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> But our society is disintegrating, and in such a society, the only successful people are self-reliant, confident, and individualistic — because the community

> But our society is disintegrating, and in such a society, the only successful people are self-reliant, confident, and individualistic — because the community life that protects the dependent and the weak is dead. Too many people has apocalyptic views of the world. And to push for individualistic behavior when you think that your society is disintegrating seems to just accelerate any problems that may exists. 30 years later the collapse still has not happened. > The children I teach have almost no curiosity, and what little they do have is transitory; I have yet to see a child that is not curious, you need some war-level trauma to stop children curiosity. I would guess that the author real complain is that children are not interested in the same things that him, and that is why he is pissed off. > they’re just nice kids from central Harlem, bright and alert, but so badly schooled when they came to me that most of them couldn’t add or subtract with any fluency. I am all for better schools and I can not even imagine how bad schooling has been in mainly black neighborhoods but to "just let the kids learn by themselves" seems as absurd as the idea of "tabula rasa". Kids need to learn to learn but they also need to be taught. > The Swedes realized this in 1976, when they effectively abandoned state adoption of unwanted children and instead spent national time and treasure on reinforcing the original family so that children born to Swedes were wanted. This one is interesting as Abortion laws are changing in the USA. > Family is the main engine of education. This makes sense. I just think that schools also have their place no only for education but as socializing places. > to promote during school time confluences of parent and child that will strengthen family bonds. Sweden has a generous parental leave. That is a good way of achieving this goal. In general the article expresses a too extreme view of things. But it has some good points even if I do not agree with all the conclusions.

