24 ms·

I don't understand how, on a site called "Hacker News," so many people seem oblivious to how damaging the primary educational system is to young peoples' minds

I don't understand how, on a site called "Hacker News," so many people seem oblivious to how damaging the primary educational system is to young peoples' minds and methods of thought. Unschooling doesn't mean not teaching children: that's what happens in schools.

samirmenon 12y ago
Is the elementary educational system truly "damaging" to young minds? I think of my elementary education (which, mind you, was only 6 years ago) as perhaps boring or tedious in some areas (like math, for me), while also exciting and rewarding in others (science, learning to make friends, deal with gossip, etc). I certainly don't think I have a very 'damaged' method of thought now because of my elementary education. I think that, on the whole, it was not at all damaging; in fact, it was important to my development as a child.
- indlebe 12y ago
  Private school, well off neighbourhood?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - samirmenon 12y ago
    Public school, but fairly wealthy. What's your point?
    - learc83 12y ago
      Since schools are primarily funded locally, your experience is likely vastly different from someone who went to school in a less affluent area.
- kevinmchugh 12y ago
  I'd guess that HN users are typically people who performed well academically. I certainly did. Think about the kids in class who couldn't sit still, couldn't stop talking. Oftentimes they ended up with an ADD or ADHD diagnosis and a prescription. Being told that you act abnormally and need medicine to stop you from being you is understandably damaging.
  - bayesianhorse 12y ago
    Except if you consider that ADHD is a consistent syndrome with extremely predictable negative consequences. I believe this attitude about ADHD being some kind of "conformity issue" is almost as dangerous as "vaccines cause autism". It certainly is about as wrong...
    - walterbell 12y ago
      Do you know how the DSM ("diagnostic manual") is edited, http://www.dsm4tr.com http://www.dsm4tr.com ?
      - bayesianhorse 12y ago
        I know about the problems around the DSM. That doesn't make ADHD less of a "thing" though. Turns out that a questionnaire can diagnose ADHD. This diagnosis predicts anatomical, physiological and psychological differences, and on top of that certain negative consequences and suffering on the part of the patient. Treatment reduces that suffering. What more do you need?
        walterbell 12y ago
        Questionnaires are cheap but less reliable than brain (PET, fMRI) scanning or quantitative attentional testing. What is the impact of a false positive diagnosis on a still-developing young brain? Adults are a different story - they can make their own decisions.
        12y ago
- OmarIsmail 12y ago
  Not sure how accurate your profile is, but if you're still 16 and thus in high-school you may not appreciate just how different the real world is. And that exactly is why it is so damaging. In school there are a small number of people that are given authority over a huge swath of your life completely arbitrarily. This affects how you act and spend your time. This is completely opposite to how things work in the real world. Another issue is that you're surrounded primarily with people of the same age. That is children/teenagers that similarly have little to no external life experience. In the real world you are surrounded by people of many demographics (age, ethnicity, background, etc). Physical violence in white-collar workplaces (which is what I imagine most readers here would be working at) is near non-existent vs being at school where it's a very real threat for many people. The concept of responsibility and bills. This is not directly about school, but often a result of school. Because you're in school you don't really have any bills of your own. You're placed in an artificial construct where your parents take care of most of your major bills (housing, food) and you are not forced to make your own income - and in fact many people are discouraged from finding employment during their school years because it may "impact their studies". So the essential life skills of managing a budget, balancing income and bills, etc don't get learned at all. You don't see yourself as "damaged" because you don't understand or imagine what is possible outside of the school environment. While you can communicate with your peers, how well can you communicate to managers in a company? Can you sell a service or product to someone? Can you ask the right questions to find out what someone's true pain point is and not get distracted by their proposed solution? If you left school right now (or 5 years ago) and had to make it on your own, you'd obviously be a very very different person today. Is that person better than you are now? Obviously that's impossible to say. But if that person is/would be better, then you can argue that your current self is damaged relatively speaking.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    > But if that person is/would be better, then you can argue that your current self is damaged relatively speaking. That's a weird interpretation of personal development.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- DanBC 12y ago
