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I could send my kids to very good private schools but we are seriously considering learning pods. Online groups make it easy to meet up with other pods. And I l

I could send my kids to very good private schools but we are seriously considering learning pods. Online groups make it easy to meet up with other pods. And I like the ability to craft the syllabus my kids learn from. The old factory-method of schooling just doesn’t make any sense. Why do you have 45 minutes of math, 45 minutes of English, 45 minutes of etc.? It’s like the format of schooling was invented 150 years ago and never updated.

endisneigh 5y ago
Because school isn’t just about learning. Learning pods and online learning just isn’t scalable.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Scalable? Groups of 20 families hiring an instructor as a grass roots method + online resources seems automatically scalable to me.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >Groups of 20 families hiring an instructor i.e. "ye olde one room schoolhouse" The online resources just mean that a single instructor is more efficient/effective by leveraging the work of external specialists and can carry students into depths of subjects that were not attainable at that scale a century ago. Your great grandfather may have had to go to college to learn science and math beyond the basic stuff. Today a generalist teacher can leverage everything from a lesson plan to a virtual lecture prepared by teachers who specialize in teaching those subjects.
    - TimTheTinker 5y ago
      The resources available today make homeschooling and co-op/pod schooling incredibly scalable. Khan academy's video tutorials can be a game changer when a child is having trouble understanding a particular concept in math, for example.
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    Where are these kids going to be taught? Are there resources for those who are disabled? What about the poor? What will they eat? Where does the food come from? Etc
    - seibelj 5y ago
      Why don’t we take the $10k to $20k we pay per student in America annually to educate them, and let the parent allocate those funds where they want? Learning pods cost less than that for parents, but sadly only the rich can afford it (like most things private). Basically keep the public funding but give allocation control to parents. Then everyone can have the same choice as rich people.
      - endisneigh 5y ago
        They may or may not be a good idea, but isn’t related to the fact that online learning just doesn’t scale. The OP pretty much is evidence of such.
        seibelj 5y ago
        It literally scales better than any other mechanism of schooling! You have the best possible educators create lesson plans, videos, and visual materials and then lesser-skilled facilitators can assist students as they learn. It’s the absolute most scalable mechanism of education thus created.
        endisneigh 5y ago
        Again, school isn’t just about education. Facilities, transportation, child care, behavioral management, counseling, etc. No, online “school” doesn’t scale.
        seibelj 5y ago
        I don't think you need a ton of facilities to learn, just as you don't need a giant university to learn most subjects at an advanced level. And we can place pods close to students rather than far away in a centralized place. And for behavioral management / counseling, certain kids need a lot more of that than others, so they should get those resources on an individual basis. I favor a model of education that lets advanced kids move quicker than slower kids, and if slower kids pick up the pace, the system can adapt for them to move quicker also. A vast improvement over the current system of institutional mediocrity.
rayiner 5y ago
I send my kids to a private school, but with NAIS losing the plot, I’d love to get involved in a learning pod.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  Can you explain the bit about the NAIS losing the plot?
  - rayiner 5y ago
    See: https://freebeacon.com/culture/why-private-schools-have-gone-woke/ https://freebeacon.com/culture/why-private-schools-have-gone... The teachers at our school are pretty level headed, but the NAIS-approved curriculum sources are pretty wacky. For example: https://pollyannaincrlc.org/ https://pollyannaincrlc.org/ For example for Grade 4: > The full collection of Racial Literacy Grade 4 lessons are designed to help students understand how geography influenced the emergence of civilization. Humans are the only animals to build vast civilizations,* and geography provided or denied the resources that allowed some groups of former hunter-gatherers to become farmers and herders and eventually develop some of the world’s first civilizations. Students will explore the various engineering, technological, scientific, and mathematical innovations of such civilizations, tracing cross-cultural patterns in order to develop a more informed and eclectic worldview––enhancing their own cultural competency. A goal is for students to realize that humans of a given time and place created similar structures and/or inherited ideas to establish a common pattern that was dictated by geography.* With such a lens, students will be able to analyze history and other social assertions that fabricate myths of racial superiority, including the ability to critique and dispel Eurocentric perspectives that favor a myopic view of race. As a Bangladeshi who has spent a lot of time reading about development economics this is egregiously bad. It mixes up race with culture—a common error caused by projecting American racial politics onto other countries—and reduces the question of why some countries are rich and others are poor to “geography.” Bangladesh is so bountiful in terms of resources that fish literally jump out of ponds into your net: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dziriaxG1Fk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dziriaxG1Fk. It’s paradise compared to anywhere in Northern Europe. Resources aren’t why Europeans pulled ahead. That’s an absurd claim. Which isn’t surprising, because nobody involved with this Pollyanna curriculum is actually a developmental economist or historian. It’s a curriculum that’s formulated by working backward from the premise of cultural equality.
runawaybottle 5y ago
Why do you have 45 minutes of math, 45 minutes of English, 45 minutes of etc.? It isn’t just that. Why is it that in the most crucial developmental years of your life you are tasked to learn everything with a bunch of people that are a distraction. Yes, the socializing part is a distraction, a real one, it’s as if someone at your job says ‘meetings all day, every day, and then after the meetings, make sure you do the work’. It’s insanity. Hopefully no one in those meetings (your school) goes beyond being a distraction (violent, bullying).

