthy childhood and no daycare" is complete bullshit. You know what enabled him in the first place to be a genius? Being a genius. For outliers like Gates, Goethe and Gauß you don't need any of these mentioned factors. It is close to 100% just genetics. Also survivor ship bias is a huge factor.
- Veen 6y ago
  It’s more than just intelligence. For example, I score very well in IQ tests, but I’m unusually lazy so I don’t accomplish much.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    I've wondered about this for some time. The Mensa demographic is 'highly intelligent under-achievers'. Why? Part of it is early formation. Smarter people can find elementary schoolwork trivial. So they don't get any kind of work habits early on. I was one of these, like you, and still have a hard time buckling down to a task. There must be more reasons, but that one seems fundamental. My boys are smart - their mother is the product of a school teacher and a research physicist, so they got it with both barrels. They could have turned out smart-and-lazy. But we put them to hard tasks as soon as they could talk. Music, farm chores, Scout projects. Gave them jobs that were so big they couldn't see the end, so they just had to plug away cheerfully day by day. Worked. One is an industrial Engineer for new products, invents new ways to aggregate steel in his spare time. Another went to Conservatory in Cello (he liked it better than piano and had to choose). The third spent last month up North, climbing 6 mountains. All three Eagle Scouts in a challenging program. All happy well-adjusted men.
    - tigertigertiger 6y ago
      I think that there is a general misconception in thinking that Mensa beeing "highly intelligent under-achievers". People that are not putting hard work into something are under-achievers in any demographics, because that's what the word implies. It's not a inherent problem in Mensa. Being lazy is the norm, it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, being an over-achiever is something that has to be trained.
asciimov 6y ago
To improve education you have to improve opportunity, and in different places that will mean different things. Talent and ability is well distributed, but having access to resources to make the most of that ability tends to be concentrated in the richer urbanized areas. 20% of the US population is rural, those kids are lucky if they have access to broadband, or teachers that can teach well, or access to cultural opportunities (museums, concerts, even libraries). In my metro, the poor side of town has problems getting broadband internet and computers for every child that needs one. Our time would be better spent making sure everybody has a better opportunity rather than just focusing on those who were lucky enough to live on the right side of town.
absolutelyrad 6y ago
The author doesn't get the goal of education. It is to reduce population growth for the populace. The best make it to the top anyways.
- rajlego 6y ago
  What makes you point to that as the cause of education? I can see that being the outcome but I am skeptical that it is the cause of it (without evidence)
  - absolutelyrad 6y ago
    https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/11/the-relationship-between-womens-education-and-fertility/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/11/the-relationship-betw... The trend seems to be reversing the previous decade though: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/12/why-are-highly-educated-women-having-more-children/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/12/why-are-highly-educat...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jaybrendansmith 6y ago
So many misconceptions about education, some good ideas though. 1. adult-centric point of view is one of the driving forces behind the failure of modern education. Wrong. Educators spend many years studying pedagogy, and what is and is not developmentally appropriate. They get rapidly good at telling which kids need extra help, and who can go read independently on the rug. 2. healthy childhood of few concerns without the relegation to daycare is the root of greatness Correct. This is the true secret, all children must have a safe place where they can independently learn. Anxiety about family, money, food, is generally terrible for learning. 3. best formula for helping kids get interested in science by Neil deGrasse Tyson is: "Get off their back!". Largely Correct. Schools should provide more time for self-study and play. A longer day with less direct teaching and more exploration and play would do wonders for many children. Several countries already do this (Not enough) 4. passions born in childhood change lives Correct, but not everyone will have this drive. Personality matters. There are dandelion children, and orchid children. Some will succeed no matter where they grow. Some wilt and die without constant care. 5. relentless lifelong pursuit of goals born from youthful passions is a solid formula for success Partial, see above. Personality is more important than IQ up to a point. Nobody can teach you personality, they can only repress it. 6. mass production of great teachers is no easier than mass production of genius Wrong. Enough 'natural' teachers exist, but due to the disparagement of the profession in the US, as well as the poor relative pay, most choose something else. If we valued teachers, and paid them well, this would change immediately. PS It has nothing to do with unions. 7. in development, minor trajectory nudges within the push zone by inspirational tutors are welcome Correct. This requires great teachers, but we can also leverage all the 'greats' from other fields that are looking to pay it forward. More funding would allow this. 8. pranks, rebellions, and disobedience at school are an expression of freedom and may foster better learning Correct. More free time, more time for expression. Oddly, this is where American schools are much better than most European. In America, there is more room to be an individual, and most are not crushed with conformity and homework as they are in Europe. 9. grants for kids to get to college are as good as grants for kids to skip college. All support for the youth is welcome Correct, but remember personality? Most don't know what they want to do or be until they are in their 20s. Many creative individuals are late bloomers, they don't know what startup to start. They have not found their calling yet. Most are better off in college, doing more exploring. 10. dropping out of college can turn out to be a good thing Wrong. Yes, everybody likes these stories. Everybody likes these inspirational tales of drop outs. But you're looking at major survivorship bias here. Most dropouts do not make it, at least not right away. Most would have been better off completing their schooling, because most do not have the personality to persist at a startup, or they are missing any of the other 20 or so qualities necessary to succeed. Most need to spend time learning those qualities, and many actually know that they do ... they don't have the arrogance/confidence to believe they can succeed yet. Bill Gates is not wrong. All progress is made by inches, in fits and starts, in tweaks and small changes of degree, and by experimentation. Big sweeping changes just create 100 other issues. Any fundamental changes must be backed by solid evidence, and there must be agreement about what a good outcome should look like. Suppose the changes suggested create 100 more Bill Gates, but destroy the lives of 10,000 poorer children? Is that a good outcome? With limited time, money, and personnel, the tradeoffs are always immense.

