4 ms·

I have a question for HN. At what point do you become responsible for your own education? Before, you may have not had a public library near you. Nowadays, t

by manglav 14y ago

I have a question for HN. At what point do you become responsible for your own education? Before, you may have not had a public library near you. Nowadays, there is too much information. Curation? Multiple MOOC's have taken the problem and squashed it. Internet Access? I'm not sure, but I remember reading that Comcast gives subsidized rates in poor income areas. Computers / Notebooks? This I'm not sure about at all. What access do people have? Assuming people have access to education, at what point are "educators" defunct? I feel as though I would not have gone to high school had these MOOC's been available. However, I did have enough personal curiosity to pursue these things. In college now, I'm not "spoon fed" anymore, it is my responsibility to do well, and seek out help if I am struggling. I am just curious where people think that line is drawn, and if it's different for everyone or not. I am for the Bar exam - for goodness's sake, we still have teachers trying to teach Creationism! One of my favorite videos on reforming education, from a very logical perspective from Sir Ken Robinson. Bonus: it's pictorially animated! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

bphogan 14y ago
Say you have parents who split up when you were two. Then say your mom works two jobs and doesn't help you with your homework, ever. Say you go to school on Monday and your first decent meal is the snack the teacher gives you on Monday morning. Say this is Kindergarten. At what point do you then even learn to become responsible for your own education? Unfortunately I've recently been introduced to a lot of those kinds of things, and it's really hard to make that change from judging. It was easy to see the unmotivated kid in the class as a slacker. Then we find out he wasn't eating cos it was a choice between getting food or paying for heat. Our backgrounds shape us much more than teachers do. What goes on outside of the class does too. You're a motivated self-learner. How much of that, truly, is because of the environment you grew up in? I know I sling code because my dad bought a computer and let me play on it when I was 7. I was encouraged by my dad to learn on my own.
- manglav 14y ago
  bphogan I was not saying these kids are unmotivated and should focus on school - I am very sorry for even letting my comment be unclear. Of course our children should be nurtured, and the fact that this situation exists is awful. Everyone is different when it comes to what shapes them, for me it was a few select science teachers (not so much my environment in this case). That's why I am such a fan for Teach for America. I know four of my classmates who have elected to participate, and it has been the most rewarding experience of their lives. The thing that kids appreciate most? That they care. Really care. One idea thing I've always wondered about was making a safe place in this cities to code. I wrote a paper on how 1. School districts can cut IT budgets instead of teaching staff by using servers and thin clients instead of full desktop computers. Then 2. after school, adding some coding classes after school (including meals, stews are healthy,cheap, and hot), with the eventual goal of becoming a self-sufficient outsourcing team. Or making mockups, or even slicing PSD's. I feel as though if Hacker Dojo's and such exist, eventually a charity version will be created as well. There could be sponsors from FB / Google / IBM, etc... It's just a dream. I've always been a supporter of education for all. It's just a really, really, hard problem. I can't think of doing anything that these other startups aren't doing, so I'm waiting until I can contribute a bit more. Thanks for the anecdote bphogan, it really hit home.
japhyr 14y ago
"Multiple MOOC's have taken the problem and squashed it." I have been watching some of my high school students enroll in some MOOCs recently. Most of them only do well if they have the support of at least one skilled adult around them - skilled meaning that person can help the student find the right course, get the computer working properly, help understand assignments that may require background knowledge that the student is lacking. I am in support of MOOCs, but we can't just dump these courses online and then claim that everyone now has equal access to a high-quality education on their own time.
- manglav 14y ago
  japhyr are you a teacher? What subject? I'm definitely not saying that. The I was describing was curation - to know the good courses from the bad. Shoot, if you don't like the Harvard course, take the MIT course. I agree that getting the computer to work properly can be an issue sometimes, but I don't think it's that complicated? I feel as though if people know how to post to facebook/twitter and stream video, they can get by in the course...please correct me if it is more involved than that. My only experience entailed exactly that - posting in a discussion forum and streaming lessons. For background knowledge, I used to use physicsforums.com to answer all my questions. 99% of the time the question had already been asked. japhyr I agree that a guiding hand is always helpful. But I would count finding you and getting your help as "taking responsibility for my own education". Kudos to you and your students!
  - japhyr 14y ago
    I teach high school math and science, and I teach some intro programming courses when I can fit them in. I'm also starting to mentor more students who are interested in programming throughout my district. I currently teach in southeast Alaska, but I spent 7 years teaching in NYC before that. I agree that a good MOOC does fill the role of curating material. But it is still difficult for most of the students I see to find the right course, and get enough momentum in the course to finish it, without a knowledgeable person to mentor them in the initial phase. It's similar to getting a programming environment set up. To really start programming effectively, you've got to know your way around an editor, a filesystem, a package management system, a terminal... You can do some hello world stuff without all that, but it's hard to make meaningful progress in programming without knowing all that. It is certainly difficult to complete these courses without figuring this environment stuff out. So why do I like MOOCs? Because they help free me up to play the role of facilitator and mentor. I have one student now who is happily working his way through a python-related MOOC, and a couple other students who are trying them out. I just watch their progress, and help them when they hit a block. But none of them would be likely to complete these courses without that guidance. 'But I would count finding you and getting your help as "taking responsibility for my own education".' It's not that simple; I am spotting these students, they are not finding me. If you're not living in a tech hotspot, it's pretty hit or miss whether there is anyone around who can act as a mentor. It's been said in other comments, that many of us are programmers because we watched people around us work as programmers when we were younger. That is a huge influence on who becomes a programmer.

