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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.
        Karrot_Kream 5y ago
        This seems optimized for the smarter/more successful children. What happens to the rest?
        5y ago
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    Maybe in all the empty office buildings :)

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.
        Karrot_Kream 5y ago
        This seems optimized for the smarter/more successful children. What happens to the rest?
        5y ago
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Maybe in all the empty office buildings :)