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I was with the author until the following line in the last paragraph: "...it is not a fault only to have energy for what I care about. I don’t know what I woul

by klunger 12y ago

I was with the author until the following line in the last paragraph: "...it is not a fault only to have energy for what I care about. I don’t know what I would have become if my gifts had been acknowledged and nurtured rather than ignored." This argument comes from the same privileged perspective of the "follow your passion" line. He can only make this claim because, as an apparently gifted programmer, he is fortunate to care about skills that are currently valued in the workforce, if not in the confines of many school systems. No one has energy for the things they don't care about. However, people do their jobs regardless of whether they care about it because it is their job. Does the author suppose anyone works as a janitor because they care about cleaning other people's toilets? Of course not. Janitors have bills to pay, mouths to feed etc. Teaching students to learn the importance of doing their job, regardless of whether they care about it, is not an intrinsic flaw of modern education. There should arguably be less emphasis on it, and more done to nurture student's natural talents. However, the notion that students should not be taught at all the importance of good citizenship, following orders and doing their job -- even or especially if they don't care about it -- is unpalatable. To do away with it completely, as implied, is even more disrespectful to students than the situation he describes. It is extremely disrespectful to the people who will spend their working lives doing things that they don't particularly care about, and who go home at the end of the day to the things that give meaning to their lives.

ctchocula 12y ago
I was with the author until this line: "Writing the program increased my understanding of circuits a great deal, but the existence of the program itself afforded me no real advantage. Perhaps this experience is why my preferred way to use software today is as a mathematical and mind-expansion exercise rather than making a tool that can actually be used." It came off as whiny, because it comes off as a stretch to blame the school for his inability to write effective computer programs.
- alexhill 12y ago
  My understanding was that he wrote an effective program and wasn't allowed to use it for homework and tests.
  - roganp 12y ago
    On reading that line, I thought about what I would have done if I had been in the teacher's position. I thought: well, he clearly understands the bits that the assigned homework was to reinforce, why not excuse him from that drudgery? Better yet, give him additional problems to apply his program to that expose issues with circuit simulators, giving him a deeper understanding. But then: that is time I am spending as a teacher that benefits him only, not the rest of the class (my time as a teacher is finite). Is that fair? And: what would happen if other students/parents found out about this arrangement - wouldn't there be complaints? Of course, what he's getting at is that the educational process should be designed to avoid conflicts like these...
    - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
      That's a function of available resources. With more resources for teaching it would be perfectly possible for schools to look for individual talent and work to develop it. Supposedly the better private - public in the UK - schools try to do this already. With fees as they are, they certainly have the resources for it. I know someone who went through public school and was in a music class of exactly two pupils. The school also worked hard to provide relevant professional contacts. So with someone talented, a teacher wouldn't be thinking about limited time, but about whether there were any local startups/companies who might want an intern. It's not disrespect by the teachers, so much as disrespect by a political system that tries to limit these kinds of opportunity to a tiny fraction of the population.
kirsebaer 12y ago
Children should do boring, pointless assignments to teach them "the importance of following orders and doing their job -- even or especially if they don't care about it"? This doesn't make sense to me. It's dehumanizing to expect people to behave like robots, parts of the machine. Even if doing a routine, manual job, people should be able to see some point to what they are doing. If it really is pointless (like lots of jobs), they should feel encouraged to speak up. In the janitor example, cleaning is an important job that people appreciate, the janitor making an important contribution to whatever is going on in the building (hospital, office, etc). But if the janitor is asked to do pointless busywork they should complain.
- gargarplex 12y ago
  "It's dehumanizing to expect people to behave like robots, parts of the machine." I disagree; I think that being expected to behave like a part of a machine is an essential, defining aspect of the human experience.
  - forthefuture 12y ago
    The only problem is that the machine was built 300 years ago and almost no one would agree it works the way it's supposed to. The essential, defining aspect of human experience that you mention was invented by people who had the equivalence of, at best, a modern highschool education. I'd take my chances with contrarianism before I trust dumb old ghosts with my humanity.
  - guard-of-terra 12y ago
    "is an essential, defining aspect" More likely, "was an essential, defining aspect briefly in the XX century". That century is now over. Before that, you was expected to steer your own judgement while working on a farm (not very machiney experience), and after that, everything that can be replaced by a machine would.
    - kd0amg 12y ago
      Wouldn't pre-industrial farming still involve mostly mindless, repetitive work in the fields?
jostylr 12y ago
When you come from a place of ownership of your own life, you can accept doing whatever needs to be done. I am a janitor with a math phd that gets to have water gun fights with kids; I work at a Sudbury school. I am much happier cleaning toilets than being in some BS academic department committee or grading kids and telling them they suck. Or even worse, teaching engineering students beautiful mathematical secrets, holding them to high standards, seeing them get there, and then hearing from them that the time spent on my course was hurting them in other courses. True story. Being supportive of life is itself a fantastic reward. Being treated with respect is what matters, not the actual work. Cleaning toilets is really not a big deal. Being treated like a piece of crap is. Also good citizenship is not about following orders due to fear of retribution. It is looking at the world with care and compassion for others and doing what needs to be done, speaking up and supporting one another. It is about seeing the beauty in others and appreciating that. At a Sudbury school, the halls flow with such feelings as it is the natural way that communities of human beings bind together. That is citizenship. And not surprisingly, when a person wants to be a part of a community, then they can follow community rules and standards quite easily. It is in our nature. Traditional schools teach gaming the system, being brutal to other people. Being excluded because of not meeting some arbitrary pointless standard is just a crappy way of living. Humans learn from what those around them do. Are the behaviors of teachers in traditional school the way humans should treat one another?
- japhyr 12y ago
  Can you describe how graduation works at a Sudbury school? Does everyone have to meet the same requirements as in most school systems, or are graduation requirements tied to each student's stated goals?
  - jostylr 12y ago
    Students need not graduate from a Sudbury school. They can simply age out of it. In general, it is not an accredited diploma and so it is only if a student wishes to do so. But the process if a student choose to do it is to answer the question "How has your time here prepared you for the adult world?" It is a very open-ended question and students write a thesis on it, often submitting a portfolio of what they have done. There is an internal committee that serves the role of advisor, if requested. The committee for the defense of thesis consists of staff from other Sudbury schools who generally hold students to high standards. It is possible to not successfully defend though one can take another chance the following year if so desired. We are a young school (7 years) and have only had two graduates so far. One submitted a portfolio of pictures along with their thesis (pursuing visual arts in college) and the other presented a cookbook (currently a chef at a well-regarded local bakery). The defenses lasted two or three hours. Experiences at other schools vary, but it seems that it is quite a common experience for 18 year old Sudbury students to pursue the graduation.