tsol 4y ago
> The children I teach have almost no curiosity, and what little they do have is transitory; If that curiosity is all satisfied at home on youtube/television then kids really won't much real curiosity for school. Kids are curious but not about everything all the time
- Spivak 4y ago
  There is nothing more sure to kill your love of anything than to have it be taught at school. Like come on, we were stuck in the boredom cube for 6ish hours a day, the alternative is nothing and most of us still didn't pay attention.
  - grendelt 4y ago
    > than to have it be taught at school. than to have it be taught IN A BORING WAY WITHOUT CONTEXT Learning my multiplication tables was fun when it was turned into a race with my friends. Memorizing the state capitals and abbreviations was fun when it was turned into a game. You can turn most anything into a fun way of learning it with just a modicum of effort. One problem is too many teachers get beat down to only teach what they are told to teach through some ready-made commercial curriculum. We have a huge number of teachers who are poorly paid. Too many run-ins with difficulty and admins who want things done their way, and that teacher's lifelong career gets sapped of any joy and they default to just teaching as they're told to teach. If education was better funded in order to pay teachers very competitive wages, you'd attract more can-do teachers to the field instead of bright eyed young college graduates who end up leaving the profession within the first 5 years because of how stifling the bureaucracy of it all is. Pay the job well to attract and retain the best and brightest and you'll get amazing results through creativity and mastery of the art of education. We don't do that, so you often get what you pay for.
    - kansface 4y ago
      Is fixing the stifling bureaucracy is out of the question?
      - notch656a 4y ago
        >Is fixing the stifling bureaucracy is out of the question? I mean no but the issue is the system has to be changed as to not encourage stifling bureaucracy. Unfortunately a monopolized school system with a captive customer ('pay up to this exact single school district or you know just sell your house and uproot yourself and move') is anti-thetical to the kind of free-market competition that aids in rooting out inefficient bureaucracy. I love the responses I often get when suggesting to let the parents use their own discretion to pay directly for their children's education using the per-child tax allocation. Somehow striking teachers are simultaneously people we're supposed to listen to as people who know how to fix the system when things go wrong, but god forbid we allow a system that allows the parent to pay the teachers directly and privately to bypass the broken public school administrators. Somehow teachers are simultaneously the source we can listen to about how to fix things when they strike, but suddenly become distrustful evil capitalists if we're allowed to let them privately educate on the free market in lieu of public school system. I wish the public would make up their mind.
RajT88 4y ago
> Kids need to learn to learn but they also need to be taught. I have no children (so grain of salt), but what I think kids need is more what you'd call "guidance". Not necessarily teaching them, but more showing them how to learn, and how to discover interests and pursue them, which may lead them down a life path. I had it easy. My dad just had to leave some computers lying around. None of my other siblings went into tech. 2/3 of my siblings did a bunch of different things before settling into their current careers.
auslegung 4y ago
> you need some war-level trauma to stop children curiosity See inner city, ghetto living experiences
- ch4s3 4y ago
  Those kids aren't incurious it's just directed other places.
- TimTheTinker 4y ago
  Agreed, there's nothing like fear and anxiety about basic needs and relationships to remove a sense of curiosity; and nothing like security to help people regain it.
- ravenstine 4y ago
  True, though I'm not so sure I would even assume that wealth facilitates curiosity. Perhaps it doesn't get in the way as the trauma of ghetto life, but there's plenty of well off children who grow up totally uninspired to do anything but walk the beaten path before them, let alone actually learn about things with no clear financial benefit (modern college notwithstanding).
PartiallyTyped 4y ago
> And to push for individualistic behavior when you think that your society is disintegrating seems to just accelerate any problems that may exists. This can not be understated. Coming from a country that would be considered "Eastern European", there is an astounding amount of individualism pushed in schools, and yet, it seems that the most prosperous and "equal" countries take the opposite approach. What I cherish the most from my time in Scandinavian Universities is how much emphasis there is on collective work. Those who work in group will always achieve and learn a lot more than those who do it alone, unless the latter are truly exceptional.
- giantg2 4y ago
  "Those who work in group will always achieve and learn a lot more than those who do it alone, unless the latter are truly exceptional." Many people in the US who have done group projects at school will disagree - you typically end up with dead weight or overbearing partners (it tends to get better when you get out of the compulsory school years). With the right partners, I completely agree though. In my undergrad and even moreso in my masters I had some good groups.
  - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
    I'd wager that it is the sense of individualism that causes the feeling of carrying dead weight as the dead weight does not feel any sense of responsibility towards the group. Given what I have read about such individualistic behaviour, I am inclined to believe that public transportation as found in Denmark wouldn't function in the US simply because it requires a form of trust between citizen and state. You just enter the bus / metro / train, you generally don't have to show ticket or anything. You are "caught" however if an inspector happens to be on board and goes for a check. I have had such checks only on the M2 line in Copenhagen (the one from the airport). People just buy the ticket from their phone and understand their responsibilities.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      I think it depends on what we mean for individualism. One can have a strong sense of individualism and still function well in society. An individual can still want to do their part. I think it's mostly a lack of honor or integrity - they'd rather put their name on a project and get credit for the work of others, or get a free ride on the bus. For example, the boy scouts teach integrity, teamwork, and also self-reliance (individualism).
ch4s3 4y ago
> And to push for individualistic behavior when you think that your society is disintegrating seems to just accelerate any problems that may exists. I don't think individualism and participation in community are necessarily at odds with one another. Communities of choice can be really powerful and meaningful in peoples' lives. I think the tricky part is figuring out how to equip young people to find and build communities in a society that no longer provides it by default.
A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
<< I have yet to see a child that is not curious, you need some war-level trauma to stop children curiosity. I would guess that the author real complain is that children are not interested in the same things that him, and that is why he is pissed off. I think I agree. Some time ago I was doing volunteering at a HS. We were basically teaching basic computer skills ( Excel, Word and so on ); helped with problems with resume or something along those lines. I think 9/10 kids logged onto FB and/or played Plants vs Zombies. I did try to engage them, but their goals were clearly different. They were interested, but in nothing that those volunteer hours could offer. The kid that is interested will seek this stuff out. The rest will play Plants vs Zombies. I will admit it was a little disheartening for me and I stopped doing it for a while. I am debating proposing something similar now at my local library, but I am worried the results will be about the same.
jollybean 4y ago
I think they mean to see children are not curious in a concientious and applied way. All kids are a bit curious, but it's hard to get them to 'stick' to something.
raydiatian 4y ago
> Too many people has apocalyptic views of the world. Is our children learning? I’ll start with your grammar and end with a look out my window, where smoke from forest fires currently fills the sky.
fiziks_hckr 4y ago
I've taught in schools from all corners of San Francisco, and can't agree more with majority of what was said in this article, except maybe the money part*, I'll leave a footnote for this. One day when I was volunteering at one of these schools, a student came up to me showing a picture of a robot how cool it was. When I mentioned that it was relatively easy to build, he got super stoked, told his friends and before you know it, we had a class of 8 students pursuing their own interest, learning CS/Breadboarding/Electrical-Circuits, all student driven, building cardboard-box arduino-based robots afterschool.** These student led classes were majority black students and pushed forward most by black students. Everything was honestly instantly working great, and at the end of every class my students made to promise not to forget to show up to the next session (I don't recall missing a session, I believe this was out attachment for the course). Self-driven learning is a thing, and all we have to do is give kids grounds to explore -- in this case to create designs from from their own imagination (ey, isn't that why we're hackers here : D? We can all relate). * Small class sizes help (or student:teacher ratio of 6:1 ideally). This is the ratio (lower works too) that really works, and I've seen only at really rich schools (see Branson/UHS/Lick Wilmerding) and programs based on it. I've seen this emulated to great success in Summerbridge SF, and too at a summerschool I helped start in the bay area based on project-based/student-led learning, access to technology, and most importantly these small class sizes that enables hosting these free-learning classes. **Again money is important, materials costs for this class were supported by my concurrent 4 jobs, doing mainly part-time engineering work for startups, electrical-engineering curriculum development for a summer-schools, as well as tutoring.
- TaupeRanger 4y ago
  Small class sizes don't just help, they are essential for this type of setup, which is why it can never work at scale and will not be relevant to 99% of kids in the country. There simply aren't enough teachers.
  - SQueeeeeL 4y ago
    Their easily could be, we just can't imagine as a society putting this much effort into caring for the young. Especially those of the wrong skin color. The US is the wealthiest country in the world, we could easily change some of the governments wealth distribution to educate all students 8:1
ravenstine 4y ago
> I have yet to see a child that is not curious, you need some war-level trauma to stop children curiosity. I hope you're right and I'm wrong, but that doesn't reflect my experience at all. Some children are indeed curious, but I wouldn't say anywhere near most. Saying that only serious trauma stops curiosity comes off as overly optimistic, but what do I know. After all, would you make the same statement about adults? Are nearly all or most adults curious except for when there's trauma? My guess is that you would struggle to make a similar statement about adults in general. If adults aren't that curious, but children are, then why is that?
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  Pretty sure it applies with adults to, in my experience, those who aren't curious about the world have had many awful experiences with family, jobs, relationships. Pretty much everyone under capitalism will have some pretty substantial trama in their life.
- Natsu 4y ago
  For curiosity, it helps if they're doing something they actually want to do. Being forced to do things tends to kill this off. When kids are into something because they think it's cool and fun and it sparks their imagination, they can go really far beyond what kids are 'supposed' to learn at some age. I learned very little in school, myself. Instead I read my brother's textbooks long before I was 'supposed' to because I thought it was fun and spent the bulk of my time in school devouring the parts of the library I found engaging.
- theonething 4y ago
  > If adults aren't that curious, but children are, then why is that? perhaps somewhere along the line, the curiosity got squashed. That happened to me science and math in high school with boring classes. I loved science before then.

