> Most teaching until uni is mostly forced upon students.
That is the problem. It should not be forced. People naturally love learning and its a matter of facilitating that. Not going into details here as I have recent comments on this and other threads:
I know a lot of people who believe this, and I think it just doesn't bear out.
I am 4. I have many interests. I would love to read books about those interests, but in order to do this, I have to do phonics drills and practice sounding out words. But I am 4, and I do not have the cognitive skills to force myself to do unpleasant practice to acquire a skill which I will some day cherish. I must be made to learn.
I am 14. I have many interests. I would love to have a career revolving around those interests, but in order to do this, I have to acquire various basic skills and distinguish myself. But I am 14, etc.
Kids aren't just a blob of flesh that will some day become an adult. People don't take them seriously as individuals, but they should. That said, if left to their own devices, they simply will not do what is best for them. You have to make them do stuff sometimes, including learning.
> I am 4. I have many interests. I would love to read books about those interests, but in order to do this, I have to do phonics drills and practice sounding out words. But I am 4, and I do not have the cognitive skills to force myself to do unpleasant practice to acquire a skill which I will some day cherish. I must be made to learn.
My kids learned to read without being forced. They did not do phonics, they learned to read whole words from flashcards. As far as they were concerned it was guessing game. Then on to reading books together designed for more whole word recognition, which is reading guns stories. I wrote a blog post about it: https://pietersz.co.uk/2009/11/educating-lucy-learning
> I am 14. I have many interests. I would love to have a career revolving around those interests, but in order to do this, I have to acquire various basic skills and distinguish myself. But I am 14, etc.
You can explain to a 14 year old. My kids had been out of school for years at that age and I had not had to force them to do anything. A teenager is perfectly capable of understanding that in order to achieve somethings they have to do other things. If they want a particular career you explain that as well as the interesting things they have to do some less interesting things. If they want to study a particular subject to a higher level they have to meet entrance requirements.
> You have to make them do stuff sometimes, including learning.
Sometimes, but rarely with learning. The problem is that making them do stuff is the default, not the exception.
People naturally like learning some things and dislike learning others. The idea that if some learning is not interesting to everyone is misguided.
And no, something being useful and relevant does not make it interesting on itself. Even if you know it is useful you can just dislike having to learn it.
What is wrong with focusing on what you find interesting and doing only what is really necessary of what you do not? The problem is forcing everyone, regardless of talents or interests or aims, to follow the same curriculum
If you know its useful you are still motived. if you are motivated overall you will develop the discipline to get through what you do not find interesting and put the work in. it avoids situations like this from the first comment in this thread: "they would simply never study or do the homework I assigned them, and then they would do terrible on tests and I'd be stuck having to give them a bad grade."
this is exactly how you create a population that is mathematically illiterate and ripe for manipulation by foreign powers and marketing agencies.
Our society and any democracy relies on a shared minimum level of competence. If you cannot compare costs per unit, do not understand basic biology, or cannot compare evidence, just because it does not interest you, you are cannot function in modern society.
Quite the opposite. A better education overall makes you better at maths, and more able to think critically. Killing kids love of learning is not the way to a better education. Drilling and memorising does not help you learn to think better. Engaging with things you are interested in does.
I find it very frustrating that people just refuse to believe there cannot be a better way to do things despite all the evidence (many, many academic studies) and the experience of people who have tried doing something different.
> If you cannot compare costs per unit
You are missing the point. You can make learning to do these things fun so kids want to do it. They will find a need for basic arithmetic to do something else and learn at that point.
> do not understand basic biology
Why not? Lots of people do not know basic biology after going through the school system.
> or cannot compare evidence
Why would someone who follows interests not be able to compare evidence? Every field has arguments and requires evidence.
For all these, my experience (and the available more formal evidence) is that allowing kids to follow interests (with guidance, help, suggestions as required) leads to far better results than forcing them to sit through a rigid and boring curriculum.
I'd argue honestly until graduate school too. Undergrad still has a lot of required courses that aren't directly related to your major, and it can be draining.
I'm not saying this is a "bad" thing, having a well rounded education is important, but it's still a lot of stuff that a lot of students don't want to do.
Graduate school is more fun, and in some senses kind of easier (for want of a better word). Sure, the work is "harder" on an objective level, but by the time you've made it to grad school you're probably studying a subject that you think is interesting, so you don't mind powering through the hard parts.
> Undergrad still has a lot of required courses that aren't directly related to your major, and it can be draining.
This is why I LOVED getting my MS. Just computer science all the time! Heaven! None of those pesky, worthless general ed classes!
I was just a dumb college kid. I'm convinced I'd have done better in life overall if I'd taken those GE courses seriously and made the effort to be a more well-rounded individual. How many chances do you get where your whole job is just learning shit? Youth is wasted on the young, as they say.
I go back and forth; part of what bothers me is how I'm paying for these GE courses.
Like, for example, I took a multicultural film course in college the first time around. I love movies, I love analyzing everything about movies, I love discussing themes and metaphors that are in movies, and I even love writing long essays pondering movies, and I enjoyed the class.
That said...is a multicultural film course really worth ~$1200 and like 10 weeks of my time? Maybe to some people, but it certainly wasn't for me.
> Most teaching until uni is mostly forced upon students.
