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A very well reasoned piece. It reminds me of this piece from Hamilton Nolan: http://gawker.com/5968116/hubris-high-socks-and-other-habits-of-the-most-powerful-

A very well reasoned piece. It reminds me of this piece from Hamilton Nolan: http://gawker.com/5968116/hubris-high-socks-and-other-habits-of-the-most-powerful-people-in-the-world http://gawker.com/5968116/hubris-high-socks-and-other-habits... Personally I find the whole techno-libertarian/utopian side of valley culture quite scary - I guess it's the part where some people decide they want to "fix" everything, without really making any effort to understand what (if anything) is broken to begin with.

tptacek 14y ago
I'm skeeved out by technolibertarianism too, but I disagree that this is a well-reasoned piece. It's a guilt- by- ideological- association hit piece that at one point has its cake and smears it all over its own face by linking Coursera/Udacity to Michelle Rhee and the scandals of low quality classroom education. It's quick to toss in references to "Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists" or throw Khan Academy under one or more imagined busses, but did you notice that in its attempt at a takedown on an "overview of US history" video at Khan, it didn't even ask the question of how coherently secondary school courseware handled the same subject? I feel like the reviews I've read from subject matter experts on Coursera courses have been positive. I don't feel like individual problem courses on Udacity damn the whole medium. I can understand how people who thoroughly enjoyed their years at college would feel threatened by alternative paths to the same goal, but it's the goal that matters, not the college life experience.
- spamizbad 14y ago
  > but did you notice that in its attempt at a takedown on an "overview of US history" video at Khan, it didn't even ask the question of how coherently secondary school courseware handled the same subject? My theory: that would probably be an article unto itself. A good friend of mine, who's a 7th grade social studies teacher, shares the author's disdain for Khan's handling of history. He cited disjointed events, without any explaination of how they were connected, stating it was very "this happened, then this happened, then later THIS happened probably because of this which happened between this and this..." -- no coherent historical narrative, and ultimately more difficult to understand. It's easier to remember events when you understand their causes and purpose, rather than just their place on a timeline. After watching Khan's Intro to CS videos, I'm inclined to trust my friend's assessment. As far as Rhee is concerned: The crux of the argument is, ambition non-educators who try to "fix" education have a tendancy to make it worse. Rhee and the VCs fall into the same category. It's also worth noting Education reform movement has started to turn its sights on higher education as well- We got a taste of that from Bill Gates, which his thoughts on college rankings (Which probably need to be fixed, but not in the way Gates, and reformers, are proposing).
  - scotty79 14y ago
    History is just facts. Narratives are usually made up by someone investigating those facts. Narratives differ between historians depending on their sympathies. I think innovative education should stay away from history. Most of it is history of politics. Only some percentage of it is actual knowledge and none of it is of any use to almost anyone.
    - MrMan 14y ago
      You should elaborate on this idea. If we can understand better why the study of history is largely useless, then we might be able to use that knowledge to reason about why other subjects held dear by traditional academics are also harmful. I think literature is even worse than history. What they are studying are not even facts! Just make believe stories. There is no ROI on make believe nonsense, right?
      - scotty79 14y ago
        I'm not saying that history is harmful, only that it's mostly useless. I have nothing against literature. I like fiction and discussing fiction. I think people educated in literature might contribute to culture by inventing interesting stories themselves by reusing and remixing concepts found in respected literature. I don't really like the prominence given to history of politics as it's currently taught because for me it's just uninteresting fiction that only strong point is that something similar perhaps sort of happened.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    I have a son in 8th grade and a daughter in 6th in a pretty good school system and I do not assume the social studies curricula is doing a better job at this material than Khan is. The kids in these classes are getting series of disjointed factual units punctuated by enrichment exercises that, while more engaging than Khan Academy, are still merely forestalling the point where the kids actually learn history, by reading books that seriously engage multiple perspectives on what happened. The point then is that it's awfully silly to single out a very basic Khan US history overview, and disingenuous to do so without putting Khan into context; Khan is not supplanting genuinely meaningful middle school history curricula. Equally importantly: nobody currently uses just Khan academy for junior high history lessons. Khan is not part of a plot to eliminate teachers. I don't know where you're going with this Rhee stuff. Rhee may or may not have made education worse in the District, because she ran the school system. But Udacity and Coursera do not run K-12 school systems; they have nothing whatsoever to do with Rhee.