tsol 4y ago

> The children I teach have almost no curiosity, and what little they do have is transitory; If that curiosity is all satisfied at home on youtube/television then kids really won't much real curiosity for school. Kids are curious but not about everything all the time

Spivak 4y ago
There is nothing more sure to kill your love of anything than to have it be taught at school. Like come on, we were stuck in the boredom cube for 6ish hours a day, the alternative is nothing and most of us still didn't pay attention.
- grendelt 4y ago
  > than to have it be taught at school. than to have it be taught IN A BORING WAY WITHOUT CONTEXT Learning my multiplication tables was fun when it was turned into a race with my friends. Memorizing the state capitals and abbreviations was fun when it was turned into a game. You can turn most anything into a fun way of learning it with just a modicum of effort. One problem is too many teachers get beat down to only teach what they are told to teach through some ready-made commercial curriculum. We have a huge number of teachers who are poorly paid. Too many run-ins with difficulty and admins who want things done their way, and that teacher's lifelong career gets sapped of any joy and they default to just teaching as they're told to teach. If education was better funded in order to pay teachers very competitive wages, you'd attract more can-do teachers to the field instead of bright eyed young college graduates who end up leaving the profession within the first 5 years because of how stifling the bureaucracy of it all is. Pay the job well to attract and retain the best and brightest and you'll get amazing results through creativity and mastery of the art of education. We don't do that, so you often get what you pay for.
  - kansface 4y ago
    Is fixing the stifling bureaucracy is out of the question?
    - notch656a 4y ago
      >Is fixing the stifling bureaucracy is out of the question? I mean no but the issue is the system has to be changed as to not encourage stifling bureaucracy. Unfortunately a monopolized school system with a captive customer ('pay up to this exact single school district or you know just sell your house and uproot yourself and move') is anti-thetical to the kind of free-market competition that aids in rooting out inefficient bureaucracy. I love the responses I often get when suggesting to let the parents use their own discretion to pay directly for their children's education using the per-child tax allocation. Somehow striking teachers are simultaneously people we're supposed to listen to as people who know how to fix the system when things go wrong, but god forbid we allow a system that allows the parent to pay the teachers directly and privately to bypass the broken public school administrators. Somehow teachers are simultaneously the source we can listen to about how to fix things when they strike, but suddenly become distrustful evil capitalists if we're allowed to let them privately educate on the free market in lieu of public school system. I wish the public would make up their mind.

