School is a prison and damaging our kids

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/26/school_is_a_prison_and_damaging_our_kids/

by gz5 • 13 years ago

391 380 13 years ago

mathattack11• 13 years ago

Most schools are awful, and drive any vestige of curiosity out of the students. But... The best teachers I've had have been the ones who knew exactly how hard to push students to master a body of material, and were respected when they told us to suck it up. I couldn't have learned more self directed than I did by those talented taskmasters. But the other 90% of my K-12 (or dare I say K-16?) academic experience? I'm just lucky that I can test well.

craigyk3• 13 years ago

IMO, for most people 1-2 really good teachers are all they need.

Also, there is some value in teaching people that sometimes you just need to do what you're told... and that's coming from someone who has always been diagnosed as having "problems with authority".

The article also doesn't really offer any viable alternatives for the average family. The "democratic schools" it describes sound nice, but I don't see how it can scale affordably given safety considerations.

The "prison" system scales, and given how much money society seems willing to spend on schools, it's no surprise things have been pushed that way.

jug6ernaut2• 13 years ago

IMO, for most people 1-2 really good teachers are all they need.

I could not agree with you more. At least this is the exact case for me. When i was in middle school i was considered below average, below my grade level. I changed schools to a new teacher(3rd grade). It quite literally changed my world. To this day I give that teacher a huge amount of credit for the person i am today.

TL;dr;, yes, 1-2 teachers can make all the difference in the world for a student.

HarryHirsch2• 13 years ago

Also, there is some value in teaching people that sometimes you just need to do what you're told... and that's coming from someone who has always been diagnosed as having "problems with authority".

That of course requires that Those In Charge have the right sense of purpose, that they know what they are teaching and why they are doing it. George Polya had some words about is, and then there is this remark in Mark's Gospel, where the people "were astonished at [Jesus'] teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes."

mathattack11• 13 years ago

The prison scales, but they are absolutely awful at what they do, and waste an incredible amount of money. I've seen some online curriculums that are promising, but that requires a parent to be at home. Some charters have some good ideas, but the charters that are scaling and getting high test scores seem to be masters of the prison model. I'm still optimistic on the charter side. Let us take the education dollars elsewhere!

RougeFemme7• 13 years ago

And for me, those same teachers were the first to force me to think critically and at a much higher level than I ever thought I could. Unfortunately, standardized tests don't lend themselves to critical thinking.

InclinedPlane• 13 years ago

This is an excellent point but you have to consider it within the larger context. How much of children's natural enthusiasm for reading, writing, and analysis is burned out of them by other teachers? Moreover, a lot of kids aren't lucky enough to ever have an exceptional teacher of that sort.

asiekierka2• 13 years ago

Like me. 16 here, and I already feel burned out. I used to code as a hobby when I was 13-15, but nowadays, I do nothing...

Sad. (Maybe I should blame myself for it, and not school, but it just feels like that's what made me unable to learn for anything other than a need for good grades... that and being naturally good at memorizing information for a short period of time)

eli_gottlieb20• 13 years ago

It's not just that I could have told you this. It's that I ranted and screamed this to anyone who would listen at age 14. EDIT: That's ten years ago, folks.

And, strangely enough, once I recovered some sanity, I actually did leave high school, I did a lot better for it, and now my parents basically agree with me.

It's amazing how people always seem to start at the statement "self-discipline has been good for me" and somehow arrive at the conclusion "optimized regimentation is what's best for everyone!".

craigyk3• 13 years ago

When you're 14 though every injustice seems gross and all the broken parts of society seem obvious to you and you don't understand why everyone else doesn't see it too.

When you're 14 you're smart enough to recognize hypocrisies, but you're still not wise enough to have perspective and "pick your battles".

eli_gottlieb20• 13 years ago

I agree. The problem is when you arrive to age 24 and much of it turns out to really, truly have been gross, broken, and stupid -- but now you're "wise" enough to know how little chance you've got of fixing any of it!

EDIT: On the other hand, most other people don't seem to have the insistent inner child I have who's always asking when it's time to go play, so maybe I'm just fucked-up.

craigyk3• 13 years ago

one of my favorite recent quotes: "growing up is becoming the kind of hypocrite you can live with"

coldtea2• 13 years ago

It's not just that I could have told you this. It's that I ranted and screamed this to anyone who would listen at age 14*

When you're 14 you'll also shout that it's unjust that your parents don't let you hang out with your 21 year old crush you met of FB. Or that they don't let you ignore school and focus on a career as a professional videogame player.

eli_gottlieb20• 13 years ago

Again: that's quite correct, but the issue is that my view on compulsory schooling (at least, as we currently have it) has held up for another ten years after that and even proven persuasive to my parents.

