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> Nobody wants to teach Counterpoint: the internet is full of people who want to teach. The first school of YouTube is overflowing with educational content on

> Nobody wants to teach Counterpoint: the internet is full of people who want to teach. The first school of YouTube is overflowing with educational content on everything from merge sort to patching dry-wall. A large portion of my social circle hold teaching/mentorship as a career goal. I don't think this is pedantic. When I look around, I see a surplus of people that want to learn and want to teach. What I don't see is people storming the gates for a horribly broken system that robs many humans of their best years while inflicting lifelong trauma. A position that is horribly underpaid relative to the demands of the job (so you aren't doing it for money) and isn't allowed to meaningfully improve things (so you aren't doing it to "make a difference" unless you think putting on a smile is going to substantially change the outcome, which it sometimes does.) I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing. If you can provide a service at any standard of quality, list jobs at any standard of quality and pay, and the demand never dries up; there really is no incentive to fix things. At some point the education system in its current form needs to collapse.

Apreche 4y ago
This is the one. If I have to work (i.e.: not just live a life of luxury on the beach) my top pick would be to teach computers to children. So why am I not doing that job today? 1) The barrier to entry to getting that job is very high. I would probably have to go back to school and learn education, and it won't even be free! The barrier to entry for a job in the private sector is low, requiring no special certification. If you can do the job, you can get the job. 2) The teaching job comes with vastly more bureaucracy and bullshit than a private sector job. The thing I actually want to do, teach computers, is actually only a small portion of what the actual job of a teacher entails. That other stuff is absolutely not how I want to spend my brief time living on this planet. 3) Given 1 and 2, the compensation for being a teacher is orders of magnitude lower than just working in the private sector. There's no reward for putting in the extra work and tolerating the hassle. I have indeed considered on many occasions becoming a teacher at the school of YouTube. I've been a student there longer than I have at any other institution.
carapace 4y ago
This. The Internet obviates most of our current educational system. E.g., textbooks are absurd in a world where every child has a radio-networked pocket supercomputer. The daycare aspect of schools is broken, obviously, but that's a deep societal problem far beyond the ability of teachers to fix. The educational aspect of schools is (mostly, but not entirely) redundant to the resources available for free on the Internet. Perhaps we should separate those aspects from each other? (I dunno. I don't have children so it's not (immediately) my problem.)
- juve1996 4y ago
  People with kids will tell you how well "internet education" went the last 2 years... This isn't a technology problem. Kids are still kids. Fortnite will still be more fun than doing math, whether that's on a computer or in a classroom.
  - carapace 4y ago
    > People with kids will tell you how well "internet education" went the last 2 years... As I said, I don't have kids, so I don't have first-hand information, but from what I've heard we got the worst of both. I don't think we can draw too many conclusions from the hot mess of the last two years, not yet anyway. In any event, I hope it's obvious that I'm not advocating for more of that. What I mean is that the raw material freely available on the Internet is more than enough in terms of information, so it seems to me that long hours of mostly-rote learning from approved textbooks, etc. don't make sense anymore (if they ever did.) Instead it seems like schools (for education, not daycare) could provide direct, in-person interactions with mentors and tutors that would be an important part of any re-designed educational system, to help kids learn to teach themselves. > Fortnite will still be more fun than doing math, whether that's on a computer or in a classroom. Well, to me the whole concept of "battle royale" is a symptom of modern depravity, I'd never let my kids play such a messed up game. But I reject the idea that playing video games with your friends is more fun than e.g. building a robot IRL with your friends, eh? I mean starting with magnets and wires and, like, an Arduino. You'd have to learn mathematics in the context of electronics, mechanics, software and hardware, sensors, etc. An integrated context where you're immediately applying what you learn to your robot.
obscurette 4y ago
Youtube is about lecturing, not about teaching.
- kjkjadksj 4y ago
  And increasingly about filling time to shoehorn in more monetization
  - msmenardi 4y ago
    Isn't that what Nebula is for?

Apreche 4y ago

This is the one. If I have to work (i.e.: not just live a life of luxury on the beach) my top pick would be to teach computers to children. So why am I not doing that job today? 1) The barrier to entry to getting that job is very high. I would probably have to go back to school and learn education, and it won't even be free! The barrier to entry for a job in the private sector is low, requiring no special certification. If you can do the job, you can get the job. 2) The teaching job comes with vastly more bureaucracy and bullshit than a private sector job. The thing I actually want to do, teach computers, is actually only a small portion of what the actual job of a teacher entails. That other stuff is absolutely not how I want to spend my brief time living on this planet. 3) Given 1 and 2, the compensation for being a teacher is orders of magnitude lower than just working in the private sector. There's no reward for putting in the extra work and tolerating the hassle. I have indeed considered on many occasions becoming a teacher at the school of YouTube. I've been a student there longer than I have at any other institution.

carapace 4y ago

This. The Internet obviates most of our current educational system. E.g., textbooks are absurd in a world where every child has a radio-networked pocket supercomputer. The daycare aspect of schools is broken, obviously, but that's a deep societal problem far beyond the ability of teachers to fix. The educational aspect of schools is (mostly, but not entirely) redundant to the resources available for free on the Internet. Perhaps we should separate those aspects from each other? (I dunno. I don't have children so it's not (immediately) my problem.)

juve1996 4y ago
People with kids will tell you how well "internet education" went the last 2 years... This isn't a technology problem. Kids are still kids. Fortnite will still be more fun than doing math, whether that's on a computer or in a classroom.
- carapace 4y ago
  > People with kids will tell you how well "internet education" went the last 2 years... As I said, I don't have kids, so I don't have first-hand information, but from what I've heard we got the worst of both. I don't think we can draw too many conclusions from the hot mess of the last two years, not yet anyway. In any event, I hope it's obvious that I'm not advocating for more of that. What I mean is that the raw material freely available on the Internet is more than enough in terms of information, so it seems to me that long hours of mostly-rote learning from approved textbooks, etc. don't make sense anymore (if they ever did.) Instead it seems like schools (for education, not daycare) could provide direct, in-person interactions with mentors and tutors that would be an important part of any re-designed educational system, to help kids learn to teach themselves. > Fortnite will still be more fun than doing math, whether that's on a computer or in a classroom. Well, to me the whole concept of "battle royale" is a symptom of modern depravity, I'd never let my kids play such a messed up game. But I reject the idea that playing video games with your friends is more fun than e.g. building a robot IRL with your friends, eh? I mean starting with magnets and wires and, like, an Arduino. You'd have to learn mathematics in the context of electronics, mechanics, software and hardware, sensors, etc. An integrated context where you're immediately applying what you learn to your robot.

obscurette 4y ago

Youtube is about lecturing, not about teaching.

kjkjadksj 4y ago
And increasingly about filling time to shoehorn in more monetization
- msmenardi 4y ago
  Isn't that what Nebula is for?