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OMG, yes. The real tragedy there is that how to handle being challenged is a super important skill. And many of our best and brightest don't get to practice i

OMG, yes. The real tragedy there is that how to handle being challenged is a super important skill. And many of our best and brightest don't get to practice it all until it's too late. You can't learn a skill without practice. That's just not how it works. It makes no sense to me at all that children from all different backgrounds and abilities go through an identical curriculum at an identical rate. Like, have the people that set that up never met humans and human children before? My sister has the luxury of home-schooling her kids. And so they all have workbooks they can go through at their own individualized pace. As a result, one of them, my 6 year old nephew is now at about a 7th or 8th grade level in mathematics. He just loves doing math. Can you imagine how long that kid would have had to wait to actually be challenged in math if he went through the public school system? ...And they're actively trying to get rid of advanced study paths for such kids.

bombcar 4y ago
We lost something in the path from homeschooling to one-room schoolhouse to the massive school factories we have today - which was pacing the students. Now we try to group everyone by age. It's much easier when there's only a small group of kids - but who's to say the massive schools shouldn't be close to large groups of one-room schoolhouses instead of the age-segregated blocks we have now? Done correctly this helps all kids, except those who just happen to be perfectly aligned with their age.
- lazide 4y ago
  Individualization is hard to do at scale, and expensive.
  - FredPret 4y ago
    We need something like the Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer. I’m sure you can hire a couple of thousand professors and experts and map out a huge interactive curriculum tree. This can’t replace school - you still need socialization, disciple, adult supervision, sport, etc. But academically this would beat my high school experience six-love.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      I think part of the discussion will be realizing you do NOT need teachers who are expert in the subject to teach; you need teachers who are good at teaching - especially at the elementary/high school levels. And part of that may be having the same teacher or group of teachers throughout the student's career, and with authority and flexibility to modify the curriculum as needed. But we'd also have to admit that some students are going to do better than others, and the outcomes may not be all equal and at the same time.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    Very true but allowing and encouraging students to skip grades isn’t.
2143 4y ago
Isn't this what mastery learning[1] advocates? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastery_learning https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastery_learning

bombcar 4y ago

We lost something in the path from homeschooling to one-room schoolhouse to the massive school factories we have today - which was pacing the students. Now we try to group everyone by age. It's much easier when there's only a small group of kids - but who's to say the massive schools shouldn't be close to large groups of one-room schoolhouses instead of the age-segregated blocks we have now? Done correctly this helps all kids, except those who just happen to be perfectly aligned with their age.

lazide 4y ago
Individualization is hard to do at scale, and expensive.
- FredPret 4y ago
  We need something like the Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer. I’m sure you can hire a couple of thousand professors and experts and map out a huge interactive curriculum tree. This can’t replace school - you still need socialization, disciple, adult supervision, sport, etc. But academically this would beat my high school experience six-love.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I think part of the discussion will be realizing you do NOT need teachers who are expert in the subject to teach; you need teachers who are good at teaching - especially at the elementary/high school levels. And part of that may be having the same teacher or group of teachers throughout the student's career, and with authority and flexibility to modify the curriculum as needed. But we'd also have to admit that some students are going to do better than others, and the outcomes may not be all equal and at the same time.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  Very true but allowing and encouraging students to skip grades isn’t.

2143 4y ago

Isn't this what mastery learning[1] advocates? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastery_learning https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastery_learning