RajT88 4y ago

> Kids need to learn to learn but they also need to be taught. I have no children (so grain of salt), but what I think kids need is more what you'd call "guidance". Not necessarily teaching them, but more showing them how to learn, and how to discover interests and pursue them, which may lead them down a life path. I had it easy. My dad just had to leave some computers lying around. None of my other siblings went into tech. 2/3 of my siblings did a bunch of different things before settling into their current careers.

auslegung 4y ago

> you need some war-level trauma to stop children curiosity See inner city, ghetto living experiences

ch4s3 4y ago
Those kids aren't incurious it's just directed other places.
TimTheTinker 4y ago
Agreed, there's nothing like fear and anxiety about basic needs and relationships to remove a sense of curiosity; and nothing like security to help people regain it.
ravenstine 4y ago
True, though I'm not so sure I would even assume that wealth facilitates curiosity. Perhaps it doesn't get in the way as the trauma of ghetto life, but there's plenty of well off children who grow up totally uninspired to do anything but walk the beaten path before them, let alone actually learn about things with no clear financial benefit (modern college notwithstanding).

PartiallyTyped 4y ago

> And to push for individualistic behavior when you think that your society is disintegrating seems to just accelerate any problems that may exists. This can not be understated. Coming from a country that would be considered "Eastern European", there is an astounding amount of individualism pushed in schools, and yet, it seems that the most prosperous and "equal" countries take the opposite approach. What I cherish the most from my time in Scandinavian Universities is how much emphasis there is on collective work. Those who work in group will always achieve and learn a lot more than those who do it alone, unless the latter are truly exceptional.

giantg2 4y ago
"Those who work in group will always achieve and learn a lot more than those who do it alone, unless the latter are truly exceptional." Many people in the US who have done group projects at school will disagree - you typically end up with dead weight or overbearing partners (it tends to get better when you get out of the compulsory school years). With the right partners, I completely agree though. In my undergrad and even moreso in my masters I had some good groups.
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  I'd wager that it is the sense of individualism that causes the feeling of carrying dead weight as the dead weight does not feel any sense of responsibility towards the group. Given what I have read about such individualistic behaviour, I am inclined to believe that public transportation as found in Denmark wouldn't function in the US simply because it requires a form of trust between citizen and state. You just enter the bus / metro / train, you generally don't have to show ticket or anything. You are "caught" however if an inspector happens to be on board and goes for a check. I have had such checks only on the M2 line in Copenhagen (the one from the airport). People just buy the ticket from their phone and understand their responsibilities.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    I think it depends on what we mean for individualism. One can have a strong sense of individualism and still function well in society. An individual can still want to do their part. I think it's mostly a lack of honor or integrity - they'd rather put their name on a project and get credit for the work of others, or get a free ride on the bus. For example, the boy scouts teach integrity, teamwork, and also self-reliance (individualism).

ch4s3 4y ago

> And to push for individualistic behavior when you think that your society is disintegrating seems to just accelerate any problems that may exists. I don't think individualism and participation in community are necessarily at odds with one another. Communities of choice can be really powerful and meaningful in peoples' lives. I think the tricky part is figuring out how to equip young people to find and build communities in a society that no longer provides it by default.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago

