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>it will be used to cut costs by replacing human teachers for low-status students with poor substitutes most public school teachers are glorified babysitters a

>it will be used to cut costs by replacing human teachers for low-status students with poor substitutes most public school teachers are glorified babysitters at this point anyway, I can recall only a single teacher during my 12 year public school attendance that was actually helpful. From what I've seen from GPT-4 so far, I'd have taken a ChatGPT Plus subscription and laptop over dedicated teachers. YT and Khan Academy were far more useful than my actual teachers

agentdrtran 4y ago
teachers do not want to be babysitters, but when you have overstuffed classrooms, no prep time, no equipment, hungry kids, etc etc what are you able to do?
- dmvdoug 4y ago
  Not to mention state-mandated testing regimes that have nothing to do with actual student learning, hyper-local control of education in elected school boards whose members are often as dumb as a box of rocks, extreme pressure from administrators to get kids through so their performance numbers are juiced rather than actually taking whatever time is needed for those students to accomplish what they need to, etc. I’m a public school teacher. I never cease to be impressed how very little people who don’t work in education understand about the realities of education.
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  I don't see what point you're trying to make. Sure, we could make education better by spending more on it, but the voters don't want to, so it's not going to happen. Given that society is not willing to spend more on education what can we do with the budget we have?
  - _justinfunk 4y ago
    I think we've tried the "we could make education better by spending more on it" method. Based on the current state of public education, I don't know that this approach has been proven correct.
    - fn-mote 4y ago
      1. Citations for the claim that we are spending more for the same results would be productive... but I believe it. 2. I believe the problem is that the extra money is not going to proven-effective programs and teachers. There is some question to me whether anything is proven effective... in spite of whatever you read in books written for teachers. 3. The parent comment is pretty nihilistic. Try to propose something that you think might improve the status quo. (E.g., the comments about the highest impact of extra spending being in social services instead.)
      - HDThoreaun 4y ago
        > Try to propose something that you think might improve the status quo. Use LLMs to compliment class activities so that students can receive the individual attention they need.
tablespoon 4y ago
> most public school teachers are glorified babysitters at this point anyway That's a common but pretty twisted bit of logic: "we've made it shitty, so we should make it shittier because it's already so shitty."
- savanaly 4y ago
  No, he said we should make it less shitty. And outlined a way to do so. Why misrepresent his words?
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > No, he said we should make it less shitty. And outlined a way to do so. Why misrepresent his words? No, he didn't outline a way to make it better. He denigrated the people involved, in a way that is (most charitably) an oblique reference to low education budgets (e.g. not enough money to hire enough teachers or attract talented teachers). Then he held up some references to a few techie things. Maybe he's a genius autodidact that never really got much benefit from his teachers. There have always been people like that, but they've never been common. A system tailored to people like that would fail the vast majority (e.g. be shitty).
lm28469 4y ago
Did you do an AB test with your clone and checked how it fared without going to school ?
cyrialize 4y ago
I've mentioned this before across HN, but I'll mention it again - human-to-human interaction is critically important for young children. You basically have to teach young kids how to act like a human being. Kids will get this teaching in daycare and through their parents, but that alone isn't enough and it is important to reinforce this through schools. People often forget this because you don't really remember it and then you end up making assumptions on how you act now - not realizing that a teacher may have taught you when you were younger. I think the best example of this is handing out worksheets to kindergartners. An average person may think that you just give them pencils and paper. An experienced teacher knows that they have to teach the kids where to write their name, how to follow along the line, to read instructions, flip the page over to check for more, etc. This is practically true for all children. Again, many may argue that you can receive this teaching through your parents and day-care, but once a child gets old enough they are spending most of their time in school. Think of it like language learning. You'll learn more of the language if you are being taught it all day, rather than only at home with your parents. You also experience more interaction with kids your age at school. There are many situations that come up where a teacher guiding you is important, and these same situations may not come up at home (especially if you are a single child). I do think after a certain point you can rely on technology more for learning. I just want to emphasize that having a human teacher trained for working with children is critically important for the growth of a child.
- hooande 4y ago
  We live in a world that's dominated by staring at screens. You're doing it right now. This wasn't true when I was young. The world changed. It stands to reason that the education system should also change to reflect the world that we live in. Screens, AI, all of it. Children will learn how to become members of the society that they were born into, not the one that we were born into.
  - klooney 4y ago
    I like this comment, its thesis deserves a fuller defense.
  - 4y ago
kwhitefoot 4y ago
Sounds like you were self motivated. What about all the other children who have been told over and over that scholastic achievement is only for the weak and those whose early years were spent gazing vacantly at television. A teacher's job is not merely to recite the material but also to somehow make the student receptive to it.
idontpost 4y ago
[dead]

agentdrtran 4y ago

teachers do not want to be babysitters, but when you have overstuffed classrooms, no prep time, no equipment, hungry kids, etc etc what are you able to do?