endisneigh 5y ago

Because school isn’t just about learning. Learning pods and online learning just isn’t scalable.

mensetmanusman 5y ago
Scalable? Groups of 20 families hiring an instructor as a grass roots method + online resources seems automatically scalable to me.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >Groups of 20 families hiring an instructor i.e. "ye olde one room schoolhouse" The online resources just mean that a single instructor is more efficient/effective by leveraging the work of external specialists and can carry students into depths of subjects that were not attainable at that scale a century ago. Your great grandfather may have had to go to college to learn science and math beyond the basic stuff. Today a generalist teacher can leverage everything from a lesson plan to a virtual lecture prepared by teachers who specialize in teaching those subjects.
  - TimTheTinker 5y ago
    The resources available today make homeschooling and co-op/pod schooling incredibly scalable. Khan academy's video tutorials can be a game changer when a child is having trouble understanding a particular concept in math, for example.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  Where are these kids going to be taught? Are there resources for those who are disabled? What about the poor? What will they eat? Where does the food come from? Etc
  - seibelj 5y ago
    Why don’t we take the $10k to $20k we pay per student in America annually to educate them, and let the parent allocate those funds where they want? Learning pods cost less than that for parents, but sadly only the rich can afford it (like most things private). Basically keep the public funding but give allocation control to parents. Then everyone can have the same choice as rich people.
    - endisneigh 5y ago
      They may or may not be a good idea, but isn’t related to the fact that online learning just doesn’t scale. The OP pretty much is evidence of such.
      - seibelj 5y ago
        It literally scales better than any other mechanism of schooling! You have the best possible educators create lesson plans, videos, and visual materials and then lesser-skilled facilitators can assist students as they learn. It’s the absolute most scalable mechanism of education thus created.
        endisneigh 5y ago
        Again, school isn’t just about education. Facilities, transportation, child care, behavioral management, counseling, etc. No, online “school” doesn’t scale.
        seibelj 5y ago
        I don't think you need a ton of facilities to learn, just as you don't need a giant university to learn most subjects at an advanced level. And we can place pods close to students rather than far away in a centralized place. And for behavioral management / counseling, certain kids need a lot more of that than others, so they should get those resources on an individual basis. I favor a model of education that lets advanced kids move quicker than slower kids, and if slower kids pick up the pace, the system can adapt for them to move quicker also. A vast improvement over the current system of institutional mediocrity.

rayiner 5y ago

I send my kids to a private school, but with NAIS losing the plot, I’d love to get involved in a learning pod.

throwawaysea 5y ago
Can you explain the bit about the NAIS losing the plot?
- rayiner 5y ago
  See: https://freebeacon.com/culture/why-private-schools-have-gone-woke/ https://freebeacon.com/culture/why-private-schools-have-gone... The teachers at our school are pretty level headed, but the NAIS-approved curriculum sources are pretty wacky. For example: https://pollyannaincrlc.org/ https://pollyannaincrlc.org/ For example for Grade 4: > The full collection of Racial Literacy Grade 4 lessons are designed to help students understand how geography influenced the emergence of civilization. Humans are the only animals to build vast civilizations,* and geography provided or denied the resources that allowed some groups of former hunter-gatherers to become farmers and herders and eventually develop some of the world’s first civilizations. Students will explore the various engineering, technological, scientific, and mathematical innovations of such civilizations, tracing cross-cultural patterns in order to develop a more informed and eclectic worldview––enhancing their own cultural competency. A goal is for students to realize that humans of a given time and place created similar structures and/or inherited ideas to establish a common pattern that was dictated by geography.* With such a lens, students will be able to analyze history and other social assertions that fabricate myths of racial superiority, including the ability to critique and dispel Eurocentric perspectives that favor a myopic view of race. As a Bangladeshi who has spent a lot of time reading about development economics this is egregiously bad. It mixes up race with culture—a common error caused by projecting American racial politics onto other countries—and reduces the question of why some countries are rich and others are poor to “geography.” Bangladesh is so bountiful in terms of resources that fish literally jump out of ponds into your net: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dziriaxG1Fk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dziriaxG1Fk. It’s paradise compared to anywhere in Northern Europe. Resources aren’t why Europeans pulled ahead. That’s an absurd claim. Which isn’t surprising, because nobody involved with this Pollyanna curriculum is actually a developmental economist or historian. It’s a curriculum that’s formulated by working backward from the premise of cultural equality.

runawaybottle 5y ago

Why do you have 45 minutes of math, 45 minutes of English, 45 minutes of etc.? It isn’t just that. Why is it that in the most crucial developmental years of your life you are tasked to learn everything with a bunch of people that are a distraction. Yes, the socializing part is a distraction, a real one, it’s as if someone at your job says ‘meetings all day, every day, and then after the meetings, make sure you do the work’. It’s insanity. Hopefully no one in those meetings (your school) goes beyond being a distraction (violent, bullying).