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I can't teach anyone anything. I have doubts that anyone else can do it, either; but can only speak to my own experience. I can provide lots of assistance to t

I can't teach anyone anything. I have doubts that anyone else can do it, either; but can only speak to my own experience. I can provide lots of assistance to those who are trying to learn. We tell people "Edumacation" is going to happen to them whether they want it or not; and then they have to sign up for more "or you'll never have a good life" etc. It seems that we've lost the reason why we do these things. It's just empty ritual. Things are this bad in famous, expensive upper class schools; imagine how bad they are in poor to normal elementary schools. We got kids with failing grades because they never got a (theoretically school provided) chromebook, never got a login to "the homework sites", or can't get reliable connectivity from home or school. They may or may not know the material they were supposed to learn but who cares about that? As long as the attendance records are good the school gets paid.

lbriner 5y ago
An interesting take and, yes, in the west it is hard to instill in a student that it is up to them to earn their way to success by making the maximum use of the teaching resources and not to sit back and get fed what they need. In poorer countries, this is better understood, especially since many people do not go to school so the alternative to working hard is plain to see. Not sure how you fix it though, perhaps some out of the box ideas to reward those that work hard in a way that reinforces that hard works pays off. I don't know.
- bernulli 5y ago
  That's got nothing to do with west vs. poor. Have you seen the 2-year French math requirements before you are even admitted to an engineering school? Have you seen German universities where there is zero advisement and where your two years worth of math courses in your engineering program are tested in a single final exam, as the very first feedback (no quizzes, no homework, no midterm, not split into 10 math micro courses, no projects, no extra credit, etc.)? It's sink or swim.
JKCalhoun 5y ago
No offense, but I think you're being a bit dismissive: if a students doesn't learn a thing it is because they didn't try. There is a middle road you are not calling out: if you make math (or any subject) approachable in your teaching style, you can get students to want to learn, try to learn. I'd say that is generally true for pretty much any subject. Why does someone try to learn history? Probably because they somehow became interested in it. A good teacher will try to make it interesting.
- bernulli 5y ago
  I disagree. I think learning to learn, and, first, learning to motivate yourself to learn is a huge part of a college education with the goal to prepare you for a life in which boundary conditions change all the time. What happens to those students who are then in a job, tasked to solve a problem, but now expect their boss to dance around them to make it `interesting'?
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    You may be right, I was speaking more broadly about education, not focused on college education. Although that does suggest a wider question, why education at all? Would you apply your same approach/attitude to elementary school education? At what point is it that we shift the burden to learn to the student? I suspect society is worse off if we "give up" on educating a large segment of the population. (And I don't mean to imply everyone needs to learn higher math, I am speaking more broadly of education.)
    - bernulli 5y ago
      > why education at all? It seems I addressed that in my post? > Would you apply your same approach/attitude to elementary school education? At what point is it that we shift the burden to learn to the student? I'd say the ideal is that a person is a curious self-starter throughout their life. But we have to differentiate between different degrees ( as in `levels') of education. I think that everyone needs some fundamental understanding of the the world (history, physics), needs to be able to read and calculate simple things. And there are indeed schools who do it from an early age, like Montessori, in which students essentially pick their own projects. Also, we do give up on educating a large segment of the population eventually: not everyone has a PhD. But we're not worse off as a society, because the returns are diminishing quite a bit.
simion314 5y ago
From my personal experience doing homework with my son I think a big issue that is not addressed is that kids/people are different, some don't instantly get it and most f the time the kids will not have the courage to tell the teacher that they do not understand. I have a lot of difficulties working with only 1 child, imagine now working with 25 at a time, and it happens that I am convinced I explained stuff super clear and my son understand it but later I discover that still there was something unclear. I empathize with teachers and with parents that also stuggle with making the children really understand math/programming and not only solve the homework and memorize some rules. I also wish there were less classes in school, general knowledge is nice too have but IMO is too much(my son is in a public high school in Romania , a good one but not elite)
- mdip 5y ago
  > From my personal experience doing homework with my son I think a big issue that is not addressed is that kids/people are different, some don't instantly get it and most f the time the kids will not have the courage to tell the teacher that they do not understand. You are absolutely right. I have a unique experience with my children. Two of them are homeschooled, two attend public school. The two who are homeschooled learned to read around age five, are excellent readers and are about two years ahead in math/algebra[0]. My public school kids were a little above average students, as well. That all changed over the last two years -- partly due to pandemic/remote learning, but not because we became more actively involved in their education. My two homeschooled kids get three hours of formal education, per day, on a busy day. When you're one-on-one with two students, and the teacher understands the student better than any other human being on the planet, it's really efficient[1]. Having worked remotely for a while, I told them that they have to get to know their teachers. They attended a "remote first" school which we transferred them to -- this was not a normally in-class school that had been forced to go "online only" in an unprepared manner, but one had existed for years prior and taught classes completely differently than the in-person schools. We forced them to schedule time every time it was offered to meet with their teachers. The result was an increased comfort with speaking up when they got lost. Returning to in-person schooling this year, they have kept that pattern; all of their teachers know them well -- when we pop up on video for parent-teacher conferences, we hear "Oh, you're (name omitted)'s parents!" Both are honor-roll students, now, two years in a row. [0] That's an unscientific assessment; I use it because I regularly caught my son helping his two-years-older stepson with math homework; they were either working on the exact same concepts or they my son had done it the prior year. [1] This works in the exact opposite direction, as well. My daughter, for a solid year and a half, would break down crying over her inability to understand her math work and would become very defiant about learning -- giving up before trying, etc -- because "it's Mom, and I can get away with these things with Mom". It's manageable, though, when you recognize that the "giving up before trying because she feels she can" is the way she expresses how she's struggling. The advantage of home schooling is that we don't have to move on to the next thing until they understand the previous enough to restore their confidence. We don't have to start summer time-off or even have it at all (it really doesn't feel any different, anyway!) if they need it.

