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Education is a cog/mandarin factory in most countries. Whizzkids will educate themselves, what's needed is giving people idle time in order to pursue things. M

Education is a cog/mandarin factory in most countries. Whizzkids will educate themselves, what's needed is giving people idle time in order to pursue things. Most influential thinkers found themselves with this in some fashion. How much talent is wasted making people jump through hoops in academia/finance/ad-tech? A lot of pre-industrial thinkers were associated with the clergy because they received tax money from peasants.

johngossman 3y ago
Reading Leo Szilard biography right now. School was easy and he just read all the time on his own. Which is pretty much (I’m no Szilard) how it was for me too. School boredom as a recipe for success?
- euroderf 3y ago
  Alternatively, school boredom as a recipe for being the class clown.
Scene_Cast2 3y ago
The issue I see these days is that every industry is getting more and more competitive, and leaves less and less time to think more broadly or creatively. Can't go off reading about differential geometry when you need a guaranteed perfect SAT, a great entrance essay (i.e. a strong personal story), and easy-to-gauge extracurriculars ("placed X in Y", not "read some smart books and had some interesting thoughts that don't impress the admissions officer"). Same goes for the industry and academia as well.
- programjames 3y ago
  I think top schools are much more likely to accept that kid with a 1550 on the SAT who spent his downtime studying differential geometry instead of the SAT.
cyberax 3y ago
One thing (in retrospect) that I love about the xUSSR school system, is its focus on competitive math and physics. There's a robust multi-level system of "Olympiads", starting from the neighborhood level, and going all the way up to the national level. Every student knows about them, and more importantly, "magnet schools" scoop up students who do well in competitions. This works really well for math, and so pretty much every Fields medal award ceremony has awardees from the xUSSR countries. I'm really surprised that this kind of system is not more widespread, especially in the US. After all, sports and competition is kinda a thing here?
rigid 3y ago
> Whizzkids will educate themselves Only those you see becoming one. You never hear of all the "Einsteins" who never leave the patents office because they never got inspired for some passion or various other stupid reasons.

johngossman 3y ago

Reading Leo Szilard biography right now. School was easy and he just read all the time on his own. Which is pretty much (I’m no Szilard) how it was for me too. School boredom as a recipe for success?

euroderf 3y ago
Alternatively, school boredom as a recipe for being the class clown.

Scene_Cast2 3y ago

The issue I see these days is that every industry is getting more and more competitive, and leaves less and less time to think more broadly or creatively. Can't go off reading about differential geometry when you need a guaranteed perfect SAT, a great entrance essay (i.e. a strong personal story), and easy-to-gauge extracurriculars ("placed X in Y", not "read some smart books and had some interesting thoughts that don't impress the admissions officer"). Same goes for the industry and academia as well.

programjames 3y ago
I think top schools are much more likely to accept that kid with a 1550 on the SAT who spent his downtime studying differential geometry instead of the SAT.

cyberax 3y ago

One thing (in retrospect) that I love about the xUSSR school system, is its focus on competitive math and physics. There's a robust multi-level system of "Olympiads", starting from the neighborhood level, and going all the way up to the national level. Every student knows about them, and more importantly, "magnet schools" scoop up students who do well in competitions. This works really well for math, and so pretty much every Fields medal award ceremony has awardees from the xUSSR countries. I'm really surprised that this kind of system is not more widespread, especially in the US. After all, sports and competition is kinda a thing here?

rigid 3y ago

> Whizzkids will educate themselves Only those you see becoming one. You never hear of all the "Einsteins" who never leave the patents office because they never got inspired for some passion or various other stupid reasons.