Read the rest of the comment. I dropped out of high school at 16, then went to university at 18, graduated university with honors, and have now worked in the tech industry and started graduate school at an elite institution. And I honestly don't think I could have done any of it if I'd stayed in high school.

On top of my own example, my fiancee is one of the people the article mentions as being brilliant, obedient, excellent little students who find themselves completely and utterly burned-out by the whole process.

unimpressive3• 13 years ago

I've met more kids who wasted their time on a "career" as a professional baseball player than as a professional MLG player. Nobody takes the latter seriously. Too many people imagine the former is a real possibility. It doesn't help that many colleges offer free rides for people who make a good addition to their team.

echohack• 13 years ago

The huge problem with this suggestion is that society is built around the idea that you have a "High School Diploma" and a "College Diploma", so just up and quitting school isn't a good solution.

I think the best solution for someone trapped in the school system is to basically do a few things:

Middle School 1. Survive.

2. Get ahead. You're not old enough (in society's eyes) to out maneuver the adults yet. Prepare yourself.

3. Develop a love and interest in another foreign culture.

High School 1. Take every "legal" chance to get out of normal classes. Do joint-enrollment, AP, and technical classes.

2. If you must take "normal" classes, sleep in them, or do tomorrow's homework (the rest of the year's homework if you can) in class. Test well. Then study more interesting stuff with the extra time you have at night. Remember: Homework is largely graded on completion and is typically the largest part of your grade, so do the easy thing.

3. Apply for scholarships like hell. Every dollar you can get now is worth 1,000 times itself in the future.

4. Learn a language and culture of a (very) foreign country. Don't take Spanish or French. Do German, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, etc. Learning a language doesn't just allow you to interact with others from that country, it gives you perspective on your own situation. This is vital to your education.

University 1. Buy the best education you can for the value. An online degree is cheap, but not valuable. An Ivy League degree is expensive, but the value may not add up to the expense. Try Georgia Tech, not MIT. Try University of Washington, not Harvard. Use your own judgement here.

2. Don't go into debt if you can.

3. Do an exchange program. Spend a year in a country you care about. See also: High School #4. Don't stay in the "international housing" if you can. Try to stay in the dorms with other normal students.

4. While in University, do paid work in the field you are going into. The more recognizable the name of the company you work for, the better. If you're doing work at the University, don't do retail, food staff, etc. Do technical support, tutoring, or administrative. Not only are these jobs easier and pay more, but they look way better on a future resume.

5. Take an advanced finance class and an advanced programming class, even if you have to "sit in" on the class (larger universities don't take roll and you can sneak in these classes sometimes). These are the two human systems that make our world work today. If you don't get this, you're going to get swindled as a professional.

6. Join clubs. If they don't exist, make your own club. Get on the club's officer list. Put it on your resume if it looks good. You'll make lifelong friends from these people. You might even start your own business with these people.

7. Don't really bother with Frats / Sororities / Bars. The real fun and parties are with deep friendships you make and that allow you build a better lifestyle. See #6.

8. Go with your gut and fly.

eli_gottlieb20• 13 years ago

Wow, looking at this list, it's actually pretty surprising and impressive how much I've apparently managed to do right, at least starting at the "University" stage.

Apparently I should have taken an advanced finance class, but I'm pretty sure my finances are fine right now anyway.

xdd• 13 years ago

IF most kids know how to hack in this level, the whole education system have to change.

also, Can you explain a little more about University Rule No.1 and 6? I am interesting to see some example if you have any.

jtsnow• 13 years ago

The public school system in Utah provides language-immersion programs where students are taught regular subjects (math, geography, etc) in a foreign language for half the day. The elementary school nearest me offers Mandarin Chinese.

The system still may be prison-like and focused on standardized testing, but learning a foreign language at a young age is a nice benefit I'll be considering for my kids.

For reference: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/20/us/language-programs-flowe...

L_Rahman• 13 years ago

An Ivy League degree is expensive, but the value may not add up to the expense. Try Georgia Tech, not MIT. Try University of Washington, not Harvard. Use your own judgement here.

