4 ms·

The tl;dr I got was different. What I got was a.) that our society has focused too much on the stimulation of our dopamine pathways. b.) Many professors forget

by Dn_Ab 15y ago

The tl;dr I got was different. What I got was a.) that our society has focused too much on the stimulation of our dopamine pathways. b.) Many professors forget that the enthusiasm they posess for a subject is not self evident. The hardness of STEM was orthogonal to this piece; the focus was on how pointless the seemingly unapplicable dry list of equations and facts were to many students. This made it hard to continue the perceived self flagellation to little gain. They gave an example of a smart kid with an 800 SAT score in math who quit to psychology because his mechanics class was dull in comparison to the more active psych class. They also mention that classes like english give better grades than chemistry and math so people switch cause they feel they are doing better. Their prescription is more interesting and interactive classes. That is a good idea as long as the essence is not lost to fluff and education does not degenerate to an exercise in marketing I guess.

chernevik 15y ago
But if the more important problem is diminution of student capacity / capability for the work, better teaching helps only so much. Anecdata like "helicopter parenting" suggest more kids lack emotional preparation hard work and differentiating curricula. I certainly don't see any sign that K-12 has gotten _better_ at math preparation. Then there is the premium attached to integration into social networks. Wall Street bankers are scarfing down large chunks of the national income, more from government guarantee of leverage than productivity. Prices are signalling to focus on placement in the social network, rather than on productive work; and once there, to get good at predicting / managing regulatory intervention. The interest in studies orienting people to the political and social milieu shouldn't be surprising. Especially when these offer less risk of marked out as a loser by poor grades. There is a premium for government work, too. It's less remunerative, but more secure, and has very high status, in many circles. The effect carries over to nearby careers like law, and journalism. Median income, housing prices, and unemployment rates in greater Washington D.C. all suggest that the worldly payoff for public service isn't bad. So I worry that we're training less capable people, and encouraging them to think more about where they work than how they work. It can't go on forever, but a lot of folks will get hurt as it ends.
Apocryphon 15y ago
It does seem like our society is too focused on making learning "fun." While I wholeheartedly support design projects, especially if they're based on real-world problems and can give students extra experience beyond typical class assignments, I get the impression that sometimes they're offered so that students can get the whiz-bang effect from otherwise dry material. We too often expect to be entertained.

by Dn_Ab 15y ago

chernevik 15y ago

But if the more important problem is diminution of student capacity / capability for the work, better teaching helps only so much. Anecdata like "helicopter parenting" suggest more kids lack emotional preparation hard work and differentiating curricula. I certainly don't see any sign that K-12 has gotten _better_ at math preparation. Then there is the premium attached to integration into social networks. Wall Street bankers are scarfing down large chunks of the national income, more from government guarantee of leverage than productivity. Prices are signalling to focus on placement in the social network, rather than on productive work; and once there, to get good at predicting / managing regulatory intervention. The interest in studies orienting people to the political and social milieu shouldn't be surprising. Especially when these offer less risk of marked out as a loser by poor grades. There is a premium for government work, too. It's less remunerative, but more secure, and has very high status, in many circles. The effect carries over to nearby careers like law, and journalism. Median income, housing prices, and unemployment rates in greater Washington D.C. all suggest that the worldly payoff for public service isn't bad. So I worry that we're training less capable people, and encouraging them to think more about where they work than how they work. It can't go on forever, but a lot of folks will get hurt as it ends.

Apocryphon 15y ago

It does seem like our society is too focused on making learning "fun." While I wholeheartedly support design projects, especially if they're based on real-world problems and can give students extra experience beyond typical class assignments, I get the impression that sometimes they're offered so that students can get the whiz-bang effect from otherwise dry material. We too often expect to be entertained.