by manglav 14y ago

bphogan 14y ago

Say you have parents who split up when you were two. Then say your mom works two jobs and doesn't help you with your homework, ever. Say you go to school on Monday and your first decent meal is the snack the teacher gives you on Monday morning. Say this is Kindergarten. At what point do you then even learn to become responsible for your own education? Unfortunately I've recently been introduced to a lot of those kinds of things, and it's really hard to make that change from judging. It was easy to see the unmotivated kid in the class as a slacker. Then we find out he wasn't eating cos it was a choice between getting food or paying for heat. Our backgrounds shape us much more than teachers do. What goes on outside of the class does too. You're a motivated self-learner. How much of that, truly, is because of the environment you grew up in? I know I sling code because my dad bought a computer and let me play on it when I was 7. I was encouraged by my dad to learn on my own.

manglav 14y ago
bphogan I was not saying these kids are unmotivated and should focus on school - I am very sorry for even letting my comment be unclear. Of course our children should be nurtured, and the fact that this situation exists is awful. Everyone is different when it comes to what shapes them, for me it was a few select science teachers (not so much my environment in this case). That's why I am such a fan for Teach for America. I know four of my classmates who have elected to participate, and it has been the most rewarding experience of their lives. The thing that kids appreciate most? That they care. Really care. One idea thing I've always wondered about was making a safe place in this cities to code. I wrote a paper on how 1. School districts can cut IT budgets instead of teaching staff by using servers and thin clients instead of full desktop computers. Then 2. after school, adding some coding classes after school (including meals, stews are healthy,cheap, and hot), with the eventual goal of becoming a self-sufficient outsourcing team. Or making mockups, or even slicing PSD's. I feel as though if Hacker Dojo's and such exist, eventually a charity version will be created as well. There could be sponsors from FB / Google / IBM, etc... It's just a dream. I've always been a supporter of education for all. It's just a really, really, hard problem. I can't think of doing anything that these other startups aren't doing, so I'm waiting until I can contribute a bit more. Thanks for the anecdote bphogan, it really hit home.

japhyr 14y ago

"Multiple MOOC's have taken the problem and squashed it." I have been watching some of my high school students enroll in some MOOCs recently. Most of them only do well if they have the support of at least one skilled adult around them - skilled meaning that person can help the student find the right course, get the computer working properly, help understand assignments that may require background knowledge that the student is lacking. I am in support of MOOCs, but we can't just dump these courses online and then claim that everyone now has equal access to a high-quality education on their own time.

manglav 14y ago
japhyr are you a teacher? What subject? I'm definitely not saying that. The I was describing was curation - to know the good courses from the bad. Shoot, if you don't like the Harvard course, take the MIT course. I agree that getting the computer to work properly can be an issue sometimes, but I don't think it's that complicated? I feel as though if people know how to post to facebook/twitter and stream video, they can get by in the course...please correct me if it is more involved than that. My only experience entailed exactly that - posting in a discussion forum and streaming lessons. For background knowledge, I used to use physicsforums.com to answer all my questions. 99% of the time the question had already been asked. japhyr I agree that a guiding hand is always helpful. But I would count finding you and getting your help as "taking responsibility for my own education". Kudos to you and your students!
- japhyr 14y ago
  I teach high school math and science, and I teach some intro programming courses when I can fit them in. I'm also starting to mentor more students who are interested in programming throughout my district. I currently teach in southeast Alaska, but I spent 7 years teaching in NYC before that. I agree that a good MOOC does fill the role of curating material. But it is still difficult for most of the students I see to find the right course, and get enough momentum in the course to finish it, without a knowledgeable person to mentor them in the initial phase. It's similar to getting a programming environment set up. To really start programming effectively, you've got to know your way around an editor, a filesystem, a package management system, a terminal... You can do some hello world stuff without all that, but it's hard to make meaningful progress in programming without knowing all that. It is certainly difficult to complete these courses without figuring this environment stuff out. So why do I like MOOCs? Because they help free me up to play the role of facilitator and mentor. I have one student now who is happily working his way through a python-related MOOC, and a couple other students who are trying them out. I just watch their progress, and help them when they hit a block. But none of them would be likely to complete these courses without that guidance. 'But I would count finding you and getting your help as "taking responsibility for my own education".' It's not that simple; I am spotting these students, they are not finding me. If you're not living in a tech hotspot, it's pretty hit or miss whether there is anyone around who can act as a mentor. It's been said in other comments, that many of us are programmers because we watched people around us work as programmers when we were younger. That is a huge influence on who becomes a programmer.