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> Any visionary attempting to restructure traditional learning should read this, and I say that with no ounce of malice or sarcasm... On the contrary. Part of

> Any visionary attempting to restructure traditional learning should read this, and I say that with no ounce of malice or sarcasm... On the contrary. Part of TFA’s point is that, like many other fields, outsiders usually have a much poorer idea than they think of the hows and whys of teaching. Until you’re actually in front of a classroom it’s not obvious why seemingly sensible ideas are often ineffective or unworkable (see also: any HN thread about k-12). Reading a blog post, rubbing some brain cells on it, and then making pronouncements is exactly the kind of thing TFA warns against. Any visionary attempting to restructure learning should teach.

mattwilsonn888 5y ago
> On the contrary. Part of TFA’s point is that, like many other fields, outsiders usually have a much poorer idea than they think of the hows and whys of teaching. So you're saying those attempting to restructure the classroom should not take into account this blog post? You seemed to fail to recognize the value of this blog post, or sharing knowledge in general: you give others an express pass to knowledge that you have gained through first hand experience. That is the meat of the article: common pitfalls new teachers trying new ideas fall into - if your goal is to change education you must experiment, and if you are going to experiment, this blog post is invaluable. Forever more an experimenter attempting a classroom restructuring who read this post now has artificial first hand experience to draw from - to state that anyone attempting to do such a thing should ignore this piece and generate first hand experience is asking them now to retread mapped territory. Unless your prescription is that people shouldn't experiment - a notion which warrants no respect.
- smogcutter 5y ago
  > So you're saying those attempting to restructure the classroom should not take into account this blog post? You seemed to fail to recognize the value of this blog post, or sharing knowledge in general... Oh come on, this isn’t Pedagogy of the Oppressed, it’s a blog post of “things I didn’t understand until my first year on the job”. TFA is a great post! It’s particularly interesting to laymen, and maybe rookie post-secondary faculty who have been taught a lot about their subject and very little (if anything) about how to teach. But none of it’s novel for anyone who’s been on the other side of the desk. Talking about education practice in public forums is hard because everyone has a stake, and everyone thinks their experience as a student or parent plus a little common sense makes them an expert. Again, see literally any HN thread about education. TFA does a great job of reminding laymen that often those Chesterton fences are there for a reason. But sorry, I don’t think it’s a rejection of the idea of “sharing knowledge in general” to say that “visionaries attempting to restructure education” probably shouldn’t be laymen. So, okay, “on the contrary” in my OP was a little strong. Not that anyone shouldn’t read it. But just because something is new to you doesn’t actually make it new.
  - adminprof 5y ago
    I'd like to see in a forum for dentists a thread where they offer clever suggestions for how to change software development. Clearly, all these dentists have used plenty of software before. They would have seemingly great ideas like "programmers should get 10% of their pay docked each time I encounter a bug in a program" or "the real solution is to hire someone to test the program from start to finish before releasing it". I bet programmers on Hacker News would be livid upon hearing these suggestions, but seem to have no problem announcing their clever solutions about other disciplines (not excluding myself).
    - mattwilsonn888 5y ago
      Terrible analogy. What authority might a team of QA testers have on restructuring the methods for software development? Perhaps not as much as a software developer, but certainly enough to grope at and possibly conceive of new and useful ideas. A student is a QA tester for a classroom, they are not a dentist using a program, they were involved in the entire process and saw basically every mechanism with varying levels of ignorance on motivations. Comparing a student to an end product consumer of software development is an embarrassingly long stretch - teaching is an art, but its not that complicated nor disconnected from its patrons.
      - adminprof 5y ago
        Students are users of a class, as much as a dentist is a user of a dental software application. Neither were involved in the making of the class or software. Both were delivered the experience as designed by the course staff (instructor and/or TAs), or software team. Both only see the final product after months or years of development, done by specialists trained for many years even before that. The error you're making is stating that "students are involved in the entire process" which is laughable. Many classes have gone through years of iteration, and even new courses take many months to develop before students set foot in the classroom, not to mention the years of experience and education needed to get the instructor to the point that they can even make a class in several months.

mattwilsonn888 5y ago

> On the contrary. Part of TFA’s point is that, like many other fields, outsiders usually have a much poorer idea than they think of the hows and whys of teaching. So you're saying those attempting to restructure the classroom should not take into account this blog post? You seemed to fail to recognize the value of this blog post, or sharing knowledge in general: you give others an express pass to knowledge that you have gained through first hand experience. That is the meat of the article: common pitfalls new teachers trying new ideas fall into - if your goal is to change education you must experiment, and if you are going to experiment, this blog post is invaluable. Forever more an experimenter attempting a classroom restructuring who read this post now has artificial first hand experience to draw from - to state that anyone attempting to do such a thing should ignore this piece and generate first hand experience is asking them now to retread mapped territory. Unless your prescription is that people shouldn't experiment - a notion which warrants no respect.

smogcutter 5y ago
> So you're saying those attempting to restructure the classroom should not take into account this blog post? You seemed to fail to recognize the value of this blog post, or sharing knowledge in general... Oh come on, this isn’t Pedagogy of the Oppressed, it’s a blog post of “things I didn’t understand until my first year on the job”. TFA is a great post! It’s particularly interesting to laymen, and maybe rookie post-secondary faculty who have been taught a lot about their subject and very little (if anything) about how to teach. But none of it’s novel for anyone who’s been on the other side of the desk. Talking about education practice in public forums is hard because everyone has a stake, and everyone thinks their experience as a student or parent plus a little common sense makes them an expert. Again, see literally any HN thread about education. TFA does a great job of reminding laymen that often those Chesterton fences are there for a reason. But sorry, I don’t think it’s a rejection of the idea of “sharing knowledge in general” to say that “visionaries attempting to restructure education” probably shouldn’t be laymen. So, okay, “on the contrary” in my OP was a little strong. Not that anyone shouldn’t read it. But just because something is new to you doesn’t actually make it new.
- adminprof 5y ago
  I'd like to see in a forum for dentists a thread where they offer clever suggestions for how to change software development. Clearly, all these dentists have used plenty of software before. They would have seemingly great ideas like "programmers should get 10% of their pay docked each time I encounter a bug in a program" or "the real solution is to hire someone to test the program from start to finish before releasing it". I bet programmers on Hacker News would be livid upon hearing these suggestions, but seem to have no problem announcing their clever solutions about other disciplines (not excluding myself).
  - mattwilsonn888 5y ago
    Terrible analogy. What authority might a team of QA testers have on restructuring the methods for software development? Perhaps not as much as a software developer, but certainly enough to grope at and possibly conceive of new and useful ideas. A student is a QA tester for a classroom, they are not a dentist using a program, they were involved in the entire process and saw basically every mechanism with varying levels of ignorance on motivations. Comparing a student to an end product consumer of software development is an embarrassingly long stretch - teaching is an art, but its not that complicated nor disconnected from its patrons.
    - adminprof 5y ago
      Students are users of a class, as much as a dentist is a user of a dental software application. Neither were involved in the making of the class or software. Both were delivered the experience as designed by the course staff (instructor and/or TAs), or software team. Both only see the final product after months or years of development, done by specialists trained for many years even before that. The error you're making is stating that "students are involved in the entire process" which is laughable. Many classes have gone through years of iteration, and even new courses take many months to develop before students set foot in the classroom, not to mention the years of experience and education needed to get the instructor to the point that they can even make a class in several months.