4 ms·

Perhaps it's because most schooling seems irrelevant to many of the students? I went to very good schools and actually enjoyed quite a lot of my schooldays but

Perhaps it's because most schooling seems irrelevant to many of the students? I went to very good schools and actually enjoyed quite a lot of my schooldays but even while I was there I could see that a lot of it was a complete and utter waste of everyone's time. I spent six years attending French classes and three of Latin. I can't read, write, speak, or understand either one. I moved to Norway fifteen years later and spent a couple of hours a week in evening classes for a year and a few years of immersion in the language and now I am fluent with much almost no effort. So why do schools all over the world persist in educational methods that don't work? Why do they never teach people how to handle money, how to negotiate with tradesmen about repairs to a house, how to drive a car.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
It's not the methods. If you and all the rest of your class would have been motivated the methods would have worked fine.
- locallost 3y ago
  People didn't invent the saying "when the student is ready, the teacher appears" for nothing. But following that it's a fair point that how we do things is not optimal. E.g. pushing kids into classes based on their age and than having everyone for the most part do the same things. People/kids are just different, different interests, different levels. Maybe it was a necessity once, but maybe we can do things differently now.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- acover 3y ago
  Are you sure? I struggled for years to maintain a decent mark in french class. 2 months of duolingo for spanish and I was able to have conversations. A grammar, written first approach is hard and boring but it does scale to 30 students for 1 teacher though.
nlitened 3y ago
It could also mean that learning two languages in school improved your language learning ability, so it went easy for you later (which probably was the whole point in the first place — for sure nobody expected you to use Latin as a speaking language in you daily life). Anecdotally, I’ve noticed that people who didn’t learn other languages in school, face difficulties when they start doing that later in life.
anon291 3y ago
> how to negotiate with tradesmen about repairs to a house It's called socializing. > how to handle money It's called math. Especially calculus. > how to drive a car Most schools do offer drivers Ed in America at least. In my experience, the people who complain most that school didn't teach them X were the same kids who didn't pay any attention. I don't even like schools, but this low effort nonsense should end. Obviously you learned Norwegian faster in Norway. Good for you. The idea that a school should send kids on international vacations is ridiculous.
albrewer 3y ago
> I spent six years attending French classes and three of Latin. I can't read, write, speak, or understand either one. I spent ~4-ish years learning Spanish in high school and was the same. HOWEVER, after visiting Puerto Rico for the first time, I was genuinely surprised with how much was still rattling around in my head and how quickly I picked up new words and phrases. I was eventually able to navigate a restaurant without English at all in the few weeks I was there. No way I could have done that without the background I got during school.
- anon291 3y ago
  Again... this is completely unsurprising. Being forced to use language is a surefire way to learn it. Being surrounded by it will mean most adults will be able to speak it in a few months. There is no way to replicate that in a school environment that is predominantly being taught in another language. You have your spanish teacher for what... an hour... and then go right back to English. As I said above: what's the proposed solution here? International trips for every student... that's just not worth it.

bryanlarsen 3y ago

It's not the methods. If you and all the rest of your class would have been motivated the methods would have worked fine.

locallost 3y ago
People didn't invent the saying "when the student is ready, the teacher appears" for nothing. But following that it's a fair point that how we do things is not optimal. E.g. pushing kids into classes based on their age and than having everyone for the most part do the same things. People/kids are just different, different interests, different levels. Maybe it was a necessity once, but maybe we can do things differently now.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
acover 3y ago
Are you sure? I struggled for years to maintain a decent mark in french class. 2 months of duolingo for spanish and I was able to have conversations. A grammar, written first approach is hard and boring but it does scale to 30 students for 1 teacher though.

nlitened 3y ago

It could also mean that learning two languages in school improved your language learning ability, so it went easy for you later (which probably was the whole point in the first place — for sure nobody expected you to use Latin as a speaking language in you daily life). Anecdotally, I’ve noticed that people who didn’t learn other languages in school, face difficulties when they start doing that later in life.

anon291 3y ago

> how to negotiate with tradesmen about repairs to a house It's called socializing. > how to handle money It's called math. Especially calculus. > how to drive a car Most schools do offer drivers Ed in America at least. In my experience, the people who complain most that school didn't teach them X were the same kids who didn't pay any attention. I don't even like schools, but this low effort nonsense should end. Obviously you learned Norwegian faster in Norway. Good for you. The idea that a school should send kids on international vacations is ridiculous.

albrewer 3y ago

> I spent six years attending French classes and three of Latin. I can't read, write, speak, or understand either one. I spent ~4-ish years learning Spanish in high school and was the same. HOWEVER, after visiting Puerto Rico for the first time, I was genuinely surprised with how much was still rattling around in my head and how quickly I picked up new words and phrases. I was eventually able to navigate a restaurant without English at all in the few weeks I was there. No way I could have done that without the background I got during school.

anon291 3y ago
Again... this is completely unsurprising. Being forced to use language is a surefire way to learn it. Being surrounded by it will mean most adults will be able to speak it in a few months. There is no way to replicate that in a school environment that is predominantly being taught in another language. You have your spanish teacher for what... an hour... and then go right back to English. As I said above: what's the proposed solution here? International trips for every student... that's just not worth it.