5 ms·

I think the pandemic has shown us just how much school sucks, and how ineffective and incompetent the political system behind it truly is. I’m Danish, and our s

by moksly 6y ago

I think the pandemic has shown us just how much school sucks, and how ineffective and incompetent the political system behind it truly is. I’m Danish, and our school system is run largely by the public sector, so keep that in mind. When the pandemic struck, and we closed down from April to late may, our schools actually reacted decently. It was a stressful situation, everything was new and has to happen here and now. So the lower quality and chaos was to be expected, but I think our teachers and school administrations pulled through and did really well given the circumstances. What troubles me is that when the second lockdown hit in November, nothing had changed. We knew it was coming because it was happening in other countries before it hit us, and still, we were as unrelated as the first time? Why didn’t we have videos of the curriculum prepared nationally instead of still relying of thousands of individual teachers to teach classes as though students were in a class room? Why weren’t we prepared to let students go through material on their own, and then have “classes” with teachers in smaller groups of 4-6 with the teacher preforming a mentor role, which is what worked best during the first lockdown? I mean, it’s really just silly that we’re still pretending the online class room is similar to the real physical class room, and it’s leaving weaker or challenged students behind. I do think children are wanting to go back to school though. Not because of school, but because of the social life going back to school brings them.

lordnacho 6y ago
> Why didn’t we have videos of the curriculum prepared nationally instead of still relying of thousands of individual teachers to teach classes as though students were in a class room? We're talking about school, not university, right? Kids don't do lectures, it's all interactive. Plus what do you reckon the teaching unions would think about that plan? You want them to just put all of education on YouTube, and then be done? Have you ever met a teacher in school who was better at using a computer than you? (Assume you're a dev). How could you expect them to have everything done between April and November when they're as lost as the kids?
- bmn__ 6y ago
  Lectures are a straw-man in your argument which largely invalidates it. Please find out about the inverted classroom concept.
  - lordnacho 6y ago
    It seems you don't understand what a strawman is. In any case, we are talking about grade school kids, from a few years old to maybe 12. You cannot just plop them in front of a computer to view content at their own leisure, and then expect them to come up with intelligent questions to fill in the gaps. That's what you do with university students. I have both of these in my household, and I can assure you that while it works for the master's student, the kids have a tough time without interaction.
    - bmn__ 6y ago
      I guess you think only intentional straw-men arguments exist. This isn't the case. They can also arise from misunderstanding, which I think is what happened here. To spell it out: user moksly described an instance of the inverted classroom. You selectively quoted and misunderstood this to be about (university-style) lectures, and proceeded to argue against lectures.¹ I resent that you didn't take my clue to learn about the inverted classroom concept, that way you could have noticed your mistake. ¹ FWIW: I agree that lectures are not suitable for school pupils.
      - lordnacho 6y ago
        My deepest apologies, I didn't know that what he was describing was what you call an "inverted classroom" until you replied and I looked it up. The thing is, I don't see how it really matters. You still end up requiring kids to sit still when they can't do it. I guess my focus is on smaller kids. I fully agree with modern comms you can do the inverted classrooms with people older than maybe 12 or so, I'm unsure where the line is.
  - notacoward 6y ago
    A strawman is a claim or argument falsely attributed to an interlocutor, not just an assumption (stated or otherwise) that is not shared. At worst, what we have here is a non sequitur. The fact that you have misused the term twice in this discussion suggests that either you don't really understand it (a commentary on the dangers of ad hoc education?) or that you're merely using it as a rhetorical club instead of a good-faith counterargument. Either way, please don't.
watwut 6y ago
> Why weren’t we prepared to let students go through material on their own, and then have “classes” with teachers in smaller groups of 4-6 with the teacher preforming a mentor role, which is what worked best during the first lockdown? Because in practice, this amounts to one teacher for 4-6 kids and assumption that kids are good at individual preparation.
npsimons 6y ago
> I think the pandemic has shown us just how much school sucks, and how ineffective and incompetent the political system behind it truly is. It's a tool to condition people to become obedient little serfs who don't question authority so they will become good cogs in the corporate/industrial machine. It's also there to be daycare so parents can go be good cogs in the corporate/industrial machine. Education is a distant third at best. At least this is how it is in America. All these people talking about the socializing are probably the same people who hate telework and miss the office because that's where they do a lot of their socializing. It's completely orthogonal, socializing should not be dependent on school or work, and maybe if they are such a huge part of our life we either admit they are broken and restructure them, or commit to less time dedicated to these activities.