32 points by rajlego 6y ago

m12k 6y ago

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sebmellen 6y ago

> Last but not least, could Gates's approach be an afterglow of his dropping out from Harvard. I see that over and over again, dropouts seem to suffer from this life-long hangover about what could have been? They tend to over-appreciate the power of schooling or the power of college. In the same way, I might be under-appreciating my own degrees. Gates is the opposite of Peter Thiel who studiously climbed the educational ladder until he stumbled to see the light. Thiel is now one of the staunchest critics of college. I have wondered the same, and often felt this longing for "what could have been" myself. (I'm a college dropout who pursued a rather unconventional startup path.) Even though I've found myself surprisingly well-equipped to tackle most challenges, even when working with researchers, I have a very strong sense of impostor syndrome. I feel that I don't know enough about what I don't know. Sometimes, I think that if I'd spent more time learning, I would know where to look to learn the next thing. Perhaps this is just imagination. I'm sure I would feel the same kind of longing had I spent more time in college. A funny predicament. EDIT: If the page doesn't load at first, reload the page. It should load right away.

toast0 6y ago
I've worked with people in tech who dropped out, and people with bachelors, masters, and phD, and those with degrees in the arts. I personally have a bachelors in computer engineering. I'm sure there's surviorship bias, but the people who dropped out are probably some of the best. There's certainly some value in a CS/CE bachelor's curriculum, and occasionally, something would come up where knowledge from a course was useful; but mostly a 4 year degree in CS/CE is a certificate of sticking to hard things that are computer related. You've probably got some project under your belt that shows you can stick to hard things that are computer related, even if it's not as formalized. If it really bothers you, work through The Art of Computer Programming by Knuth. If it bothers you a little, but not that much, maybe borrow it from a library and look through the table of contents and read a few sections that look interesting.
- sebmellen 6y ago
  I bet you're right about the survivorship bias, but it's nonetheless reassuring (comforting?) to hear that. That's also been my impression, though it's hard to actually believe schooling doesn't accomplish more. On that note: Had I stayed in college, I would've been a senior this year. I recently brought over a college friend to discuss a paid internship at my company with him, and was very underwhelmed with what he had accomplished during his university tenure (this being a quite prestigious institution). From the stories he told of professors assigning grindingly futile projects to his lack of knowledge about relatively widespread concepts like distributed hash tables, it was a rather disappointing conversation. I still think the institution of the university is hard to replicate elsewhere, but the content (and maybe the people) certainly need an update! Thank you for the note about Knuth's book. I'll check it out in more depth — I have the PDF version sitting in my downloads folder. My startup is currently being acquired, but once that's settled I'll have time for some holiday reading :).
paganel 6y ago
I’m also a college dropout (granted, I’m orders of magnitude less wealthy compared to Gates) but I don’t have any beliefs in the “power of college”. As a matter of fact, that “power” evaporated pretty quickly 20 years ago while I was attending one of most prestigious CS schools in my country and when I saw that the powers that be were doing absolutely nothing to handle/address the student suicides that were happening during each exam session (presumably because of the stress).
- sebmellen 6y ago
  On the one hand, there is something rotten in the university ecosystem. I have met a ton of people who laboured their way through degrees (even in sought-after fields) who have now ended up working minimum wage jobs at Starbucks or something equivalent. In the US, these people are also usually in debt, between ~$20-150k. On the other hand, the gatekeeping that a degree offers does seem to be important. I think this is mainly because degrees serve as a sort of stamina test, of the kind which is hard to replicate elsewhere. Someone who plodded their way through a coding bootcamp is unlikely to have the same grit and determination as someone with a Bachelor's degree. Perhaps we just need a better way of gatekeeping, and then the universities can once again serve as centres of education and learning. I think it would also help if employment guarantees were offered, so universities would be incentivized to teach their students relevant skills.

