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School is an obedience/memorization test, the exact opposite of the real-world applied thinking skills that are needed. Private schooling is bad; public school

School is an obedience/memorization test, the exact opposite of the real-world applied thinking skills that are needed. Private schooling is bad; public schooling is even worse. That's where ideology substitutes for academics as well. Memorizing 20 ways to do something, and then finding a way to cram in each one on a test in an "applied" situation, leads to indiscriminate use of technique and poor debugging skills.

purringmeow 13y ago
I am interested in what kind of alternative are you offering? How do you give basic knowledge to the majority of people?
- visakanv 13y ago
  I anticipate that a lot of it will come through other means. Check out http://www.youtube.com/crashcourse http://www.youtube.com/crashcourse, it's doing a fantastic job of making knowledge fun, interesting, engaging and cool.
- adamnemecek 13y ago
  Because you can criticize things only if you have a better alternative.
  - drdeca 13y ago
    No, but I would think that it is often useful to indicate when one does not know of a better option than the one one is criticizing. Because "this is a bad choice" has a connotation that that is not the one that should be made, but that a different known one should be made instead, I think. Of course, the indication can be implicit, or from context, etc. And there might be exceptions, But I think this generally holds?
    - purringmeow 13y ago
      Exactly. And I really want to hear his/her opinion, because it interests me. My goal isn't to attack in a passive-aggressive manner.
- TheZenPsycho 13y ago
  Well, first you need a sorting hat. Then you have different houses that cater to particular styles of learning. If all goes well, one of the students will figure out how to vanquish evil.
- ahomescu1 13y ago
  Here's what I always thought it would work best: free education up to 4th grade (reading, writing, arithmetics, AKA the basics), then free libraries everywhere. It's sad that we already have a lot of public libraries, but few people visit them voluntarily.
Jtsummers 13y ago
> Private schooling is bad; public schooling is even worse. That's where ideology substitutes for academics as well. Not picking on you, but this comes up a lot about public education as a tool for brainwashing. Often the implication is it's by those "liberal teachers". I must say, based on the voting record in the US, those teachers are incredibly ineffective brainwashers.
- gscott 13y ago
  My kids come home brainwashed from school all of the time. I have to sit them down and have them think about what is being taught to them so they can look at it objectively and make their own decisions.
  - Angostura 13y ago
    Some examples would be useful.
    - gscott 13y ago
      Anything that is not history, math, science, biology, etc. In the 6-7-8th grade (at least here in California) there are a number of assigned books and lessons that teach (as best as I can describe it) "empathy". Which is great... but some of the books had a very strong viewpoint one way or the other that was persuasive but not always well rounded. Personally when I was that age the "empathy" lessons were way better in middle school. They lasted a semester or two, we watched a movie called "The Lottery" where a village picked from a lottery to stone one person (I can't remember why, a good harvest I am not sure) but a mother was chosen and it was so ingrained in the children to stone the person her own children looked forward to the stoning and the mother tried to get the children to think "hey this is my own mother". Another lesson was the poem about when you let bad things happen to others, when bad things happen to you there will be no one left to speak up on your behalf (can't remember the title), and the third one was on cultural understanding if someone hundreds of years from now examines your house and get what is inside of it "wrong" (like assuming the toilet is a communication device you yell into, or toothbrushes (with hooks) were ear-rings) not to think badly of those people (and as such you may make the same mistakes when look at the lives of people you're not familiar with).
dinkumthinkum 13y ago
I think you are trying to make some kind of point about education or something ... I mean it's cute but teaching kids about arithmetic, or memorization as you call it, is a very different thing than what is being discussed here, namely the state of academic research and university expectations, etc. I actually am not sure what's here ... I think it is sort of like the typical anti-academia stuff but seems to be more like anti-education ... I dunno ... What's better, watching a bunch of blogs on YouTube about how to build another blog in Node.js? Who knows.

purringmeow 13y ago

I am interested in what kind of alternative are you offering? How do you give basic knowledge to the majority of people?

visakanv 13y ago
I anticipate that a lot of it will come through other means. Check out http://www.youtube.com/crashcourse http://www.youtube.com/crashcourse, it's doing a fantastic job of making knowledge fun, interesting, engaging and cool.
adamnemecek 13y ago
Because you can criticize things only if you have a better alternative.
- drdeca 13y ago
  No, but I would think that it is often useful to indicate when one does not know of a better option than the one one is criticizing. Because "this is a bad choice" has a connotation that that is not the one that should be made, but that a different known one should be made instead, I think. Of course, the indication can be implicit, or from context, etc. And there might be exceptions, But I think this generally holds?
  - purringmeow 13y ago
    Exactly. And I really want to hear his/her opinion, because it interests me. My goal isn't to attack in a passive-aggressive manner.
TheZenPsycho 13y ago
Well, first you need a sorting hat. Then you have different houses that cater to particular styles of learning. If all goes well, one of the students will figure out how to vanquish evil.
ahomescu1 13y ago
Here's what I always thought it would work best: free education up to 4th grade (reading, writing, arithmetics, AKA the basics), then free libraries everywhere. It's sad that we already have a lot of public libraries, but few people visit them voluntarily.

Jtsummers 13y ago

> Private schooling is bad; public schooling is even worse. That's where ideology substitutes for academics as well. Not picking on you, but this comes up a lot about public education as a tool for brainwashing. Often the implication is it's by those "liberal teachers". I must say, based on the voting record in the US, those teachers are incredibly ineffective brainwashers.

gscott 13y ago
My kids come home brainwashed from school all of the time. I have to sit them down and have them think about what is being taught to them so they can look at it objectively and make their own decisions.
- Angostura 13y ago
  Some examples would be useful.
  - gscott 13y ago
    Anything that is not history, math, science, biology, etc. In the 6-7-8th grade (at least here in California) there are a number of assigned books and lessons that teach (as best as I can describe it) "empathy". Which is great... but some of the books had a very strong viewpoint one way or the other that was persuasive but not always well rounded. Personally when I was that age the "empathy" lessons were way better in middle school. They lasted a semester or two, we watched a movie called "The Lottery" where a village picked from a lottery to stone one person (I can't remember why, a good harvest I am not sure) but a mother was chosen and it was so ingrained in the children to stone the person her own children looked forward to the stoning and the mother tried to get the children to think "hey this is my own mother". Another lesson was the poem about when you let bad things happen to others, when bad things happen to you there will be no one left to speak up on your behalf (can't remember the title), and the third one was on cultural understanding if someone hundreds of years from now examines your house and get what is inside of it "wrong" (like assuming the toilet is a communication device you yell into, or toothbrushes (with hooks) were ear-rings) not to think badly of those people (and as such you may make the same mistakes when look at the lives of people you're not familiar with).

dinkumthinkum 13y ago

I think you are trying to make some kind of point about education or something ... I mean it's cute but teaching kids about arithmetic, or memorization as you call it, is a very different thing than what is being discussed here, namely the state of academic research and university expectations, etc. I actually am not sure what's here ... I think it is sort of like the typical anti-academia stuff but seems to be more like anti-education ... I dunno ... What's better, watching a bunch of blogs on YouTube about how to build another blog in Node.js? Who knows.