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It is "radical" for a reason. Look at how bad things are right now, and multiply it by 10 if you decide to get rid of all curriculum that kids aren't inherently

It is "radical" for a reason. Look at how bad things are right now, and multiply it by 10 if you decide to get rid of all curriculum that kids aren't inherently interested in: - Goodbye to any understanding of politics or social studies - Goodbye to historical knowledge - Goodbye to any understanding of our own bodies (except for kids who are interested in animals or medicine?) - Goodbye to classical literature - Goodbye to economics and personal finance - Goodbye to being able to appropriately and accurately express oneself when speaking and writing ALL of these are very important parts of human knowledge that are essential to high functioning in society, but 99% of children have absolutely no interest in them whatsoever if left to their own devices.

theptip 4y ago
I suppose we're unlikely to convince each other here. I'll just note that your list of "goodbyes" seems a bit overly-apocalyptic to me, and it's not even clear to me that many students leave the education system with meaningful knowledge of more than a couple items on your list. The students that do leave with knowledge of economics or classical literature almost certainly were interested in those things when they were introduced. > 99% of children have absolutely no interest in them whatsoever if left to their own devices. This would be the crux of our disagreement; I think that ultimately this depends on empirical investigation. It's hard to do such studies, since SES and other confounds are extremely hard to control for. I'm sure that 99% of kids have absolutely no interest in the current curriculum, but that's precisely my point; the curriculum is horrifically boring in many places if you don't connect with the subject matter. I do think it's reasonable to note that most other developed countries have better public education systems than the US, and for the most part follow a fairly traditional model, which demonstrates that there are gains to be had in the US without revolutionizing the system. I'm in favor of trying to achieve that too. And I'd of course not advocate for burning the whole thing down and starting with something new; I think experiments could be made with, say, one day a week of "interest-based learning" along the lines I put forth above, while still keeping the core curriculum alive.

theptip 4y ago

I suppose we're unlikely to convince each other here. I'll just note that your list of "goodbyes" seems a bit overly-apocalyptic to me, and it's not even clear to me that many students leave the education system with meaningful knowledge of more than a couple items on your list. The students that do leave with knowledge of economics or classical literature almost certainly were interested in those things when they were introduced. > 99% of children have absolutely no interest in them whatsoever if left to their own devices. This would be the crux of our disagreement; I think that ultimately this depends on empirical investigation. It's hard to do such studies, since SES and other confounds are extremely hard to control for. I'm sure that 99% of kids have absolutely no interest in the current curriculum, but that's precisely my point; the curriculum is horrifically boring in many places if you don't connect with the subject matter. I do think it's reasonable to note that most other developed countries have better public education systems than the US, and for the most part follow a fairly traditional model, which demonstrates that there are gains to be had in the US without revolutionizing the system. I'm in favor of trying to achieve that too. And I'd of course not advocate for burning the whole thing down and starting with something new; I think experiments could be made with, say, one day a week of "interest-based learning" along the lines I put forth above, while still keeping the core curriculum alive.