viburnum 6y ago

Does Bill Gates send his kids to austere charter schools, or to expensive, nurturing, creative private schools?

bergstromm466 6y ago
Not only that, but he is paying for documentaries that attack the public school system, yet paint him and other pro-charter 'thought leaders' in a positive light: "'Waiting for Superman' is a new documentary film that is being lauded as a path-breaking exposé of the problems with public schools in this country, and as a vehicle to pretend that some hard-working, school “reform” experts, have the solutions. [...] But the movie is remarkable for the “facts” it doesn’t show: how public money has been handed over to corporations and banks, resulting in public schools closing, students being jammed into overcrowded classrooms, with no equipment, books, or sometimes, not even toilet paper. It doesn’t show how so-called top leaders in education summits are primarily CEOs and charter school operators, as well as Wall Street “Investment” bankers and representatives from foundations pushing the agendas of billionaires like Bill Gates and Eli Broad." [1] Rick Ayers on DemocracyNow: "In a way, it reminds me of the Horatio Alger stories in the nineteenth century, when there was great union agitation for raising up the working class, and these Horatio Alger stories would be these wonderful individual stories of individuals who worked hard and did what they were told and became successful, so we do not need a union movement, we just need individuals to succeed under capitalism. And these stories about individuals making it out of the ghetto and the very moving examples of the scholarship student who gets out are put forward precisely to avoid any talk about real problems of poverty, real problems of access, real problems all the students are facing in a place like Harlem." [1] https://the-spark.net/np879404.html https://the-spark.net/np879404.html [2] https://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/1/waiting_for_superman_critics_say_much https://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/1/waiting_for_superman_...

otabdeveloper4 6y ago

> Do not invest in schooling in the industrialized world. This brings miniscule returns on investment. Invest in bringing the web to all kids in all corners of the world. This will change this planet! Wow, was this written in 1995 or something? Reads ridiculously out of date and wrong today. "The web" today is Facebook and Instagram and exploitative mobile games. Not what you want your kids to be exposed to.

mhh__ 6y ago
The web is also access to almost all knowledge ever acquired by humanity
- xrisk 6y ago
  The web is useless without basic priors.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    So is a library, a hospital etc.
    - bilbo0s 6y ago
      Sure, but there are safeguards against crack pot theories being employed in a hospital. To make that analogy work, you would have to compare building out access to the web to building out access to public healing centers that don't require the use of clean water, nor the sterilization of instruments, nor doctors and nurses with any medical training. All while encouraging the provision wildly unproven treatments.
      - mhh__ 6y ago
        There are also safeguards against writing crackpot material on Wikipedia. Medical malpractice happens all the time, the comparison isn't invalid. The difference is the cost to the user, i.e. building yourself an echo chamber is free whereas even a suspiciously cheap (say) plastic surgeon is not. This argument works on multiple levels, the internet has crackpots on it but it also has easily indexable alternatives who are only n degrees away from offline authority figures. The issue is more to do with psychology than the internet's intrinsic (sociological) properties.

fxtentacle 6y ago

This strikes me as a very elitist article. Bill Gates wants to help the 99% by improving school life for them. This article argues that instead of slightly raising the average among the 99%, we should instead help the top 1% and given that we now focus our budget on a lot less people, each of them will see bigger improvements. Among other things, the article says "healthy childhood of few concerns without the relegation to daycare is the root of greatness". Unless they are independently wealthy before having kids, most normal parents will need daycare because they still need to work for money. My personal opinion is that recent years have clearly shown us that we live in a winner takes all system and that wealth doesn't usually dribble down. Large companies keep billions in profit offshore, where they don't pay taxes (that could help education) and where the money surely won't help the middle class find jobs with livable wages.