tptacek 14y ago

I'm skeeved out by technolibertarianism too, but I disagree that this is a well-reasoned piece. It's a guilt- by- ideological- association hit piece that at one point has its cake and smears it all over its own face by linking Coursera/Udacity to Michelle Rhee and the scandals of low quality classroom education. It's quick to toss in references to "Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists" or throw Khan Academy under one or more imagined busses, but did you notice that in its attempt at a takedown on an "overview of US history" video at Khan, it didn't even ask the question of how coherently secondary school courseware handled the same subject? I feel like the reviews I've read from subject matter experts on Coursera courses have been positive. I don't feel like individual problem courses on Udacity damn the whole medium. I can understand how people who thoroughly enjoyed their years at college would feel threatened by alternative paths to the same goal, but it's the goal that matters, not the college life experience.

spamizbad 14y ago
> but did you notice that in its attempt at a takedown on an "overview of US history" video at Khan, it didn't even ask the question of how coherently secondary school courseware handled the same subject? My theory: that would probably be an article unto itself. A good friend of mine, who's a 7th grade social studies teacher, shares the author's disdain for Khan's handling of history. He cited disjointed events, without any explaination of how they were connected, stating it was very "this happened, then this happened, then later THIS happened probably because of this which happened between this and this..." -- no coherent historical narrative, and ultimately more difficult to understand. It's easier to remember events when you understand their causes and purpose, rather than just their place on a timeline. After watching Khan's Intro to CS videos, I'm inclined to trust my friend's assessment. As far as Rhee is concerned: The crux of the argument is, ambition non-educators who try to "fix" education have a tendancy to make it worse. Rhee and the VCs fall into the same category. It's also worth noting Education reform movement has started to turn its sights on higher education as well- We got a taste of that from Bill Gates, which his thoughts on college rankings (Which probably need to be fixed, but not in the way Gates, and reformers, are proposing).
- scotty79 14y ago
  History is just facts. Narratives are usually made up by someone investigating those facts. Narratives differ between historians depending on their sympathies. I think innovative education should stay away from history. Most of it is history of politics. Only some percentage of it is actual knowledge and none of it is of any use to almost anyone.
  - MrMan 14y ago
    You should elaborate on this idea. If we can understand better why the study of history is largely useless, then we might be able to use that knowledge to reason about why other subjects held dear by traditional academics are also harmful. I think literature is even worse than history. What they are studying are not even facts! Just make believe stories. There is no ROI on make believe nonsense, right?
    - scotty79 14y ago
      I'm not saying that history is harmful, only that it's mostly useless. I have nothing against literature. I like fiction and discussing fiction. I think people educated in literature might contribute to culture by inventing interesting stories themselves by reusing and remixing concepts found in respected literature. I don't really like the prominence given to history of politics as it's currently taught because for me it's just uninteresting fiction that only strong point is that something similar perhaps sort of happened.
- tptacek 14y ago
  I have a son in 8th grade and a daughter in 6th in a pretty good school system and I do not assume the social studies curricula is doing a better job at this material than Khan is. The kids in these classes are getting series of disjointed factual units punctuated by enrichment exercises that, while more engaging than Khan Academy, are still merely forestalling the point where the kids actually learn history, by reading books that seriously engage multiple perspectives on what happened. The point then is that it's awfully silly to single out a very basic Khan US history overview, and disingenuous to do so without putting Khan into context; Khan is not supplanting genuinely meaningful middle school history curricula. Equally importantly: nobody currently uses just Khan academy for junior high history lessons. Khan is not part of a plot to eliminate teachers. I don't know where you're going with this Rhee stuff. Rhee may or may not have made education worse in the District, because she ran the school system. But Udacity and Coursera do not run K-12 school systems; they have nothing whatsoever to do with Rhee.