<< I have yet to see a child that is not curious, you need some war-level trauma to stop children curiosity. I would guess that the author real complain is that children are not interested in the same things that him, and that is why he is pissed off. I think I agree. Some time ago I was doing volunteering at a HS. We were basically teaching basic computer skills ( Excel, Word and so on ); helped with problems with resume or something along those lines. I think 9/10 kids logged onto FB and/or played Plants vs Zombies. I did try to engage them, but their goals were clearly different. They were interested, but in nothing that those volunteer hours could offer. The kid that is interested will seek this stuff out. The rest will play Plants vs Zombies. I will admit it was a little disheartening for me and I stopped doing it for a while. I am debating proposing something similar now at my local library, but I am worried the results will be about the same.

jollybean 4y ago

I think they mean to see children are not curious in a concientious and applied way. All kids are a bit curious, but it's hard to get them to 'stick' to something.

raydiatian 4y ago

> Too many people has apocalyptic views of the world. Is our children learning? I’ll start with your grammar and end with a look out my window, where smoke from forest fires currently fills the sky.

fiziks_hckr 4y ago

I've taught in schools from all corners of San Francisco, and can't agree more with majority of what was said in this article, except maybe the money part*, I'll leave a footnote for this. One day when I was volunteering at one of these schools, a student came up to me showing a picture of a robot how cool it was. When I mentioned that it was relatively easy to build, he got super stoked, told his friends and before you know it, we had a class of 8 students pursuing their own interest, learning CS/Breadboarding/Electrical-Circuits, all student driven, building cardboard-box arduino-based robots afterschool.** These student led classes were majority black students and pushed forward most by black students. Everything was honestly instantly working great, and at the end of every class my students made to promise not to forget to show up to the next session (I don't recall missing a session, I believe this was out attachment for the course). Self-driven learning is a thing, and all we have to do is give kids grounds to explore -- in this case to create designs from from their own imagination (ey, isn't that why we're hackers here : D? We can all relate). * Small class sizes help (or student:teacher ratio of 6:1 ideally). This is the ratio (lower works too) that really works, and I've seen only at really rich schools (see Branson/UHS/Lick Wilmerding) and programs based on it. I've seen this emulated to great success in Summerbridge SF, and too at a summerschool I helped start in the bay area based on project-based/student-led learning, access to technology, and most importantly these small class sizes that enables hosting these free-learning classes. **Again money is important, materials costs for this class were supported by my concurrent 4 jobs, doing mainly part-time engineering work for startups, electrical-engineering curriculum development for a summer-schools, as well as tutoring.

TaupeRanger 4y ago
Small class sizes don't just help, they are essential for this type of setup, which is why it can never work at scale and will not be relevant to 99% of kids in the country. There simply aren't enough teachers.
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  Their easily could be, we just can't imagine as a society putting this much effort into caring for the young. Especially those of the wrong skin color. The US is the wealthiest country in the world, we could easily change some of the governments wealth distribution to educate all students 8:1

ravenstine 4y ago

> I have yet to see a child that is not curious, you need some war-level trauma to stop children curiosity. I hope you're right and I'm wrong, but that doesn't reflect my experience at all. Some children are indeed curious, but I wouldn't say anywhere near most. Saying that only serious trauma stops curiosity comes off as overly optimistic, but what do I know. After all, would you make the same statement about adults? Are nearly all or most adults curious except for when there's trauma? My guess is that you would struggle to make a similar statement about adults in general. If adults aren't that curious, but children are, then why is that?

SQueeeeeL 4y ago
Pretty sure it applies with adults to, in my experience, those who aren't curious about the world have had many awful experiences with family, jobs, relationships. Pretty much everyone under capitalism will have some pretty substantial trama in their life.
Natsu 4y ago
For curiosity, it helps if they're doing something they actually want to do. Being forced to do things tends to kill this off. When kids are into something because they think it's cool and fun and it sparks their imagination, they can go really far beyond what kids are 'supposed' to learn at some age. I learned very little in school, myself. Instead I read my brother's textbooks long before I was 'supposed' to because I thought it was fun and spent the bulk of my time in school devouring the parts of the library I found engaging.
theonething 4y ago
> If adults aren't that curious, but children are, then why is that? perhaps somewhere along the line, the curiosity got squashed. That happened to me science and math in high school with boring classes. I loved science before then.