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There's a common belief among inhabitants of American bureaucracies that expertise does not exist, only knowledge, so if that knowledge can be written down then
by jmillikin 4y ago
There's a common belief among inhabitants of American bureaucracies that expertise does not exist, only knowledge, so if that knowledge can be written down then there's no need for training or experts. Many people in HN have likely encountered middle-managers who ask their senior engineers to write policies, and then hire teams of juniors to implement those policies rigidly -- same principle.
When applied to education, this manifests as a belief that the teacher is less important to education than the textbook. The people writing the educational policy framework might understand that it's not a one-size-fits-all, but they're not allowed to write one policy per child. The teachers in a classroom environment aren't given the autonomy to teach according to their own judgement, because (in the eyes of the administration) if their judgement could be trusted then they would be writing policy instead of teaching.
- zozbot234 4y ago> There's a common belief among inhabitants of American bureaucracies that expertise does not exist, only knowledge, so if that knowledge can be written down then there's no need for training or experts. Ah but if everything can be written down, why can't the whole bureaucracy be replaced by a very small shell script?
- vladvasiliu 4y agoI don't know about the very small part, but it does seem to me that the bureaucracy is pushing for its automation. Complete with Byzantine processes that leave you out in the cold if you're a corner case.
- geraldyo 4y agoIs this "belief that the teacher is more important than the textbook" actually incorrect? It may be exaggerated, but the teacher is extremely important. How many children have given up learning something they were good at because of a bad tutor? I'll speak for myself and say that I never learned or did well in math in school because I had awful teachers, but then found that I was quite good at it when I found a tutor that explained concepts in a way that makes sense. You also seem to think that "these people make the policies because they are the best at making policies for X", but again, is that right? Have you never heard of an incompetent politician?
- jmillikin 4y agoGiven that the original article is about a lack of literacy and reading comprehension, I'm not sure if your comment is a meta-joke. If not, I urge you to read my comment again.
- geraldyo 4y agoYou're right I didn't understand your point. Remember that communication is a two-way street, though