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On the contrary, I'd say the ability to become educated is more accessible than ever before. Consider the example of foreign language immersion. I picked up co

On the contrary, I'd say the ability to become educated is more accessible than ever before. Consider the example of foreign language immersion. I picked up conversational Portuguese this year from Duolingo (a free app, admittedly requiring a 249rs/month data connection). Duolingo just released English for Hindi a few months ago which will do more to make English language education accessible than even the Catholic Church did [1]. Or consider coding - again, free from codeacademy.com or learnXthehardway. Same for math from Khan Academy and Wikipedia. Lets distinguish access to education from access to certification. Access to education has never been more available than it is now. [1] For those unfamiliar, many (non-Christian) Indian parents pay way too much money to send their kids to Catholic school for English language education. Secular English education is ridiculously expensive.

Brakenshire 12y ago
It's not just certification, it's also the human/social part of education. There's an enormous jump between having the material available, and actually putting in the years of investment necessary to make yourself employable in that area.
1337biz 12y ago
I am still not sure about this whole subject. You are absolutely right - with internet access education is basically free and ubiquitous. But the more important thing is in my opinion some kind of "drive" or "stickiness". We all know about the ridiculous high drop out rate from most MOOC courses. I think it might be that it is far less about education what makes kids succeed, but parents who are able to show their kids - may it be by example, by preaching, by pushing them - that they have to stick with things, even when it is "not fun", in order to succeed. But this can compensate this with money - it allows you to push a kid in some kind of system (boarding school, etc) where it is more painful (social pressure, etc) to not stick with something (school) than otherwise.
- visakanv 12y ago
  I've thought about this a LOT, as a person who hated school growing up and makes a living with skills I picked up almost entirely online. I think the current system of traditional schools and online courses is a sort of awkward/silly transition state. Online education (as far as I've seen) is trying too hard to become some sort of 'school-but-in-the-cloud'. It would be like selling MP3s through record-stores-in-the-cloud in album form, ignoring things like YouTube and Spotify. Online education shouldn't (in my opinion) be about MOOC courses. It should be about literally figuring out what you want to do, finding people who can help you, building actual relationships with real people doing real work, and then literally getting involved and literally doing stuff. More like massively-distributed-apprenticeships. It's already happening, and I'm a proud early case study.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  I'm only responding to the idea that the potential to be educated is not well distributed. It's the ability and willingness to exploit that potential which is not evenly distributed.
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  We've replaced a landed aristocracy with a financial aristocracy. Modern aristocrats farm money, in the form of rents paid for access to money. Land ownership is a useful byproduct. It's still a feudal system. In the same way medieval peasants were tied to their lord's demesne, the modern peasant class is chained inside the local capital flow network and dependent on its favours for survival. Education will only get someone so far towards becoming a financial farmer. The irony is that money is a fiction anyway, and socially it's just a proxy for executive power. So when the aristocratic class decided to 'fund' a project they're simply giving it an aristocratic nod - which they only do if they believe there's an acceptable chance they can benefit from it personally. No actual stuff flows from one person to another. There's just a temporary infusion of transferred political power and status.
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    >the modern peasant class is chained inside the local capital flow network and dependent on its favours for survival. This comment being posted on HN is quite ironic. Unless you are philosophically opposed to the Internet there have never been more options for capital access or less reliance on local "aristocracy". The contortions needed to make these kind of arguments should give some indication of their veracity.
    - tormeh 12y ago
      That the aristocracy is not geographically local makes it less socially humiliating to ask them for help, but the arrangement is still financially problematic. That the aristocracy has become more abstract does not mean it has ceased to exist.
      - happyscrappy 12y ago
        If the aristocracy has become so abstract that it includes Kickstarter then the word has lost all meaning.
        tormeh 12y ago
- sopooneo 12y ago
  As a former teacher, I agree with you completely here. Through high school, the good teachers are as much motivators as they are instructors. That never seems to get mentioned in discussions on "the future of education".
  - germinalphrase 12y ago
    This is why I firmly believe that while the future of education will be digitally mediated, the profession of teaching will grow towards "very high-touch instructor" rather than "supplemental tutor". The digital tools will allow for significantly richer personalization - both with respect to the content being learned, as well as the facilitation of that learning via a skilled instructor. And, while we have the beginnings of these (digital/conceptual/pedagogical)tools, we don't a public conception yet of what this will actually look like.