stinos 6y ago
that wealth doesn't usually dribble down You're not alone with that opinion, in fact I thought it was established by now the trickle-down effect in economics is a myth (or at least I read so)?
- gotstad 6y ago
  Well trickle-down was always a matter of how much, not if. And yes, it seems pretty much established that it is a lot less than what we usually plan for when using it as argument in an economic plan.
birdsbirdsbirds 6y ago
If the winner takes it all, what good is it to help the 99%? Parents don't need daycare if they only work half of the time. (Of course, this means owning less.) Offshore money doesn't matter for the economy. Actually it improves the life of the 99% because the value of their money would decrease if the offshore money would join the onshore money circulation.
- eecc 6y ago
  That’s an odd take. That money is labor taken out of economic activity and left rotting away in a vault. Surplus needs to reinvested in the cycle, otherwise the overall economy will shrink. What’s being quarreled about in the last generational policy struggle, is who gets to dictate how to spend it. The Jeff Bezos-es, the neoliberal technocrats, or the political establishment. Or something else

DavidPiper 6y ago

This was a bizarre read. On the one hand it came across as a (well-tempered) rant against Bill Gates. On the other hand, the author seems to want the world to produce more people like Bill Gates: > He looks at education from a societal point of view, while I look at the brain of an individual. He wants to move the masses to high achievement, while I want to produce more little Bill Gateses. > Unlike myself, Bill Gates does not focus on having more Bill Gateses. He focuses on helping the poor, in boosting qualifications of the middle class, and adds "you can't run a society on top 5%". He is right, however, that top 5% can forge a path in education that would inspire all the rest. They cannot be run through a compulsory system set on pushing through the remaining 95%. I see where the author is coming from here, but I question whether "the education system" is at fault for the lack of excess Bill Gateses in the world. (I would attribute it more to things like genetics, money and luck). My own view at the moment leans towards "a rising tide lifts all boats". No, the education system doesn't work for everyone, and it's certainly not just the top 5% that it doesn't work for. (Sir Ken Robinson has had some interesting things to say about this - I highly recommend his books and TED talks.) The education system in every country (and state in many cases) is different, and every individual's experience of their education is different. > My approach is probably more suited to well-developed nations where the industrial approach makes people sick of schooling. This is a really interesting observation - let's just talk about ways the education systems can be improved in Income-Level 4 countries then (https://www.gapminder.org/topics/four-income-levels/ https://www.gapminder.org/topics/four-income-levels/), and leave Bill Gates out of it completely.

rajlego 6y ago
> I see where the author is coming from here, but I question whether "the education system" is at fault for the lack of excess Bill Gateses in the world. (I would attribute it more to things like genetics, money and luck). https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Problem_of_Schooling https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Problem_of_Schooling I would read this from the same author. He attributed failure of education system largely to coercion, which makes sense if you read the part on pleasure of learning/learn drive

Jamie9912 6y ago

Looks like it's down.. Why do people have webservers that fall over after a few hundred requests?

tigertigertiger 6y ago

In the whole article the word Intelligence or IQ wasn't mentioned once. The whole Bill Gates success formula is "healthy childhood and no daycare" is complete bullshit. You know what enabled him in the first place to be a genius? Being a genius. For outliers like Gates, Goethe and Gauß you don't need any of these mentioned factors. It is close to 100% just genetics. Also survivor ship bias is a huge factor.

Veen 6y ago
It’s more than just intelligence. For example, I score very well in IQ tests, but I’m unusually lazy so I don’t accomplish much.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  I've wondered about this for some time. The Mensa demographic is 'highly intelligent under-achievers'. Why? Part of it is early formation. Smarter people can find elementary schoolwork trivial. So they don't get any kind of work habits early on. I was one of these, like you, and still have a hard time buckling down to a task. There must be more reasons, but that one seems fundamental. My boys are smart - their mother is the product of a school teacher and a research physicist, so they got it with both barrels. They could have turned out smart-and-lazy. But we put them to hard tasks as soon as they could talk. Music, farm chores, Scout projects. Gave them jobs that were so big they couldn't see the end, so they just had to plug away cheerfully day by day. Worked. One is an industrial Engineer for new products, invents new ways to aggregate steel in his spare time. Another went to Conservatory in Cello (he liked it better than piano and had to choose). The third spent last month up North, climbing 6 mountains. All three Eagle Scouts in a challenging program. All happy well-adjusted men.
  - tigertigertiger 6y ago
    I think that there is a general misconception in thinking that Mensa beeing "highly intelligent under-achievers". People that are not putting hard work into something are under-achievers in any demographics, because that's what the word implies. It's not a inherent problem in Mensa. Being lazy is the norm, it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, being an over-achiever is something that has to be trained.