  The fact that you use anecdote to support a position might be evidence that your schooling did damage you. Your position would be more convincing if it had taught you about bias and about using reputable sources to support your argument. :-)
- baddox 12y ago
  > Is the elementary educational system truly "damaging" to young minds? I think so, and not just because some schools fail to provide a decent core education on the primary subjects. Obviously, many public schools do provide a reasonable core education (I got a pretty decent one, although Wikipedia sure helped). I'm more worried about the culture of schools and how kids are taught to think about creativity, authority, society, etc.
- glenra 12y ago
  Have you read The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher? I recommend it to you and would be curious what you think of it. Here's a Cliffs Notes abbreviated version, just listing what the seven lessons are: http://www.athenstalks.com/node/179729 http://www.athenstalks.com/node/179729 And here's the whole essay (which is still pretty short): http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt Of the "seven lessons", I think the lesson of the bells was the one I found most damaging. When I get interested in a subject, I would want to study that subject deeply, intensely, to the exclusion of everything else. Having to learn a subject like math divided into TINY LITTLE CHUNKS, mere drips and drabs spread out over an entire YEAR, takes something that could have interesting and makes it infuriating. Being expected to turn your interest on and off like a light switch when bells ring at arbitrary intervals...just didn't work for me. I'm sure it depends on the student. Kids are resilient; I think most manage to learn a fair bit despite their schooling and some learn a bit due to it. For myself, I'm pretty sure school damaged my intrinsic motivation and wasted my time; I feel like I learned much more despite school than due to it.
rodgerd 12y ago
> I don't understand how, on a site called "Hacker News," so many people seem oblivious to how damaging the primary educational system is to young peoples' minds and methods of thought. I don't understand how, on a site called "Hacker News," so many people seem happy to upvote mindless, sweeping, and ignorant statements about a specialist topic from people obviously largely ignorant on said topic.
- barry-cotter 12y ago
  Nearly everyone reading went to school. We know it sucked for us, why should we not believe it sucks now? I know far, far more about primary and secondary school than I do about almost any other industry, I spent thousands of hours in it
  - rodgerd 12y ago
    > Nearly everyone reading went to school. We know it sucked for us, why should we not believe it sucks now? Vaccination clearly causes autism, because people who had their kids vaccinated have autistic children! Or if you'd like a more industry-relevant example, "Boy, I spend a lot of hours playing computer games. I have some great ideas how to make a great game. I just need a programmer to do the easy bit."
    - barry-cotter 12y ago
      >> Nearly everyone reading went to school. We know it sucked for us, why should we not believe it sucks now? >Vaccination clearly causes autism, because people who had their kids vaccinated have autistic children! I find it difficult to engage with your sarcasm because the stupidity of the statement you are paraphrasing from idiots hurts my brain. If you would like a criticism of school written by an industry expert may I recommend John Taylor Gatto. He was named New York City Teacher of the Year in 1989, 1990, and 1991, and New York State Teacher of the Year in 1991. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto http://the7lessonteacher.com/ http://the7lessonteacher.com/ http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
Jormundir 12y ago
These types of handwaving "this is broken", "that is broken" statements are really starting to bug me. I'd expect better from a site called "hacker news". As someone who hated school growing up, I don't think the system is broken or "damaging". Our education system is an old structure, evolved mostly in a time without computers, large scale data analysis or widespread real time communication. The deficiencies of the system (especially the more recent industrialization of education) are popping up as if they were obvious all along. You underestimate the scale of the education system, and how much effort it takes to change and evolve over time in a way that is reasonably fair (filling air with whiny noise doesn't count). There are countless initiatives underway to find ways to improve the education system. There are people working really hard to change the giant machine that is our education system. There are plenty of problems that have been brought to light (administrative bloat, memorization over critical thinking, authority over freedom), we know. Can we as a community start putting votes to people who are acting, rather than people who dramatically whine with ideas that really aren't practical? Exchanging ideas is awesome, I just get tired of the whiny peanut gallery with inexperienced dogma.

