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> I did not learn anything in highschool (or college) Is this really the case or do you just not remember specific things you learned or even abstract concepts

> I did not learn anything in highschool (or college) Is this really the case or do you just not remember specific things you learned or even abstract concepts around learning itself that are hard to quantify?

peter_l_downs 5y ago
I don't know, how would I?
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  Do you know math? Did you rediscover it, learn it from materials or individuals outside of school, or learn it in school? Repeat that exercise with other areas of knowledge.
- SECProto 5y ago
  If you don't know whether you learned anything, you shouldn't state definitively "I did not learn anything in highschool (or college)"
ElFitz 5y ago
Not the parent, but I really couldn’t say. I personally spent most high school classes either sleeping or playing on my laptop, and often literally learning about what we had been seeing in class when reading the exam's title. Often doing things like completing the math exams based on recollections from middle school. And yet got by, year after year, as well as anyone else. I then spent over a decade having a hard time figuring out how to actually take and keep any kind of notes, study and how to learn things that didn’t just "come to me" on their own. Quite a weird experience. Looking back, I can only wish it had been different. But that’s pointless.
rossnordby 5y ago
I'd charitably interpret this as something like, "I did not learn anything useful or interesting in school that I did not learn elsewhere first or more effectively". I'd endorse that claim, for the most part. I definitely learned all kinds of things that are not useful nor interesting, and then promptly discarded them. Maybe 2 or 3 isolated things in university passed the above criteria for me, and those were only possible because of the greater freedom offered in universities over K-12. The times where I actually learned things, including abstract metalearning, were always when I was trying to do difficult things independently from school. School was just taking time away from that. It's important to keep in mind that the alternative to the current education system isn't 'child sits in a box devoid of all sensory input'- there are tons of possibilities.
octokatt 5y ago
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/519/ https://xkcd.com/519/

peter_l_downs 5y ago

I don't know, how would I?

Jtsummers 5y ago
Do you know math? Did you rediscover it, learn it from materials or individuals outside of school, or learn it in school? Repeat that exercise with other areas of knowledge.
SECProto 5y ago
If you don't know whether you learned anything, you shouldn't state definitively "I did not learn anything in highschool (or college)"

ElFitz 5y ago

Not the parent, but I really couldn’t say. I personally spent most high school classes either sleeping or playing on my laptop, and often literally learning about what we had been seeing in class when reading the exam's title. Often doing things like completing the math exams based on recollections from middle school. And yet got by, year after year, as well as anyone else. I then spent over a decade having a hard time figuring out how to actually take and keep any kind of notes, study and how to learn things that didn’t just "come to me" on their own. Quite a weird experience. Looking back, I can only wish it had been different. But that’s pointless.

rossnordby 5y ago

I'd charitably interpret this as something like, "I did not learn anything useful or interesting in school that I did not learn elsewhere first or more effectively". I'd endorse that claim, for the most part. I definitely learned all kinds of things that are not useful nor interesting, and then promptly discarded them. Maybe 2 or 3 isolated things in university passed the above criteria for me, and those were only possible because of the greater freedom offered in universities over K-12. The times where I actually learned things, including abstract metalearning, were always when I was trying to do difficult things independently from school. School was just taking time away from that. It's important to keep in mind that the alternative to the current education system isn't 'child sits in a box devoid of all sensory input'- there are tons of possibilities.

octokatt 5y ago

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/519/ https://xkcd.com/519/