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I completely agree. The first things these people with far more money than capability for introspection miss is that education is not about that next Einstein.

by _jal 3y ago

I completely agree. The first things these people with far more money than capability for introspection miss is that education is not about that next Einstein. It is about integrating the median student. If you want to find diapered brilliance, you should probably be building a network of talent spotters, or something like Fast Grants. Not attempting to build robot tutors.

xp84 3y ago
> the median student Oh boy. I feel like people who are active in the education policy world will come for you with pitchforks for suggesting that. Arguably the median student is exactly what public school kinda does fine with today. Such kids basically learn what they need to and probably get into an ok college and have a decent chance in life. However, the parents of the kids with learning disabilities or neurodivergent brains are screaming that it doesn’t work for their kids, who are absolutely floundering and cannot learn in the “median kid” environment. Meanwhile the parents of the gifted kids, the ones who truly are having their time wasted “learning” with those far beneath their own abilities, are also complaining bitterly that their kids aren’t being challenged enough, and they resent any attempts to temper the speed of the curriculum to allow the bottom half of the class to finish grasping the material. Neither of these groups is well-served - and it seems like any changes made to help one of them frequently hurts the other. (I don’t have any answers for any of these groups, which is why I’m not involved in telling anyone how to do education!)
- _jal 3y ago
  > Arguably the median student is exactly what public school kinda does fine with today That's pretty much what I meant. It was a descriptive claim, not a normative one. > I feel like people who are active in the education policy world will come for you with pitchforks for suggesting that. None of them are directly active in ed policy, but academics are overrepresented in my circle of friends. I know. There are even some not terrible for them to reject my claims. I'm just someone outside looking in, I don't have their priors. (Or their expertise.)
- erik_seaberg 3y ago
  The author does not take this flaw as seriously as he should. From https://danmeyer.substack.com/p/chatbots-have-a-math-problem-and https://danmeyer.substack.com/p/chatbots-have-a-math-problem...: > Students do not believe that their classmates are liabilities. Much more often students like their classmates and do not feel limited by them and would rather learn with them if the option were available.

by _jal 3y ago

xp84 3y ago

> the median student Oh boy. I feel like people who are active in the education policy world will come for you with pitchforks for suggesting that. Arguably the median student is exactly what public school kinda does fine with today. Such kids basically learn what they need to and probably get into an ok college and have a decent chance in life. However, the parents of the kids with learning disabilities or neurodivergent brains are screaming that it doesn’t work for their kids, who are absolutely floundering and cannot learn in the “median kid” environment. Meanwhile the parents of the gifted kids, the ones who truly are having their time wasted “learning” with those far beneath their own abilities, are also complaining bitterly that their kids aren’t being challenged enough, and they resent any attempts to temper the speed of the curriculum to allow the bottom half of the class to finish grasping the material. Neither of these groups is well-served - and it seems like any changes made to help one of them frequently hurts the other. (I don’t have any answers for any of these groups, which is why I’m not involved in telling anyone how to do education!)

_jal 3y ago
> Arguably the median student is exactly what public school kinda does fine with today That's pretty much what I meant. It was a descriptive claim, not a normative one. > I feel like people who are active in the education policy world will come for you with pitchforks for suggesting that. None of them are directly active in ed policy, but academics are overrepresented in my circle of friends. I know. There are even some not terrible for them to reject my claims. I'm just someone outside looking in, I don't have their priors. (Or their expertise.)
erik_seaberg 3y ago
The author does not take this flaw as seriously as he should. From https://danmeyer.substack.com/p/chatbots-have-a-math-problem-and https://danmeyer.substack.com/p/chatbots-have-a-math-problem...: > Students do not believe that their classmates are liabilities. Much more often students like their classmates and do not feel limited by them and would rather learn with them if the option were available.