samirmenon 12y ago

Is the elementary educational system truly "damaging" to young minds? I think of my elementary education (which, mind you, was only 6 years ago) as perhaps boring or tedious in some areas (like math, for me), while also exciting and rewarding in others (science, learning to make friends, deal with gossip, etc). I certainly don't think I have a very 'damaged' method of thought now because of my elementary education. I think that, on the whole, it was not at all damaging; in fact, it was important to my development as a child.

indlebe 12y ago
Private school, well off neighbourhood?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- samirmenon 12y ago
  Public school, but fairly wealthy. What's your point?
  - learc83 12y ago
    Since schools are primarily funded locally, your experience is likely vastly different from someone who went to school in a less affluent area.
kevinmchugh 12y ago
I'd guess that HN users are typically people who performed well academically. I certainly did. Think about the kids in class who couldn't sit still, couldn't stop talking. Oftentimes they ended up with an ADD or ADHD diagnosis and a prescription. Being told that you act abnormally and need medicine to stop you from being you is understandably damaging.
- bayesianhorse 12y ago
  Except if you consider that ADHD is a consistent syndrome with extremely predictable negative consequences. I believe this attitude about ADHD being some kind of "conformity issue" is almost as dangerous as "vaccines cause autism". It certainly is about as wrong...
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Do you know how the DSM ("diagnostic manual") is edited, http://www.dsm4tr.com http://www.dsm4tr.com ?
    - bayesianhorse 12y ago
      I know about the problems around the DSM. That doesn't make ADHD less of a "thing" though. Turns out that a questionnaire can diagnose ADHD. This diagnosis predicts anatomical, physiological and psychological differences, and on top of that certain negative consequences and suffering on the part of the patient. Treatment reduces that suffering. What more do you need?
      - walterbell 12y ago
        Questionnaires are cheap but less reliable than brain (PET, fMRI) scanning or quantitative attentional testing. What is the impact of a false positive diagnosis on a still-developing young brain? Adults are a different story - they can make their own decisions.
        12y ago
OmarIsmail 12y ago
Not sure how accurate your profile is, but if you're still 16 and thus in high-school you may not appreciate just how different the real world is. And that exactly is why it is so damaging. In school there are a small number of people that are given authority over a huge swath of your life completely arbitrarily. This affects how you act and spend your time. This is completely opposite to how things work in the real world. Another issue is that you're surrounded primarily with people of the same age. That is children/teenagers that similarly have little to no external life experience. In the real world you are surrounded by people of many demographics (age, ethnicity, background, etc). Physical violence in white-collar workplaces (which is what I imagine most readers here would be working at) is near non-existent vs being at school where it's a very real threat for many people. The concept of responsibility and bills. This is not directly about school, but often a result of school. Because you're in school you don't really have any bills of your own. You're placed in an artificial construct where your parents take care of most of your major bills (housing, food) and you are not forced to make your own income - and in fact many people are discouraged from finding employment during their school years because it may "impact their studies". So the essential life skills of managing a budget, balancing income and bills, etc don't get learned at all. You don't see yourself as "damaged" because you don't understand or imagine what is possible outside of the school environment. While you can communicate with your peers, how well can you communicate to managers in a company? Can you sell a service or product to someone? Can you ask the right questions to find out what someone's true pain point is and not get distracted by their proposed solution? If you left school right now (or 5 years ago) and had to make it on your own, you'd obviously be a very very different person today. Is that person better than you are now? Obviously that's impossible to say. But if that person is/would be better, then you can argue that your current self is damaged relatively speaking.
- DanBC 12y ago
  > But if that person is/would be better, then you can argue that your current self is damaged relatively speaking. That's a weird interpretation of personal development.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
DanBC 12y ago
The fact that you use anecdote to support a position might be evidence that your schooling did damage you. Your position would be more convincing if it had taught you about bias and about using reputable sources to support your argument. :-)
baddox 12y ago
> Is the elementary educational system truly "damaging" to young minds? I think so, and not just because some schools fail to provide a decent core education on the primary subjects. Obviously, many public schools do provide a reasonable core education (I got a pretty decent one, although Wikipedia sure helped). I'm more worried about the culture of schools and how kids are taught to think about creativity, authority, society, etc.
glenra 12y ago
Have you read The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher? I recommend it to you and would be curious what you think of it. Here's a Cliffs Notes abbreviated version, just listing what the seven lessons are: http://www.athenstalks.com/node/179729 http://www.athenstalks.com/node/179729 And here's the whole essay (which is still pretty short): http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt Of the "seven lessons", I think the lesson of the bells was the one I found most damaging. When I get interested in a subject, I would want to study that subject deeply, intensely, to the exclusion of everything else. Having to learn a subject like math divided into TINY LITTLE CHUNKS, mere drips and drabs spread out over an entire YEAR, takes something that could have interesting and makes it infuriating. Being expected to turn your interest on and off like a light switch when bells ring at arbitrary intervals...just didn't work for me. I'm sure it depends on the student. Kids are resilient; I think most manage to learn a fair bit despite their schooling and some learn a bit due to it. For myself, I'm pretty sure school damaged my intrinsic motivation and wasted my time; I feel like I learned much more despite school than due to it.

