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Nothing about being a creator rather than a pure consumer? Too many are caught up in the cycle of chasing grades and completely forget what the point of an educ

Nothing about being a creator rather than a pure consumer? Too many are caught up in the cycle of chasing grades and completely forget what the point of an education is supposed to be.

beat 12y ago
What is the point of education? Not the point of learning, but the point of schools and degrees and such? One could argue that it's mostly about learning obedience, how to worship the clock, and how to tolerate doing things that are arbitrary and stupid. School isn't to make us good people. It's to make us good employees.
- vezzy-fnord 12y ago
  You're confusing education with schooling. They are not the same, as much as their equivalence has been deeply ingrained as a public axiom. I do agree, otherwise. Schooling has an orthogonal purpose to education at large, even though individual schooling systems might have higher educational value than others.
  - beat 12y ago
    Actually, I was trying to de-confuse them. Formal education and learning are often conflated, which leads to cognitive dissonance when education doesn't equate to effective learning.
- rapala 12y ago
  But all that math, biology and stuff, that has nothing to do about beeing a "good employee". There's a lot of things that the school system genuinely tries to teach. To me it seems that those life skills are an added bonus. Some of them are also requirements to mass teaching. For example, every needs to be at the same place at the same time. That beeing said, mass teaching like we do it might not be the best thing. We have tools to facilitate teaching that for example does not require everyone to be at the same physical location. Those same tools could also be better utilized in work to enable remote work. Which would then mean one less life skill to teach at school.
- vitd 12y ago
  Is it learning obedience and worshipping the clock, or is it patience and self-control? I went to lunch with some coworkers the other day. The restaurant we went to told us there would be about a 5 minute wait because some machine or other was just repaired. One of my coworkers had a little freak-out about how long it was taking and stormed out to go to another restaurant. (And this was a "fast food" restaurant we were already at.) I'm pretty sure he hadn't finished walking to the next restaurant by the time we got our food, but waiting an extra few minutes was too much for him. The rest of us had a minimal amount of patience and it was no big deal. He wasn't a slave to some clock and he didn't have to obey anyone telling him to wait. But he also didn't get what he claimed he wanted (to be served faster).
  - beat 12y ago
    Why can't it be both?
afarrell 12y ago
The article is talking about elementary school kids. It's great to teach them to put together peeler beads, Lego, or IKEA furniture. But there is a bit of a safety constraint, at least as far as many parents are concerned.
- astrodust 12y ago
  What's wrong with encouraging them to be creative? At that age many are already learning artistic skills that need to be encourage, not snuffed out in favour of grade chasing. I have no idea how playing the piano, creative writing, drawing is somehow "unsafe". If there's something that I'm seeing suffer badly it's being able to express yourself. Too many are caught up just saying what others want to hear, conditioned to be the poster-child for college admissions reviewers to fawn over.

Nothing about being a creator rather than a pure consumer? Too many are caught up in the cycle of chasing grades and completely forget what the point of an education is supposed to be.

beat 12y ago

What is the point of education? Not the point of learning, but the point of schools and degrees and such? One could argue that it's mostly about learning obedience, how to worship the clock, and how to tolerate doing things that are arbitrary and stupid. School isn't to make us good people. It's to make us good employees.

vezzy-fnord 12y ago
You're confusing education with schooling. They are not the same, as much as their equivalence has been deeply ingrained as a public axiom. I do agree, otherwise. Schooling has an orthogonal purpose to education at large, even though individual schooling systems might have higher educational value than others.
- beat 12y ago
  Actually, I was trying to de-confuse them. Formal education and learning are often conflated, which leads to cognitive dissonance when education doesn't equate to effective learning.
rapala 12y ago
But all that math, biology and stuff, that has nothing to do about beeing a "good employee". There's a lot of things that the school system genuinely tries to teach. To me it seems that those life skills are an added bonus. Some of them are also requirements to mass teaching. For example, every needs to be at the same place at the same time. That beeing said, mass teaching like we do it might not be the best thing. We have tools to facilitate teaching that for example does not require everyone to be at the same physical location. Those same tools could also be better utilized in work to enable remote work. Which would then mean one less life skill to teach at school.
vitd 12y ago
Is it learning obedience and worshipping the clock, or is it patience and self-control? I went to lunch with some coworkers the other day. The restaurant we went to told us there would be about a 5 minute wait because some machine or other was just repaired. One of my coworkers had a little freak-out about how long it was taking and stormed out to go to another restaurant. (And this was a "fast food" restaurant we were already at.) I'm pretty sure he hadn't finished walking to the next restaurant by the time we got our food, but waiting an extra few minutes was too much for him. The rest of us had a minimal amount of patience and it was no big deal. He wasn't a slave to some clock and he didn't have to obey anyone telling him to wait. But he also didn't get what he claimed he wanted (to be served faster).
- beat 12y ago
  Why can't it be both?

afarrell 12y ago

The article is talking about elementary school kids. It's great to teach them to put together peeler beads, Lego, or IKEA furniture. But there is a bit of a safety constraint, at least as far as many parents are concerned.

astrodust 12y ago
What's wrong with encouraging them to be creative? At that age many are already learning artistic skills that need to be encourage, not snuffed out in favour of grade chasing. I have no idea how playing the piano, creative writing, drawing is somehow "unsafe". If there's something that I'm seeing suffer badly it's being able to express yourself. Too many are caught up just saying what others want to hear, conditioned to be the poster-child for college admissions reviewers to fawn over.