4 ms·

This feels a bit like shouting directly into a brick wall, but the problem is school. Every year, millions of young children are abandoned by their families [1]

This feels a bit like shouting directly into a brick wall, but the problem is school. Every year, millions of young children are abandoned by their families [1] far before they learn self-control and placed into the care of jailers [2] who teach them day in and day out that the laws of the Institution trump their needs and desires. Anyone who tries to change self-esteem or fear of collaboration without challenging the practice of giving information to children via the teacher-to-30-student-classroom method will never solve anything at scale, ever. [1] The fact that there exist no good or pragmatic solutions to the abandonment does not mean the abandonment is not occurring. One of the earliest lessons that newly sentient modern children is "you need to leave your home and go to a place where you don't matter". [2] The fact that some fraction of teachers are well-intentioned, and that some sub-fraction of those teachers are actually competent, does not change their role as wardens of controlled and numbered children.

mlyle 4y ago
I think the hyperbole is unhelpful. School can be a place of learning and discovery and joy (most of the time: nowhere is joyful 100% of the time). I admit most of our schools don't attain this. Your answer doesn't leave any room for the improvement of school, merely to castigate the very idea of putting children together in classes. At my school, kids are excited to show up Monday morning-- interesting things are happening in our classes. They come see me and play with robots and do real engineering. They get to see their friends and do sports and coursework that "feels real". Sure, by the time Friday afternoon comes around, we're all done... but we'll be pretty excited to start it all again next week.
- quacked 4y ago
  I think we just ran into each other just recently when I posted "The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher", but some other guy started talking your ear off and I didn't feel like stepping in to offer my own opinions. If you look at my response to another sub-commenter, you'll see a few of the things I'd like to add to school, some of which may appear more palatable to you than the abolition of the entire model. Ultimately, I'm gratified that you're a good teacher, but regrettably not only are you one of the few, you also are kept far back from the actual effect you could be having on kids by confining your expertise to the schooling model. You sound more like a mentor that could clearly steer a high number of kids through life from early to late ages, and you could run events and study plans that go late into the night and through the summer. If you were unconstrained by the rules of the school and unbound by the need for a retirement savings account and health insurance, you could run your own always-open institute where you teach whatever you want to whoever is willing to come and listen. The results you'd see under such a model would wildly outstrip the ones you see in school. My goal is to create a society filled with people like you--but that takes individuals who are parented well, and it can't be done under the factory schooling model, where the primary lesson learned is obedience to the institution. The other thing I'd like to point out is that none of the activities you mentioned require school to exist for them to be performed. People visited, played sports and music, and investigated science well before every single child went to school. The difference then was that it didn't "feel real", it "was real". School only provides an age-segregated simulation of greater society, and the more time you spend in greater society the more inaccurate that simulation seems. Regarding the hyperbole, I don't consider it to be hyperbole. Schools are constructed using the same techniques that prisons are constructed, the social cliques run similar to prisons, and in neither place are you allowed to leave or meaningfully challenge or change the rules of the institution. When you are in a school, you are not part of a thriving society, you are a subject that is managed according to the needs of the administration.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > Ultimately, I'm gratified that you're a good teacher, but regrettably not only are you one of the few, you also are kept far back from the actual effect you could be having on kids by confining your expertise to the schooling model. I actually like the school I'm at quite a bit and would say that my peer faculty are doing much the same thing. > Ultimately, I'm gratified that you're a good teacher, but regrettably not only are you one of the few, you also are kept far back from the actual effect you could be having on kids by confining your expertise to the schooling model. You sound more like a mentor that could clearly steer a high number of kids through life from early to late ages, and you could run events