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Hopefully as more developing nations gain access to the internet, our global education standards improve with the new technological access those countries get.

by Lancey 11y ago

Hopefully as more developing nations gain access to the internet, our global education standards improve with the new technological access those countries get. The ability to provide education to parts of the world that might not have access to high quality teachers or schools via Skype or other programs will allow for rapid advancements worldwide in education.

speeder 11y ago
Unfortunately things don't work that way. I am from Brazil for example, here the education laws are extremely rigid: Homeschooling is a crime (literally, if you try to homeschool your kids you are sent to jail), and the curriculum is defined by law and extremely rigid. No matter how much internet you stuff here, as long those laws are enforced, people are forced to have crap education. Feynman article about that (written in the 50s by the way, things got worse since the article was written, not better): http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  The notion that education reform can't ever happen in Brazil, or that no education is allowed outside of the classroom as long as it's in addition to (rather than replacing) the regular classroom, are both false. In fact, that reform is already at play and it's been a big topic in Brazilian media the past years. It's no longer banned, although you still need to put your kid in an accredited school, which means that homeschooling is legal, but forgoing 'regular' education is not. It may not practically change anything, but it shows things are already slowly shifting. For example I've personally ran a modestly successful software business and never took a CS class in school. I'll never consider myself an actual software engineer but I've built, sold and shipped software products to large companies with self-taught skills, and could have become a full fledged software engineer if I delved deeper. And those skills cost me absolutely nothing, were attained completely through the internet and were in addition to a college degree in a completely different field. I don't see how Brazilians don't have and can't have similar experiences. Anyway I appreciate your frustrations and internet education is still really nascent, I agree it's not a suitable replacement today for classroom education. But let's be fair here, we're talking about an article here that expects the education gap to be bridged by the year 2100, so the notion that internet education can accelerate that (not to 2016, but say to 2050) is entirely feasible in my opinion. And that'd be gigantic, two whole generations earlier? If you're wondering how significant a single generation can be, a generation is about 25 years, and every year 130 million kids are born. Two generations of kids having improved education is literally empowering over 6 billion people who have had access to improved education. One of the big hopes of the 21st century are the inventions of the billions of people who'll be empowered by that. Look how far we've gotten with a few hundred million educated people. Anyway I'm hopeful :)

by Lancey 11y ago

speeder 11y ago

Unfortunately things don't work that way. I am from Brazil for example, here the education laws are extremely rigid: Homeschooling is a crime (literally, if you try to homeschool your kids you are sent to jail), and the curriculum is defined by law and extremely rigid. No matter how much internet you stuff here, as long those laws are enforced, people are forced to have crap education. Feynman article about that (written in the 50s by the way, things got worse since the article was written, not better): http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education

IkmoIkmo 11y ago
The notion that education reform can't ever happen in Brazil, or that no education is allowed outside of the classroom as long as it's in addition to (rather than replacing) the regular classroom, are both false. In fact, that reform is already at play and it's been a big topic in Brazilian media the past years. It's no longer banned, although you still need to put your kid in an accredited school, which means that homeschooling is legal, but forgoing 'regular' education is not. It may not practically change anything, but it shows things are already slowly shifting. For example I've personally ran a modestly successful software business and never took a CS class in school. I'll never consider myself an actual software engineer but I've built, sold and shipped software products to large companies with self-taught skills, and could have become a full fledged software engineer if I delved deeper. And those skills cost me absolutely nothing, were attained completely through the internet and were in addition to a college degree in a completely different field. I don't see how Brazilians don't have and can't have similar experiences. Anyway I appreciate your frustrations and internet education is still really nascent, I agree it's not a suitable replacement today for classroom education. But let's be fair here, we're talking about an article here that expects the education gap to be bridged by the year 2100, so the notion that internet education can accelerate that (not to 2016, but say to 2050) is entirely feasible in my opinion. And that'd be gigantic, two whole generations earlier? If you're wondering how significant a single generation can be, a generation is about 25 years, and every year 130 million kids are born. Two generations of kids having improved education is literally empowering over 6 billion people who have had access to improved education. One of the big hopes of the 21st century are the inventions of the billions of people who'll be empowered by that. Look how far we've gotten with a few hundred million educated people. Anyway I'm hopeful :)