dmvdoug 4y ago
Not to mention state-mandated testing regimes that have nothing to do with actual student learning, hyper-local control of education in elected school boards whose members are often as dumb as a box of rocks, extreme pressure from administrators to get kids through so their performance numbers are juiced rather than actually taking whatever time is needed for those students to accomplish what they need to, etc. I’m a public school teacher. I never cease to be impressed how very little people who don’t work in education understand about the realities of education.
HDThoreaun 4y ago
I don't see what point you're trying to make. Sure, we could make education better by spending more on it, but the voters don't want to, so it's not going to happen. Given that society is not willing to spend more on education what can we do with the budget we have?
- _justinfunk 4y ago
  I think we've tried the "we could make education better by spending more on it" method. Based on the current state of public education, I don't know that this approach has been proven correct.
  - fn-mote 4y ago
    1. Citations for the claim that we are spending more for the same results would be productive... but I believe it. 2. I believe the problem is that the extra money is not going to proven-effective programs and teachers. There is some question to me whether anything is proven effective... in spite of whatever you read in books written for teachers. 3. The parent comment is pretty nihilistic. Try to propose something that you think might improve the status quo. (E.g., the comments about the highest impact of extra spending being in social services instead.)
    - HDThoreaun 4y ago
      > Try to propose something that you think might improve the status quo. Use LLMs to compliment class activities so that students can receive the individual attention they need.

tablespoon 4y ago

> most public school teachers are glorified babysitters at this point anyway That's a common but pretty twisted bit of logic: "we've made it shitty, so we should make it shittier because it's already so shitty."

savanaly 4y ago
No, he said we should make it less shitty. And outlined a way to do so. Why misrepresent his words?
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > No, he said we should make it less shitty. And outlined a way to do so. Why misrepresent his words? No, he didn't outline a way to make it better. He denigrated the people involved, in a way that is (most charitably) an oblique reference to low education budgets (e.g. not enough money to hire enough teachers or attract talented teachers). Then he held up some references to a few techie things. Maybe he's a genius autodidact that never really got much benefit from his teachers. There have always been people like that, but they've never been common. A system tailored to people like that would fail the vast majority (e.g. be shitty).

lm28469 4y ago

Did you do an AB test with your clone and checked how it fared without going to school ?

cyrialize 4y ago

I've mentioned this before across HN, but I'll mention it again - human-to-human interaction is critically important for young children. You basically have to teach young kids how to act like a human being. Kids will get this teaching in daycare and through their parents, but that alone isn't enough and it is important to reinforce this through schools. People often forget this because you don't really remember it and then you end up making assumptions on how you act now - not realizing that a teacher may have taught you when you were younger. I think the best example of this is handing out worksheets to kindergartners. An average person may think that you just give them pencils and paper. An experienced teacher knows that they have to teach the kids where to write their name, how to follow along the line, to read instructions, flip the page over to check for more, etc. This is practically true for all children. Again, many may argue that you can receive this teaching through your parents and day-care, but once a child gets old enough they are spending most of their time in school. Think of it like language learning. You'll learn more of the language if you are being taught it all day, rather than only at home with your parents. You also experience more interaction with kids your age at school. There are many situations that come up where a teacher guiding you is important, and these same situations may not come up at home (especially if you are a single child). I do think after a certain point you can rely on technology more for learning. I just want to emphasize that having a human teacher trained for working with children is critically important for the growth of a child.

hooande 4y ago
We live in a world that's dominated by staring at screens. You're doing it right now. This wasn't true when I was young. The world changed. It stands to reason that the education system should also change to reflect the world that we live in. Screens, AI, all of it. Children will learn how to become members of the society that they were born into, not the one that we were born into.
- klooney 4y ago
  I like this comment, its thesis deserves a fuller defense.
- 4y ago

kwhitefoot 4y ago

Sounds like you were self motivated. What about all the other children who have been told over and over that scholastic achievement is only for the weak and those whose early years were spent gazing vacantly at television. A teacher's job is not merely to recite the material but also to somehow make the student receptive to it.

idontpost 4y ago

[dead]