by klunger 12y ago

ctchocula 12y ago

I was with the author until this line: "Writing the program increased my understanding of circuits a great deal, but the existence of the program itself afforded me no real advantage. Perhaps this experience is why my preferred way to use software today is as a mathematical and mind-expansion exercise rather than making a tool that can actually be used." It came off as whiny, because it comes off as a stretch to blame the school for his inability to write effective computer programs.

alexhill 12y ago
My understanding was that he wrote an effective program and wasn't allowed to use it for homework and tests.
- roganp 12y ago
  On reading that line, I thought about what I would have done if I had been in the teacher's position. I thought: well, he clearly understands the bits that the assigned homework was to reinforce, why not excuse him from that drudgery? Better yet, give him additional problems to apply his program to that expose issues with circuit simulators, giving him a deeper understanding. But then: that is time I am spending as a teacher that benefits him only, not the rest of the class (my time as a teacher is finite). Is that fair? And: what would happen if other students/parents found out about this arrangement - wouldn't there be complaints? Of course, what he's getting at is that the educational process should be designed to avoid conflicts like these...
  - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
    That's a function of available resources. With more resources for teaching it would be perfectly possible for schools to look for individual talent and work to develop it. Supposedly the better private - public in the UK - schools try to do this already. With fees as they are, they certainly have the resources for it. I know someone who went through public school and was in a music class of exactly two pupils. The school also worked hard to provide relevant professional contacts. So with someone talented, a teacher wouldn't be thinking about limited time, but about whether there were any local startups/companies who might want an intern. It's not disrespect by the teachers, so much as disrespect by a political system that tries to limit these kinds of opportunity to a tiny fraction of the population.