Brakenshire 12y ago

It's not just certification, it's also the human/social part of education. There's an enormous jump between having the material available, and actually putting in the years of investment necessary to make yourself employable in that area.

1337biz 12y ago

I am still not sure about this whole subject. You are absolutely right - with internet access education is basically free and ubiquitous. But the more important thing is in my opinion some kind of "drive" or "stickiness". We all know about the ridiculous high drop out rate from most MOOC courses. I think it might be that it is far less about education what makes kids succeed, but parents who are able to show their kids - may it be by example, by preaching, by pushing them - that they have to stick with things, even when it is "not fun", in order to succeed. But this can compensate this with money - it allows you to push a kid in some kind of system (boarding school, etc) where it is more painful (social pressure, etc) to not stick with something (school) than otherwise.

visakanv 12y ago
I've thought about this a LOT, as a person who hated school growing up and makes a living with skills I picked up almost entirely online. I think the current system of traditional schools and online courses is a sort of awkward/silly transition state. Online education (as far as I've seen) is trying too hard to become some sort of 'school-but-in-the-cloud'. It would be like selling MP3s through record-stores-in-the-cloud in album form, ignoring things like YouTube and Spotify. Online education shouldn't (in my opinion) be about MOOC courses. It should be about literally figuring out what you want to do, finding people who can help you, building actual relationships with real people doing real work, and then literally getting involved and literally doing stuff. More like massively-distributed-apprenticeships. It's already happening, and I'm a proud early case study.
yummyfajitas 12y ago
I'm only responding to the idea that the potential to be educated is not well distributed. It's the ability and willingness to exploit that potential which is not evenly distributed.
TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
We've replaced a landed aristocracy with a financial aristocracy. Modern aristocrats farm money, in the form of rents paid for access to money. Land ownership is a useful byproduct. It's still a feudal system. In the same way medieval peasants were tied to their lord's demesne, the modern peasant class is chained inside the local capital flow network and dependent on its favours for survival. Education will only get someone so far towards becoming a financial farmer. The irony is that money is a fiction anyway, and socially it's just a proxy for executive power. So when the aristocratic class decided to 'fund' a project they're simply giving it an aristocratic nod - which they only do if they believe there's an acceptable chance they can benefit from it personally. No actual stuff flows from one person to another. There's just a temporary infusion of transferred political power and status.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  >the modern peasant class is chained inside the local capital flow network and dependent on its favours for survival. This comment being posted on HN is quite ironic. Unless you are philosophically opposed to the Internet there have never been more options for capital access or less reliance on local "aristocracy". The contortions needed to make these kind of arguments should give some indication of their veracity.
  - tormeh 12y ago
    That the aristocracy is not geographically local makes it less socially humiliating to ask them for help, but the arrangement is still financially problematic. That the aristocracy has become more abstract does not mean it has ceased to exist.
    - happyscrappy 12y ago
      If the aristocracy has become so abstract that it includes Kickstarter then the word has lost all meaning.
      - tormeh 12y ago
sopooneo 12y ago
As a former teacher, I agree with you completely here. Through high school, the good teachers are as much motivators as they are instructors. That never seems to get mentioned in discussions on "the future of education".
- germinalphrase 12y ago
  This is why I firmly believe that while the future of education will be digitally mediated, the profession of teaching will grow towards "very high-touch instructor" rather than "supplemental tutor". The digital tools will allow for significantly richer personalization - both with respect to the content being learned, as well as the facilitation of that learning via a skilled instructor. And, while we have the beginnings of these (digital/conceptual/pedagogical)tools, we don't a public conception yet of what this will actually look like.