asciimov 6y ago

To improve education you have to improve opportunity, and in different places that will mean different things. Talent and ability is well distributed, but having access to resources to make the most of that ability tends to be concentrated in the richer urbanized areas. 20% of the US population is rural, those kids are lucky if they have access to broadband, or teachers that can teach well, or access to cultural opportunities (museums, concerts, even libraries). In my metro, the poor side of town has problems getting broadband internet and computers for every child that needs one. Our time would be better spent making sure everybody has a better opportunity rather than just focusing on those who were lucky enough to live on the right side of town.

absolutelyrad 6y ago

The author doesn't get the goal of education. It is to reduce population growth for the populace. The best make it to the top anyways.

rajlego 6y ago
What makes you point to that as the cause of education? I can see that being the outcome but I am skeptical that it is the cause of it (without evidence)
- absolutelyrad 6y ago
  https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/11/the-relationship-between-womens-education-and-fertility/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/11/the-relationship-betw... The trend seems to be reversing the previous decade though: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/12/why-are-highly-educated-women-having-more-children/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/12/why-are-highly-educat...

deleted 6y ago

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jaybrendansmith 6y ago

So many misconceptions about education, some good ideas though. 1. adult-centric point of view is one of the driving forces behind the failure of modern education. Wrong. Educators spend many years studying pedagogy, and what is and is not developmentally appropriate. They get rapidly good at telling which kids need extra help, and who can go read independently on the rug. 2. healthy childhood of few concerns without the relegation to daycare is the root of greatness Correct. This is the true secret, all children must have a safe place where they can independently learn. Anxiety about family, money, food, is generally terrible for learning. 3. best formula for helping kids get interested in science by Neil deGrasse Tyson is: "Get off their back!". Largely Correct. Schools should provide more time for self-study and play. A longer day with less direct teaching and more exploration and play would do wonders for many children. Several countries already do this (Not enough) 4. passions born in childhood change lives Correct, but not everyone will have this drive. Personality matters. There are dandelion children, and orchid children. Some will succeed no matter where they grow. Some wilt and die without constant care. 5. relentless lifelong pursuit of goals born from youthful passions is a solid formula for success Partial, see above. Personality is more important than IQ up to a point. Nobody can teach you personality, they can only repress it. 6. mass production of great teachers is no easier than mass production of genius Wrong. Enough 'natural' teachers exist, but due to the disparagement of the profession in the US, as well as the poor relative pay, most choose something else. If we valued teachers, and paid them well, this would change immediately. PS It has nothing to do with unions. 7. in development, minor trajectory nudges within the push zone by inspirational tutors are welcome Correct. This requires great teachers, but we can also leverage all the 'greats' from other fields that are looking to pay it forward. More funding would allow this. 8. pranks, rebellions, and disobedience at school are an expression of freedom and may foster better learning Correct. More free time, more time for expression. Oddly, this is where American schools are much better than most European. In America, there is more room to be an individual, and most are not crushed with conformity and homework as they are in Europe. 9. grants for kids to get to college are as good as grants for kids to skip college. All support for the youth is welcome Correct, but remember personality? Most don't know what they want to do or be until they are in their 20s. Many creative individuals are late bloomers, they don't know what startup to start. They have not found their calling yet. Most are better off in college, doing more exploring. 10. dropping out of college can turn out to be a good thing Wrong. Yes, everybody likes these stories. Everybody likes these inspirational tales of drop outs. But you're looking at major survivorship bias here. Most dropouts do not make it, at least not right away. Most would have been better off completing their schooling, because most do not have the personality to persist at a startup, or they are missing any of the other 20 or so qualities necessary to succeed. Most need to spend time learning those qualities, and many actually know that they do ... they don't have the arrogance/confidence to believe they can succeed yet. Bill Gates is not wrong. All progress is made by inches, in fits and starts, in tweaks and small changes of degree, and by experimentation. Big sweeping changes just create 100 other issues. Any fundamental changes must be backed by solid evidence, and there must be agreement about what a good outcome should look like. Suppose the changes suggested create 100 more Bill Gates, but destroy the lives of 10,000 poorer children? Is that a good outcome? With limited time, money, and personnel, the tradeoffs are always immense.