If you're poor however, reverse this. UW or Georgia Tech will maybe give you enough aid to cover half the tuition. Harvard and MIT will give you a full ride plus money for a return flight home and extra spending money each semester, all before you get a work-study job.

This is one of the greatest equalizers of income disparity available in America and I'm very glad to be able to take advantage of it.

MartinCron• 13 years ago

4. While in University, do paid work in the field you are going into

That's pretty much the most important bit of advice I try to give to young people. Companies will hire a college student with no experience but will not hire a college graduate with no experience.

randomdata• 13 years ago

Don't really bother with Frats / Sororities / Bars.

Food for thought: Data seems to indicate that those who drink more, earn more. It is thought that the uninhibited random connections you make at those kind of social functions may open up opportunities to find better jobs.

This may explain why people who go to college, and are exposed to the stereotypical party scene, also statistically earn more. If you stick to parties with with a close nit group of friends, you may actually set yourself back career-wise, statistically speaking.

Of course there is a lot more to college than just finding a future career, but your opening statement seems to imply that focus.

16s• 13 years ago

If the goal is to teach kids to shut up, sit down and get in line, then it works as expected.

coldtea2• 13 years ago

Things which a lot of kids are in dire need to be taught of, anyway...

argonaut3• 13 years ago

Yes, but in the process of pacifying the bottom percentile, you risk pacifying kids in the upper percentile.

sliverstorm5• 13 years ago

You can't say that living in civilized society doesn't require that ability at times.

eli_gottlieb20• 13 years ago

I'd call that a critique of civilized society.

bcoates• 13 years ago

Don't confuse compliance and learned helplessness with discipline and the ability to defer gratification.

The school system in America is teaching the former and neglecting the latter, and doing more of it better is only going to get us more of the weaknesses and less of the strengths.

enraged_camel• 13 years ago

That used to be the goal during the industrial age, when you needed factory workers who needed to come in and leave at exact times and follow orders to the letter.

Since then we have advanced to a knowledge/information economy where things like critical thinking and taking initiative are necessary for success, and school has failed to keep up in terms of encouraging these habits in kids.

jsnk• 13 years ago

I think great change in public school system we are looking for will only come when the public finally realize who public school system largely serves, teachers, politicians, education administrators and state government bureaucrats. Needs for students and parents are met marginally just to keep them quiet enough to move along.

newbie122• 13 years ago

Another key constituency are the school builders. Schools are in constant need of construction and renovation (often because they are poorly built). It is one of the larger budget items in any school district.

RougeFemme7• 13 years ago

Even when people do recognize this - and I think many do or can be easily led to that conclusion - there is still the intertia based on lack of viable and/or affordable options, plus the competing visions of the parents.

vividmind• 13 years ago

The obligatory Ken Robinson's TED talks:

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_crea...

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_educatio...

aray• 13 years ago

And obligatory PG essay on schools-as-prisons: http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

But the Sir Ken Robinson talks are much better. Those fundamentally changed the way I thought about education.

unimpressive3• 13 years ago

Even if this were true, the inertia against it is so great that you'd be better off trying to negate the worst effects of public schools.

Sufficiently advanced collaboration is indistinguishable from cheating. Therefore if you want to 'patch' the public school system, create a well designed network of anonymous collaboration sites that lend themselves well to private groups and avoid outright plagiarism.

nazgulnarsil• 13 years ago

these are always ruined by students too stupid to realize that text is searchable.

john_b• 13 years ago

"Cheating" only exists in a system where tests are treated as sacred. An educational system that minimizes or eliminates tests doesn't need to punish cheating or collaboration at all.

hosh3• 13 years ago

Really!? Wow! I guess the journalist has read John Taylor Gatto too! (http://johntaylorgatto.com/underground/)

the_watcher8• 13 years ago

Why aren't journalists allowed to write anything that has ever been written before? It's possible for two people to reach the same conclusion independently (Calculus was discovered twice)

hosh3• 13 years ago

I didn't say journalists weren't allowed to write anything that has ever been written before. I do mean though that, this article is not "breaking news", and John Taylor Gatto has substantially more information about this subject than what was covered in the article. It's also too bad that the journalist did not cite Gatto.

jimiray2• 13 years ago

Another article, just basically saying everything Maria Montessori proved years ago, without actually mentioning Montessori. Education has advanced, we just have refused to adopt it. Just ask Larry Paige or Sergey Brin. I'm really happy that I'm in a profession where I can afford to send my kids to a Montessori school.

the_watcher8• 13 years ago

He did mention Montessori schools as similar, but that they don't go as far as Sudbury Valley in offering freedom and democratic control to students.

cphuntington97• 13 years ago

I am always astounded at how quickly and ferociously people will rush to the defense of common practice schooling models. "It worked really well for me!" "Children need to learn to shut up and do what they're told!" - as several comments here attest.