That is the problem. It should not be forced. People naturally love learning and its a matter of facilitating that. Not going into details here as I have recent comments on this and other threads:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48397182
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48409530
I know a lot of people who believe this, and I think it just doesn't bear out.
I am 4. I have many interests. I would love to read books about those interests, but in order to do this, I have to do phonics drills and practice sounding out words. But I am 4, and I do not have the cognitive skills to force myself to do unpleasant practice to acquire a skill which I will some day cherish. I must be made to learn.
I am 14. I have many interests. I would love to have a career revolving around those interests, but in order to do this, I have to acquire various basic skills and distinguish myself. But I am 14, etc.
Kids aren't just a blob of flesh that will some day become an adult. People don't take them seriously as individuals, but they should. That said, if left to their own devices, they simply will not do what is best for them. You have to make them do stuff sometimes, including learning.
It does work in my experience.
> I am 4. I have many interests. I would love to read books about those interests, but in order to do this, I have to do phonics drills and practice sounding out words. But I am 4, and I do not have the cognitive skills to force myself to do unpleasant practice to acquire a skill which I will some day cherish. I must be made to learn.
My kids learned to read without being forced. They did not do phonics, they learned to read whole words from flashcards. As far as they were concerned it was guessing game. Then on to reading books together designed for more whole word recognition, which is reading guns stories. I wrote a blog post about it: https://pietersz.co.uk/2009/11/educating-lucy-learning
> I am 14. I have many interests. I would love to have a career revolving around those interests, but in order to do this, I have to acquire various basic skills and distinguish myself. But I am 14, etc.
You can explain to a 14 year old. My kids had been out of school for years at that age and I had not had to force them to do anything. A teenager is perfectly capable of understanding that in order to achieve somethings they have to do other things. If they want a particular career you explain that as well as the interesting things they have to do some less interesting things. If they want to study a particular subject to a higher level they have to meet entrance requirements.
> You have to make them do stuff sometimes, including learning.
Sometimes, but rarely with learning. The problem is that making them do stuff is the default, not the exception.
People naturally like learning some things and dislike learning others. The idea that if some learning is not interesting to everyone is misguided.
And no, something being useful and relevant does not make it interesting on itself. Even if you know it is useful you can just dislike having to learn it.
What is wrong with focusing on what you find interesting and doing only what is really necessary of what you do not? The problem is forcing everyone, regardless of talents or interests or aims, to follow the same curriculum
If you know its useful you are still motived. if you are motivated overall you will develop the discipline to get through what you do not find interesting and put the work in. it avoids situations like this from the first comment in this thread: "they would simply never study or do the homework I assigned them, and then they would do terrible on tests and I'd be stuck having to give them a bad grade."
this is exactly how you create a population that is mathematically illiterate and ripe for manipulation by foreign powers and marketing agencies.
Our society and any democracy relies on a shared minimum level of competence. If you cannot compare costs per unit, do not understand basic biology, or cannot compare evidence, just because it does not interest you, you are cannot function in modern society.
Quite the opposite. A better education overall makes you better at maths, and more able to think critically. Killing kids love of learning is not the way to a better education. Drilling and memorising does not help you learn to think better. Engaging with things you are interested in does.
I find it very frustrating that people just refuse to believe there cannot be a better way to do things despite all the evidence (many, many academic studies) and the experience of people who have tried doing something different.
> If you cannot compare costs per unit
You are missing the point. You can make learning to do these things fun so kids want to do it. They will find a need for basic arithmetic to do something else and learn at that point.
> do not understand basic biology
Why not? Lots of people do not know basic biology after going through the school system.
> or cannot compare evidence
Why would someone who follows interests not be able to compare evidence? Every field has arguments and requires evidence.
For all these, my experience (and the available more formal evidence) is that allowing kids to follow interests (with guidance, help, suggestions as required) leads to far better results than forcing them to sit through a rigid and boring curriculum.
I'd argue honestly until graduate school too. Undergrad still has a lot of required courses that aren't directly related to your major, and it can be draining.
I'm not saying this is a "bad" thing, having a well rounded education is important, but it's still a lot of stuff that a lot of students don't want to do.
Graduate school is more fun, and in some senses kind of easier (for want of a better word). Sure, the work is "harder" on an objective level, but by the time you've made it to grad school you're probably studying a subject that you think is interesting, so you don't mind powering through the hard parts.
At least that's how it was for me.
> Undergrad still has a lot of required courses that aren't directly related to your major, and it can be draining.
This is why I LOVED getting my MS. Just computer science all the time! Heaven! None of those pesky, worthless general ed classes!
I was just a dumb college kid. I'm convinced I'd have done better in life overall if I'd taken those GE courses seriously and made the effort to be a more well-rounded individual. How many chances do you get where your whole job is just learning shit? Youth is wasted on the young, as they say.
I go back and forth; part of what bothers me is how I'm paying for these GE courses.
Like, for example, I took a multicultural film course in college the first time around. I love movies, I love analyzing everything about movies, I love discussing themes and metaphors that are in movies, and I even love writing long essays pondering movies, and I enjoyed the class.
That said...is a multicultural film course really worth ~$1200 and like 10 weeks of my time? Maybe to some people, but it certainly wasn't for me.