and study plans that go late into the night and through the summer. Yup, I do those things too. Did them before taking a teaching job, actually. > If you were unconstrained by the rules of the school and unbound by the need for a retirement savings account and health insurance, you could run your own always-open institute where you teach whatever you want to whoever is willing to come and listen. I got rich in industry. This is not a concern. I impact a few hundred kids a year by being a teacher in a structured school. The other programs, etc, are a much smaller number. > When you are in a school, you are not part of a thriving society, you are a subject that is managed according to the needs of the administration. You know, we need to know where students are and to keep them safe, and different subjects/teachers need to "share". So there is a certain amount of structure. BTW, we changed some things this past year with schedule, academic load, and structure. Students had a lot of say.
    - quacked 4y ago
      Why do you assume that impacting a few hundred kids per year is better for society than impacting a few dozen kids per year, or even a few kids?
      - mlyle 4y ago
        I still do the other things. I'm just also making a broader but somewhat smaller impact across many more. And the pool for the students who will best benefit from my time making a deeper connection and ending up in a more intensive program with me is much larger, improving the odds of "good matches". There are some economies of scale and ancillary benefits, too. I can teach 15 competitive math kids about 40-50% of what I can teach two in the room in the same block of time. (And some students benefit even more being 1-of-15, because e.g. * think-pair-share is really, really powerful for recall and internalizing knowledge * because an excited classroom of 15 often draws more effort out of students than one-on-one engagement * because there are more "kinds of solutions" in the room and we can celebrate the remarkably varied approaches
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
2rsf 4y ago
Assuming we all agree that kids need education and to learn necessary skills what do you suggest? Here in Sweden the school system is not perfect but it does offer a "slow start" for young kids, kindergarten class at the school building and the first few years without exams or homework.
- quacked 4y ago
  Regrettably, none of my answers work in a modern western-style economy. However, if I am forced to keep everything else the same--taxes, healthcare, student loans, etc.--here are a few things that could help: - slow start like you mentioned (also was done in famously education-forward Soviet Russia) - allow schools to expel children - increase availability and desirability of night school or other free public school for adults - mandate school and district administrators to have experience teaching - ban homework and introduce periods of time during school when work is expected - remove all art and sports from school and reform them as independent free clubs to be participated in after or before school (unfortunately impossible in poorer districts) - increase teacher salary - more separation of students by skill level (tons of research showing that kids learn better when they're placed in small groups at a similar skill level, also easily observed anecdotally.) This should also be accomplished by mixing ages. - ban grades, introduce final exams in specific subjects at the end of school that can be retaken indefinitely (perhaps once per year). If you want to go to college, perform on these tests If we're looking at societal changes that would allow us to really move away from the school model, we also need: - more public transportation to enable kids to go to schools other than the ones they live next to - widespread reforms in prison and sentencing that makes it safer and less life-ending - industry must return to western countries to allow low- and medium-skilled people important labor jobs - healthcare reform so it's not tied to employment - better cultural stewardship, small business startup loans, and continental rail so young talented people aren't as incentivized to leave their smaller cities and towns Ultimately, a strong society that could move safely away from the school model needs an economy with many opportunities for short-duration (6-24 months) employment, lots of vacation time, and the ability for one parent to stay at home a large fraction of the year.
  - mlyle 4y ago
watwut 4y ago
Homeschool rhetorics is getting unhinged lately on HN.
- quacked 4y ago
  "Homeschooling" is an imperfect solution to the problem. Even the best-equipped parents have only a fraction of knowledge and experience necessary to prepare someone to build a robust and healthy society. However, one-on-one academic attention creates outstanding results in most students, which is why people hire tutors when they're falling behind, and why many of the most aristocratic in the past had private tutors for a majority of their lives.