I don't think this article is persuasive enough to convince most readers of the benefits of a self-directed learning environment.

All I can say is that for me, I really struggled to cope with common practice schooling. I really think I would have flourished in a self-directed environment. I'm not necessarily sure it's best for everyone, but I wish adults, especially parents, would be open to the idea that their success in life happened in spite of their schooling, rather than because of it.

ArtDev2• 13 years ago

My favorite reason people give for why kids should not homeschooled or alternative schooled is that it is not "the real world".

As an adult, I live in "the real world". When I come to work I don't get degraded, ridiculed, talked down to, insulted, wedgeed or dumped headfirst into the garbage can.

Public school is not "the real world" unless, of course, you are referring to a actual prison.

Wingman4l72• 13 years ago

As much as I agree with your point -- and I bet it gives people pause when you deliver it! -- I think that the reason they're giving is somewhat valid, but just worded very poorly. AIUI, what they actually mean is the social interaction aspect of things... which, coming back to your point, is still pretty twisted.

However, things like forming friendships and relationships and dealing with social adversaries, while bastardized, is still real. Of course it's not like these things can't be done outside of a school setting -- it's just the most likely place for a child with little or no options for significant physical mobility.

the_watcher8• 13 years ago

I was a "high achiever" in high school, got into the top public university in my state (top-15-20 overall depending on your rankings), then got into a top 14 law school. By all traditional metrics, school worked for me. However, I now have dropped out of law school and am doing very well professionally in a field entirely unrelated to my undergrad degree, and everything I use at work (it's number and data analysis heavy) are things I learned on my own because I was interested. I wish I'd had time to do this stuff while I was younger.

digitalsushi• 13 years ago

Is 14 a common cutoff for classifying academic institutions? Because I am interpreting this as 'the 14th best law school' and it seems that I shouldn't just assume this. It's an odd manner of delimiting a set and I am curious if there is some sort of legacy/esoteric set that I am oblivious to. Thanks.

cmsmith• 13 years ago

It appears to be specific to law schools

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_school_rankings_in_the_Unit...

tokenadult6• 13 years ago

Because lists differ, I have often referred to my having graduated from "one of the forty top-twenty law schools." The other reply just posted at this level appears to correctly explain why the person to whom you are replying chose "top 14," but anyway I don't always take strictly rank-ordered lists of higher education institutions very seriously. Rankings are debatable.

the_watcher8• 13 years ago

Top 14 is specific to law schools. It is extremely arbitrary, but it's the equivalent of a "top 10 list" in basically every other situation you'd rank things in. I don't like rankings, the only reason I quote them is to demonstrate that I did well in "school."

sliverstorm5• 13 years ago

I wish I'd had time to do this stuff while I was younger

I try not to fret about this sort of thing. There's just too many possible paths in life to lament & regret that you didn't pick your favorite one ten years earlier, because how would you have known?

the_watcher8• 13 years ago

Agreed. I generally don't worry about it and focus on the future. But reading this article made me reflect a bit.

Dewie2• 13 years ago

The amount of different things you can do with your life is staggering, even overwhelming. I have used computers since I was maybe around 12, but it wasn't before I started university that I found out that I like programming. If something that was under my nose for so long eluded my attention, how about all the other things that I've never even been in the vicinity of?

Maybe we as humans are just very adaptable, and I adapted to an education which involved a lot of programming-related subjects.

gkoberger• 13 years ago

One of pg's best articles talks about this:

http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

The relevant part starts with "Teenage kids used to have a more active role in society.", however the whole thing is a great read.

newbie122• 13 years ago

There is a deliberate effort in academia to downplay, or in the case of this piece, distort and even place blame on the Protestant Christian educational movements of early America. The Great Awakenings that spurred the creation of U.S. colleges and universal public education were fueled by a moral tradition and were an enormous success. That tradition has nothing to do with todays failing public schools. The author also fails to note that the current American home school movement has explicitly Christian roots.

wyclif2• 13 years ago

I noticed that immediately, too. Gray gets an "F" from me on Church history. I realise he's a psychology professor, but he really should have done his homework and read something that wasn't revisionist scholarship. His remarks on the Protestant Reformation are pretty weak gruel, because the presenting cause of the Reformation was to challenge the authoritarian Italo-Papal hierarchy in Western Europe. The Reformation was precisely about questioning authority.