by moksly 6y ago

lordnacho 6y ago

> Why didn’t we have videos of the curriculum prepared nationally instead of still relying of thousands of individual teachers to teach classes as though students were in a class room? We're talking about school, not university, right? Kids don't do lectures, it's all interactive. Plus what do you reckon the teaching unions would think about that plan? You want them to just put all of education on YouTube, and then be done? Have you ever met a teacher in school who was better at using a computer than you? (Assume you're a dev). How could you expect them to have everything done between April and November when they're as lost as the kids?

bmn__ 6y ago
Lectures are a straw-man in your argument which largely invalidates it. Please find out about the inverted classroom concept.
- lordnacho 6y ago
  It seems you don't understand what a strawman is. In any case, we are talking about grade school kids, from a few years old to maybe 12. You cannot just plop them in front of a computer to view content at their own leisure, and then expect them to come up with intelligent questions to fill in the gaps. That's what you do with university students. I have both of these in my household, and I can assure you that while it works for the master's student, the kids have a tough time without interaction.
  - bmn__ 6y ago
    I guess you think only intentional straw-men arguments exist. This isn't the case. They can also arise from misunderstanding, which I think is what happened here. To spell it out: user moksly described an instance of the inverted classroom. You selectively quoted and misunderstood this to be about (university-style) lectures, and proceeded to argue against lectures.¹ I resent that you didn't take my clue to learn about the inverted classroom concept, that way you could have noticed your mistake. ¹ FWIW: I agree that lectures are not suitable for school pupils.
    - lordnacho 6y ago
      My deepest apologies, I didn't know that what he was describing was what you call an "inverted classroom" until you replied and I looked it up. The thing is, I don't see how it really matters. You still end up requiring kids to sit still when they can't do it. I guess my focus is on smaller kids. I fully agree with modern comms you can do the inverted classrooms with people older than maybe 12 or so, I'm unsure where the line is.
- notacoward 6y ago
  A strawman is a claim or argument falsely attributed to an interlocutor, not just an assumption (stated or otherwise) that is not shared. At worst, what we have here is a non sequitur. The fact that you have misused the term twice in this discussion suggests that either you don't really understand it (a commentary on the dangers of ad hoc education?) or that you're merely using it as a rhetorical club instead of a good-faith counterargument. Either way, please don't.

watwut 6y ago

> Why weren’t we prepared to let students go through material on their own, and then have “classes” with teachers in smaller groups of 4-6 with the teacher preforming a mentor role, which is what worked best during the first lockdown? Because in practice, this amounts to one teacher for 4-6 kids and assumption that kids are good at individual preparation.

npsimons 6y ago

> I think the pandemic has shown us just how much school sucks, and how ineffective and incompetent the political system behind it truly is. It's a tool to condition people to become obedient little serfs who don't question authority so they will become good cogs in the corporate/industrial machine. It's also there to be daycare so parents can go be good cogs in the corporate/industrial machine. Education is a distant third at best. At least this is how it is in America. All these people talking about the socializing are probably the same people who hate telework and miss the office because that's where they do a lot of their socializing. It's completely orthogonal, socializing should not be dependent on school or work, and maybe if they are such a huge part of our life we either admit they are broken and restructure them, or commit to less time dedicated to these activities.