mlyle 4y ago

I think the hyperbole is unhelpful. School can be a place of learning and discovery and joy (most of the time: nowhere is joyful 100% of the time). I admit most of our schools don't attain this. Your answer doesn't leave any room for the improvement of school, merely to castigate the very idea of putting children together in classes. At my school, kids are excited to show up Monday morning-- interesting things are happening in our classes. They come see me and play with robots and do real engineering. They get to see their friends and do sports and coursework that "feels real". Sure, by the time Friday afternoon comes around, we're all done... but we'll be pretty excited to start it all again next week.

quacked 4y ago
I think we just ran into each other just recently when I posted "The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher", but some other guy started talking your ear off and I didn't feel like stepping in to offer my own opinions. If you look at my response to another sub-commenter, you'll see a few of the things I'd like to add to school, some of which may appear more palatable to you than the abolition of the entire model. Ultimately, I'm gratified that you're a good teacher, but regrettably not only are you one of the few, you also are kept far back from the actual effect you could be having on kids by confining your expertise to the schooling model. You sound more like a mentor that could clearly steer a high number of kids through life from early to late ages, and you could run events and study plans that go late into the night and through the summer. If you were unconstrained by the rules of the school and unbound by the need for a retirement savings account and health insurance, you could run your own always-open institute where you teach whatever you want to whoever is willing to come and listen. The results you'd see under such a model would wildly outstrip the ones you see in school. My goal is to create a society filled with people like you--but that takes individuals who are parented well, and it can't be done under the factory schooling model, where the primary lesson learned is obedience to the institution. The other thing I'd like to point out is that none of the activities you mentioned require school to exist for them to be performed. People visited, played sports and music, and investigated science well before every single child went to school. The difference then was that it didn't "feel real", it "was real". School only provides an age-segregated simulation of greater society, and the more time you spend in greater society the more inaccurate that simulation seems. Regarding the hyperbole, I don't consider it to be hyperbole. Schools are constructed using the same techniques that prisons are constructed, the social cliques run similar to prisons, and in neither place are you allowed to leave or meaningfully challenge or change the rules of the institution. When you are in a school, you are not part of a thriving society, you are a subject that is managed according to the needs of the administration.
- mlyle 4y ago
  > Ultimately, I'm gratified that you're a good teacher, but regrettably not only are you one of the few, you also are kept far back from the actual effect you could be having on kids by confining your expertise to the schooling model. I actually like the school I'm at quite a bit and would say that my peer faculty are doing much the same thing. > Ultimately, I'm gratified that you're a good teacher, but regrettably not only are you one of the few, you also are kept far back from the actual effect you could be having on kids by confining your expertise to the schooling model. You sound more like a mentor that could clearly steer a high number of kids through life from early to late ages, and you could run events and study plans that go late into the night and through the summer. Yup, I do those things too. Did them before taking a teaching job, actually. > If you were unconstrained by the rules of the school and unbound by the need for a retirement savings account and health insurance, you could run your own always-open institute where you teach whatever you want to whoever is willing to come and listen. I got rich in industry. This is not a concern. I impact a few hundred kids a year by being a teacher in a structured school. The other programs, etc, are a much smaller number. > When you are in a school, you are not part of a thriving society, you are a subject that is managed according to the needs of the administration. You know, we need to know where students are and to keep them safe, and different subjects/teachers need to "share". So there is a certain amount of structure. BTW, we changed some things this past year with schedule, academic load, and structure. Students had a lot of say.
  - quacked 4y ago
    Why do you assume that impacting a few hundred kids per year is better for society than impacting a few dozen kids per year, or even a few kids?
    - mlyle 4y ago
      I still do the other things. I'm just also making a broader but somewhat smaller impact across many more. And the pool for the students who will best benefit from my time making a deeper connection and ending up in a more intensive program with me is much larger, improving the odds of "good matches". There are some economies of scale and ancillary benefits, too. I can teach 15 competitive math kids about 40-50% of what I can teach two in the room in the same block of time. (And some students benefit even more being 1-of-15, because e.g. * think-pair-share is really, really powerful for recall and internalizing knowledge * because an excited classroom of 15 often draws more effort out of students than one-on-one engagement * because there are more "kinds of solutions" in the room and we can celebrate the remarkably varied approaches

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

2rsf 4y ago

Assuming we all agree that kids need education and to learn necessary skills what do you suggest? Here in Sweden the school system is not perfect but it does offer a "slow start" for young kids, kindergarten class at the school building and the first few years without exams or homework.

quacked 4y ago
Regrettably, none of my answers work in a modern western-style economy. However, if I am forced to keep everything else the same--taxes, healthcare, student loans, etc.--here are a few things that could help: - slow start like you mentioned (also was done in famously education-forward Soviet Russia) - allow schools to expel children - increase availability and desirability of night school or other free public school for adults - mandate school and district administrators to have experience teaching - ban homework and introduce periods of time during school when work is expected - remove all art and sports from school and reform them as independent free clubs to be participated in after or before school (unfortunately impossible in poorer districts) - increase teacher salary - more separation of students by skill level (tons of research showing that kids learn better when they're placed in small groups at a similar skill level, also easily observed anecdotally.) This should also be accomplished by mixing ages. - ban grades, introduce final exams in specific subjects at the end of school that can be retaken indefinitely (perhaps once per year). If you want to go to college, perform on these tests If we're looking at societal changes that would allow us to really move away from the school model, we also need: - more public transportation to enable kids to go to schools other than the ones they live next to - widespread reforms in prison and sentencing that makes it safer and less life-ending - industry must return to western countries to allow low- and medium-skilled people important labor jobs - healthcare reform so it's not tied to employment - better cultural stewardship, small business startup loans, and continental rail so young talented people aren't as incentivized to leave their smaller cities and towns Ultimately, a strong society that could move safely away from the school model needs an economy with many opportunities for short-duration (6-24 months) employment, lots of vacation time, and the ability for one parent to stay at home a large fraction of the year.
- mlyle 4y ago

watwut 4y ago

Homeschool rhetorics is getting unhinged lately on HN.

quacked 4y ago
"Homeschooling" is an imperfect solution to the problem. Even the best-equipped parents have only a fraction of knowledge and experience necessary to prepare someone to build a robust and healthy society. However, one-on-one academic attention creates outstanding results in most students, which is why people hire tutors when they're falling behind, and why many of the most aristocratic in the past had private tutors for a majority of their lives.