rodgerd 12y ago

> I don't understand how, on a site called "Hacker News," so many people seem oblivious to how damaging the primary educational system is to young peoples' minds and methods of thought. I don't understand how, on a site called "Hacker News," so many people seem happy to upvote mindless, sweeping, and ignorant statements about a specialist topic from people obviously largely ignorant on said topic.

barry-cotter 12y ago
Nearly everyone reading went to school. We know it sucked for us, why should we not believe it sucks now? I know far, far more about primary and secondary school than I do about almost any other industry, I spent thousands of hours in it
- rodgerd 12y ago
  > Nearly everyone reading went to school. We know it sucked for us, why should we not believe it sucks now? Vaccination clearly causes autism, because people who had their kids vaccinated have autistic children! Or if you'd like a more industry-relevant example, "Boy, I spend a lot of hours playing computer games. I have some great ideas how to make a great game. I just need a programmer to do the easy bit."
  - barry-cotter 12y ago
    >> Nearly everyone reading went to school. We know it sucked for us, why should we not believe it sucks now? >Vaccination clearly causes autism, because people who had their kids vaccinated have autistic children! I find it difficult to engage with your sarcasm because the stupidity of the statement you are paraphrasing from idiots hurts my brain. If you would like a criticism of school written by an industry expert may I recommend John Taylor Gatto. He was named New York City Teacher of the Year in 1989, 1990, and 1991, and New York State Teacher of the Year in 1991. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto http://the7lessonteacher.com/ http://the7lessonteacher.com/ http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt

Jormundir 12y ago

These types of handwaving "this is broken", "that is broken" statements are really starting to bug me. I'd expect better from a site called "hacker news". As someone who hated school growing up, I don't think the system is broken or "damaging". Our education system is an old structure, evolved mostly in a time without computers, large scale data analysis or widespread real time communication. The deficiencies of the system (especially the more recent industrialization of education) are popping up as if they were obvious all along. You underestimate the scale of the education system, and how much effort it takes to change and evolve over time in a way that is reasonably fair (filling air with whiny noise doesn't count). There are countless initiatives underway to find ways to improve the education system. There are people working really hard to change the giant machine that is our education system. There are plenty of problems that have been brought to light (administrative bloat, memorization over critical thinking, authority over freedom), we know. Can we as a community start putting votes to people who are acting, rather than people who dramatically whine with ideas that really aren't practical? Exchanging ideas is awesome, I just get tired of the whiny peanut gallery with inexperienced dogma.