If Martin Luther were to read Gray's remarks today, I think he'd find them patently ridiculous.

pekk2• 13 years ago

Interestingly, anybody were to read Martin Luther's "The Jews and Their Lies" today they would dismiss him as an incredibly hateful, racist crank.

Maybe you are being over-sensitive on behalf of Christendom here, as a worldly institution it should not be above criticism.

charlieflowers• 13 years ago

I definitely noted that he made an awfully long string of assertions to not have presented any kind of backing evidence. He presented an entire history of education ... but it could just as easily be a revisionist version as a fact-based one. It strikes me much more as a soapbox than a factual summary.

jtoeman• 13 years ago

"The author also fails to note that the current American home school movement has explicitly Christian roots."

Actually that's not quite right. The previous home school movement came out of Christian roots. The more current "trend" tends to be unaffiliated with any particular religious background...

Alex3917• 13 years ago

So how exactly is the author wrong? The first education law in the US, the Ye Olde Deluder Satan Act of 1647, makes it explicitly clear that the purpose of school is to prevent kids from turning to the devil, which is what the author said. The fact that universities also come from a religious tradition is irrelevant.

tekalon2• 13 years ago

I'm current attend Western Governors University, a self motivated/paced program. The most difficulty I've had is learning how to learn (never learned in school). I'm only now (after 10 years from graduating from high school) how to teach myself something new. I'm figuring out what study method works best for me. Now I was in honors all through public so me saying only now I'm having to learn how to learn is troubling. For my future children, I do plan on homeschooling with a backup plan of charter schools that encourage self directed learning, we'll have to see how that goes. My husband agrees also that public and private schools discouraged creativity. Breaking the habits that schools taught us (conformity, obedience, accepting of authority) is hard to break

Zigurd3• 13 years ago

Too few people know about WGU. Very low-cost. Non-profit. Not scammy like UoP. I wish they had a wider range of programs. In a few years, lots of university education will look a lot like WGU.

tekalon2• 13 years ago

Many colleges/universities are starting to have pilot programs that have similar themes like WGU (competency based, self paced, online, etc). The biggest thing that some have mentioned about online that is constantly being disproved that online degrees are low value. Some are yes, I won't deny there are some that are only worth the paper they are printed on. That being said, WGU (and similar programs) not only offer accredited degrees but also help give experience. In the case of IT degrees, certificates are part of the program that help many get a step up and good for entry level. Long term value of certificates can be argued but in my opinion, they are worth it for those new to the field or wanting an extra step up. WGU I've also had my current employer (who is doing tuition reimbursement) have no issue with WGU as being worth more or less than any other accredited university.

tokenadult6• 13 years ago

Ah, yes, Peter Gray is the author of the article submitted here (which I think was submitted once or twice before, with no comments). I have read part of his recently published book, in which he extends his argument. Education policy is the issue that drew me to participate on Hacker News,[1] and I'm glad to see that so many participants, from the founder on to the new members from the last year or two, enjoy thinking about and checking facts on education issues.

On my part, I chose the trade-offs of time, energy, and expense to homeschool our children so that they would be in a position to learn in freedom[2] and make a lot of decisions about their own education. So far the one child of ours who has grown up to live independently in the outside world (also an occasional participant here) is glad that he had that kind of education. He wrote to me for Father's Day, saying, "That has made it very easy for me to step into a leadership position and feel very comfortable in positions of responsibility."

Some people survive the prison environment of school and go on to great things.[3] That doesn't mean that we have to organize schools as we now do. We should be sensitive to opportunities to organize schools in ways that promote young people having responsibility and freedom to grow while they are still minors.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4728123

[2] http://learninfreedom.org/

[3] http://learninfreedom.org/Nobel_hates_school.html

pekk2• 13 years ago

This is not aimed at you, but at your wording. Controlling parents keeping their children isolated inside their own bubble, safely ensconced away from undesirable beliefs, classes and ethnicities, should take care not to be deluded that what they are offering their children is 'freedom'.

tokenadult6• 13 years ago

Well, what you write certainly isn't aimed at me, because I don't do any of "keeping their children isolated inside their own bubble, safely ensconced away from undesirable beliefs, classes and ethnicities" in my culturally diverse, community-involved, intellectually curious homeschooling family. Most homeschooling families I know, and I know hundreds all around the United States, resemble my open and free family life more than they resemble your caricature of some unknown anecdote you've encountered.