kirsebaer 12y ago

Children should do boring, pointless assignments to teach them "the importance of following orders and doing their job -- even or especially if they don't care about it"? This doesn't make sense to me. It's dehumanizing to expect people to behave like robots, parts of the machine. Even if doing a routine, manual job, people should be able to see some point to what they are doing. If it really is pointless (like lots of jobs), they should feel encouraged to speak up. In the janitor example, cleaning is an important job that people appreciate, the janitor making an important contribution to whatever is going on in the building (hospital, office, etc). But if the janitor is asked to do pointless busywork they should complain.

gargarplex 12y ago
"It's dehumanizing to expect people to behave like robots, parts of the machine." I disagree; I think that being expected to behave like a part of a machine is an essential, defining aspect of the human experience.
- forthefuture 12y ago
  The only problem is that the machine was built 300 years ago and almost no one would agree it works the way it's supposed to. The essential, defining aspect of human experience that you mention was invented by people who had the equivalence of, at best, a modern highschool education. I'd take my chances with contrarianism before I trust dumb old ghosts with my humanity.
- guard-of-terra 12y ago
  "is an essential, defining aspect" More likely, "was an essential, defining aspect briefly in the XX century". That century is now over. Before that, you was expected to steer your own judgement while working on a farm (not very machiney experience), and after that, everything that can be replaced by a machine would.
  - kd0amg 12y ago
    Wouldn't pre-industrial farming still involve mostly mindless, repetitive work in the fields?

jostylr 12y ago

When you come from a place of ownership of your own life, you can accept doing whatever needs to be done. I am a janitor with a math phd that gets to have water gun fights with kids; I work at a Sudbury school. I am much happier cleaning toilets than being in some BS academic department committee or grading kids and telling them they suck. Or even worse, teaching engineering students beautiful mathematical secrets, holding them to high standards, seeing them get there, and then hearing from them that the time spent on my course was hurting them in other courses. True story. Being supportive of life is itself a fantastic reward. Being treated with respect is what matters, not the actual work. Cleaning toilets is really not a big deal. Being treated like a piece of crap is. Also good citizenship is not about following orders due to fear of retribution. It is looking at the world with care and compassion for others and doing what needs to be done, speaking up and supporting one another. It is about seeing the beauty in others and appreciating that. At a Sudbury school, the halls flow with such feelings as it is the natural way that communities of human beings bind together. That is citizenship. And not surprisingly, when a person wants to be a part of a community, then they can follow community rules and standards quite easily. It is in our nature. Traditional schools teach gaming the system, being brutal to other people. Being excluded because of not meeting some arbitrary pointless standard is just a crappy way of living. Humans learn from what those around them do. Are the behaviors of teachers in traditional school the way humans should treat one another?

japhyr 12y ago
Can you describe how graduation works at a Sudbury school? Does everyone have to meet the same requirements as in most school systems, or are graduation requirements tied to each student's stated goals?
- jostylr 12y ago
  Students need not graduate from a Sudbury school. They can simply age out of it. In general, it is not an accredited diploma and so it is only if a student wishes to do so. But the process if a student choose to do it is to answer the question "How has your time here prepared you for the adult world?" It is a very open-ended question and students write a thesis on it, often submitting a portfolio of what they have done. There is an internal committee that serves the role of advisor, if requested. The committee for the defense of thesis consists of staff from other Sudbury schools who generally hold students to high standards. It is possible to not successfully defend though one can take another chance the following year if so desired. We are a young school (7 years) and have only had two graduates so far. One submitted a portfolio of pictures along with their thesis (pursuing visual arts in college) and the other presented a cookbook (currently a chef at a well-regarded local bakery). The defenses lasted two or three hours. Experiences at other schools vary, but it seems that it is quite a common experience for 18 year old Sudbury students to pursue the graduation.