lbriner 5y ago

An interesting take and, yes, in the west it is hard to instill in a student that it is up to them to earn their way to success by making the maximum use of the teaching resources and not to sit back and get fed what they need. In poorer countries, this is better understood, especially since many people do not go to school so the alternative to working hard is plain to see. Not sure how you fix it though, perhaps some out of the box ideas to reward those that work hard in a way that reinforces that hard works pays off. I don't know.

bernulli 5y ago
That's got nothing to do with west vs. poor. Have you seen the 2-year French math requirements before you are even admitted to an engineering school? Have you seen German universities where there is zero advisement and where your two years worth of math courses in your engineering program are tested in a single final exam, as the very first feedback (no quizzes, no homework, no midterm, not split into 10 math micro courses, no projects, no extra credit, etc.)? It's sink or swim.

JKCalhoun 5y ago

No offense, but I think you're being a bit dismissive: if a students doesn't learn a thing it is because they didn't try. There is a middle road you are not calling out: if you make math (or any subject) approachable in your teaching style, you can get students to want to learn, try to learn. I'd say that is generally true for pretty much any subject. Why does someone try to learn history? Probably because they somehow became interested in it. A good teacher will try to make it interesting.

bernulli 5y ago
I disagree. I think learning to learn, and, first, learning to motivate yourself to learn is a huge part of a college education with the goal to prepare you for a life in which boundary conditions change all the time. What happens to those students who are then in a job, tasked to solve a problem, but now expect their boss to dance around them to make it `interesting'?
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  You may be right, I was speaking more broadly about education, not focused on college education. Although that does suggest a wider question, why education at all? Would you apply your same approach/attitude to elementary school education? At what point is it that we shift the burden to learn to the student? I suspect society is worse off if we "give up" on educating a large segment of the population. (And I don't mean to imply everyone needs to learn higher math, I am speaking more broadly of education.)
  - bernulli 5y ago
    > why education at all? It seems I addressed that in my post? > Would you apply your same approach/attitude to elementary school education? At what point is it that we shift the burden to learn to the student? I'd say the ideal is that a person is a curious self-starter throughout their life. But we have to differentiate between different degrees ( as in `levels') of education. I think that everyone needs some fundamental understanding of the the world (history, physics), needs to be able to read and calculate simple things. And there are indeed schools who do it from an early age, like Montessori, in which students essentially pick their own projects. Also, we do give up on educating a large segment of the population eventually: not everyone has a PhD. But we're not worse off as a society, because the returns are diminishing quite a bit.

simion314 5y ago

From my personal experience doing homework with my son I think a big issue that is not addressed is that kids/people are different, some don't instantly get it and most f the time the kids will not have the courage to tell the teacher that they do not understand. I have a lot of difficulties working with only 1 child, imagine now working with 25 at a time, and it happens that I am convinced I explained stuff super clear and my son understand it but later I discover that still there was something unclear. I empathize with teachers and with parents that also stuggle with making the children really understand math/programming and not only solve the homework and memorize some rules. I also wish there were less classes in school, general knowledge is nice too have but IMO is too much(my son is in a public high school in Romania , a good one but not elite)

mdip 5y ago
> From my personal experience doing homework with my son I think a big issue that is not addressed is that kids/people are different, some don't instantly get it and most f the time the kids will not have the courage to tell the teacher that they do not understand. You are absolutely right. I have a unique experience with my children. Two of them are homeschooled, two attend public school. The two who are homeschooled learned to read around age five, are excellent readers and are about two years ahead in math/algebra[0]. My public school kids were a little above average students, as well. That all changed over the last two years -- partly due to pandemic/remote learning, but not because we became more actively involved in their education. My two homeschooled kids get three hours of formal education, per day, on a busy day. When you're one-on-one with two students, and the teacher understands the student better than any other human being on the planet, it's really efficient[1]. Having worked remotely for a while, I told them that they have to get to know their teachers. They attended a "remote first" school which we transferred them to -- this was not a normally in-class school that had been forced to go "online only" in an unprepared manner, but one had existed for years prior and taught classes completely differently than the in-person schools. We forced them to schedule time every time it was offered to meet with their teachers. The result was an increased comfort with speaking up when they got lost. Returning to in-person schooling this year, they have kept that pattern; all of their teachers know them well -- when we pop up on video for parent-teacher conferences, we hear "Oh, you're (name omitted)'s parents!" Both are honor-roll students, now, two years in a row. [0] That's an unscientific assessment; I use it because I regularly caught my son helping his two-years-older stepson with math homework; they were either working on the exact same concepts or they my son had done it the prior year. [1] This works in the exact opposite direction, as well. My daughter, for a solid year and a half, would break down crying over her inability to understand her math work and would become very defiant about learning -- giving up before trying, etc -- because "it's Mom, and I can get away with these things with Mom". It's manageable, though, when you recognize that the "giving up before trying because she feels she can" is the way she expresses how she's struggling. The advantage of home schooling is that we don't have to move on to the next thing until they understand the previous enough to restore their confidence. We don't have to start summer time-off or even have it at all (it really doesn't feel any different, anyway!) if they need it.