RougeFemme7• 13 years ago

I home-schooled my kids for a little while; wish I could have done it longer. I was definitely not isolating my kids in a bubble of any sort. As a matter of fact, my kids and I are ethnic minorities - different people have guessed different ethnicities, usually incorrectly. I didn't feel comfortable with 100% student-directed, but there was definitely much more freedom than in school. My kids got plenty of socialization outside of the home - and often inside - with plenty of other people from different belief systems/classes/ethnicities, etc. And they did extremely well, both socially and academically.

Also, the reality is that many schools are segregated by class and/or ethnicity, so students attending those schools - for better or worse - see no more diversity than they might see at home or in their communities.

sigzero2• 13 years ago

You have a very incorrect view of homeschooling.

ripter3• 13 years ago

A lot of people are saying that your view of home schooling is wrong, that they of course don't protect their children in a bubble like you say.

My personal experience with friends that where home school would agree with your view. They where all home schooled to 'protect' them from undesirable beliefs and ideas. The parents (of the kids I know) would also disagree with you. No one wants to think that they are over protective and hurting their children by protecting them.

I wouldn't say all home schooled kids are like that, but I wouldn't say that none of them are either.

argonaut3• 13 years ago

Do you seriously think that public schooling is actually going to give children exposure to this "undesirable beliefs, classes and ethnicities" that you speak of? That kind of public school is a mythology. Public schools are by and large 1) socioeconomically homogenous, 2) racially homogenous (among one or two groups), 3) class homogenous, and/or otherwise culturally homogenous. And even in schools that lean towards heterogeneity rather than homogeneity, it's not like all the kids are harmoniously integrated into one happy family. Schools are dominated by cliques and social circles, and stereotyping is rampant. A kid in a school with Asians is going to come away with the stereotype that Asians are nerds. A kid in a school with African-Americans is going to come away with the stereotype that African-Americans steal things. And while that might not be the case in all cases, I might argue that it is as representative as your belief that homeschooling parents are "controlling," etc. etc.

umsm• 13 years ago

Homeschooling a child can help but it can also harm them. It really depends on the parents, the child, the style of education.

There is no one-size-fits-all in this case.

One thing I fear for my children is that homeschooling may rob them of vital social skills that can't easily be taught at home. But with the right social network (large family / friends), this can also be addressed.

RougeFemme7• 13 years ago

And some of those social skills can be learned through other organizations outside of the home - sports, church, interest groups, etc. And some of those social skills are social skills that you might not mind delaying - such as how to deal with bullies. That's a skill that's needed in the broader world, but your kids will be just fine if they don't have to learn it at the age of 5.

sigzero2• 13 years ago

"There is no one-size-fits-all in this case."

Exactly that!

Tactic• 13 years ago

That is a common concern and as such easily avoided.

Many homeschoolers get together for lessons, field trips and just socializing for this exact reason. They are also generally active in assuring their children have a social network of other children.

From personal experience I think the only thing it lacked for my daughter was teaching her not the social aspect of school but how to navigate authoritarian hierarchies. I am not convinced this is a bad thing.

andrewflnr• 13 years ago

Not homeschooling a child can help but it can also harm them. It really depends on the school, the parents, the child, the style of education.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the "socialization" I got while homeschooled was far superior to that I got at public school, mainly due to the quality of the other kids I was dealing with.

mathattack11• 13 years ago

One of the smartest executives I know is homeschooling his kids. I also know an uber-religous politician doing similar. Both for different reasons.

To do it right, it seems to help to have a parent with an education degree or mindset, or some heavy duty financial resources.

RougeFemme7• 13 years ago

You don't really have to have an education degree or even what I think you mean by an education mindset. But many people do feel like they're stepping outside their comfort zone, at least initially. When I did it, I felt pretty comfortable. And my financial resources were limited at the time.

Dewie2• 13 years ago

To do it right, it seems to help to have a parent with an education degree or mindset, or some heavy duty financial resources.

I would imagine that many people want to homeschool in order to avoid the mainstream (as used in schools, as taught to new tutors) education mindset...

jacalata2• 13 years ago

I'm curious, how does he manage that? I would have expected that an executive position involved a lot of time at work, and that it would be difficult to combine that with being an involved homeschooling parent. Or is there some version of homeschooling where the parents aren't spending much more time with their kids than they would if at school?

livestyle• 13 years ago

I thought this amazing infographic on homeschooling would be beneficial to the conversation.

--> http://www.topmastersineducation.com/homeschooled/

Fyi. Sites like brillant.org and khanacademy have been instrumental in our homeschooling success.

jonlucc2• 13 years ago

That infographic is pretty unclear. Most of the statistics do not compare to the general population. Furthermore, the ones that do are unclear as to whether they have corrected for other major factors such as family income or parental education level. For example, students who are home-schooled are more likely to attend college than their non-home-schooled peers. Are they more likely to attend college compared to similar non-home-schooled peers (in the same socioeconomic status, race, parental education level, region of the country, etc)?

vacri5• 13 years ago

It's worth noting that a lot of the Nobel discussions of school involve boarding schools and corporal punishment, neither of which common in today's systems.

Interesting also that that page also finishes with an 'if you like school, then you're a paedophile' angle. "I can't find statements of medicine or physiology winners who said they didn't like school... but one of the ones who said he did like school was a child molestor!". Sounds like the deck was stacked to me.

richardjordan• 13 years ago

as someone who spent 7 years at boarding school, they're not synonymous with corporal punishment either - if you have parents with jobs that cause them to move a lot (military) it can provide stability and a great education... loved it

simonebrunozzi• 13 years ago

I just want to say that as soon as I opened this page, and started reading tokenadult's comment (without noticing the author), I thought: this should be tokenadult. And I was right!!!

I have read this same thing a few days ago, and today I have experienced it for the first time.

And of course I mean a lot of good things by saying this.

Kudos.

jonmrodriguez2• 13 years ago

I also had a very positive homeschool experience as a kid (2nd through 7th grade). Here are some tips about what worked well for me:

Few actual classes. The only recurring subjects were: World Geography and Culture, Math, and Writing. As one-offs, I had one year of Electronics (because I requested it) and two years of Spanish.

Other than that, I spent the rest of my time mostly working on whatever projects I wanted to. It was amazing! I learned programming from a book and an old DOS machine, I learned basic electronics from a family friend, and I learned a ton of handyman skills such as carpentry from my Grandpa. And I built projects in all of these fields. The projects were open-ended and entirely informal (just for fun). I would typically work on one project for between 3 days and 3 months.

Other than that, I also spent quite a lot of time outside with my brothers (we had a nice backyard, and lived near a creek), and we spent a full day at the library every week, which I enjoyed immensely.

Also, I was not allowed to watch TV or play video games. But we had a ton of good books.

FatalBaboon• 13 years ago

Homeschooling is not a solution massively applicable, you cannot rest on the assumption that every parent is good teacher or can give reasonable access to the learning material required.

The diversity of people kids meet and clashes of opinions are important and cannot be fully experienced in a small scattered community of people that think alike. I learn a lot more from my ennemies than my friends.

Your comment read a lot like: "I was super privileged and it was great!" So great, in fact, that you forgot about your neighbours.

tomlu• 13 years ago

Homeschooling is pretty common in Australia, so I've met a few people that have gone through that process. So prepare for anecdata!

Some of these kids have been somewhat inept in the social department. It's not that they are asocial, more that they are sometimes ignorant of the many small rules of social interaction that I presume we pick up naturally in school. Do you recognise this as a potential problem, and if so, what do you do to teach your kids social skills?

wybo2• 13 years ago

There are alternatives to home-schooling if one wants freedom (& without making every parent a teacher & both my parents had been teachers - not at my school when I was there -, so they could have).

Montessori, or Jenaplan (a Dutch/German thing, which was the one I went to).

There was a bit of 'prison' in that there was a certain number of fixed tasks to complete each week in areas such as Math, Dutch and English. But one could pick which, and mostly even check them oneself. Once done, the rest of the time was free to work on projects and things just like you described above (the carrot :-). Often by Wednesday afternoon I was done.

It thus worked wonderfully for me, though it may not be for everyone. But when I have kids they are definitely going to a Jenaplan-type school. As it never felt like a prison to me and instilled a love of learning, and ability to plan and reward myself (besides other positive things such as a sense of equality towards others, including bosses & profs)

School != School. Shop around before you reinvent.

JulianMorrison• 13 years ago

"Unschooling" beats home-schooling (and is less work for a parent, they are a facilitator not a teacher).

tokenadult6• 13 years ago

School != School. Shop around before you reinvent.

I've studied the Dutch regulatory model of schooling quite thoroughly since the early 1990s, when I first learned about it. Few Americans have the pervasive power to shop for different varieties of schools that all Dutch parents have by the Constitution of the Netherlands.

http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED316478

jstalin3• 13 years ago

As a former member of a board of education in a major city, I learned a few things:

1. There is no one-size-fits-all plan that could possibly work for education. Everyone is different (duh);

2. Centralization of primary and secondary education institutions is a very bad thing (think fewer and fewer large school districts);

3. Teachers' Unions are possibly the single biggest barrier to innovation;

4. There is no simple, easy answer to improving education.

Unfortunately, I don't have a prescription for fixing things, but I'm sure that centralizing both administrative bureaucracy and delivery standards is not it.

rwmj• 13 years ago

1. There is no one-size-fits-all plan that could possibly work for education. Everyone is different (duh)

Why is that? All able-bodied humans have brains, mouths, eyes, arms etc all of which work in much the same way. If you are making clothing, you don't say "everyone is different", you make clothes based on the same pattern in a relatively small range of sizes.

For people who have specific disabilities, we should make adjustments, but I don't understand why a single way of teaching would not work for most people. Leaving aside whether schools are the best way of teaching.

eli_gottlieb20• 13 years ago

If you are making clothing, you don't say "everyone is different", you make clothes based on the same pattern in a relatively small range of sizes.

Then why do the rich buy custom-tailored clothes?

GuiA• 13 years ago

This is a misleading and irrelevant comparison. Yes, the vast majority of the population has 2 arms, 2 legs, etc. that allow enable clothes manufacturers to follow the same template. But this definitely does not imply that this conclusion is extensible to education.

Have you ever worked in a software development company? You've probably noticed that some of your coworkers work better by being isolated and solving things on their own. Others prefer teaming up with a more experienced developer to guide their work. Some need a very detailed spec upfront, while others are fine filling in the holes as they go along.

Would you force the guy who thrives while doing pair programming to work on his own? Sure, he might get some work done, but he won't be as happy nor as productive as he is pair programming.

And the kicker is that those things change throughout people's careers.

Education is exactly the same. You can force everyone in the same mold, but all it will lead to is people performing sub optimally and becoming frustrated. Should education ignore that?

---

It's even worth it to take a step back and ask ourselves what the goal of school education should be. The average parent or teacher will probably answer that it is to develop the child's skills and knowledge in a way that will enable him to attend a good college, to secure a good job, and to live their life comfortably.

The more we advance in society, the more we realize that this definition was perhaps sufficient 50 years ago (when it was very common and accepted to stop your studies after high school), but it is becoming less and less so. As our society starts to be comfortable with notions such as minimum basic income, that many jobs can and should be automated, that there will inevitably be more able-minded able-bodied adults than there are jobs available in the future and so on, we need to revisit what the purpose of education from ages ~3-18 should be.

Things we probably want education "of the future" to be about:

- creating citizens that have the means and the tools to instruct themselves and understand the world and society around them

- enabling the children and teenagers to build & live a fulfilling and constructive adult life (we might have to accept at some point that some people are fine playing the saxophone 10 hours a day, while some are fine programming 10 hours a day - one is not necessarily better than the other)

- building the skills to relate to your peers and help them to work towards the previous 2 points. Having worked in educational settings (think boarding school style, with everyday life mixed with instruction) where teenagers would be in regular contact with younger children (for example helping them during programming workshops etc.), I've noticed how much good it does to everyone involved. The younger kids love having someone just a tiny bit older than they are helping them out, and a lot of teenagers appreciate being handed some responsibilities. The current school system is very much a one way street (teachers teach and enforce rules, students sit down and listen), and it's far from ideal.

penrod2• 13 years ago

There may indeed be a Platonic ideal of the one-size-fits-all school, but does not mean it is discoverable by central planners, especially central planners subject to the political incentives of the education establishment.

So even though "Everyone is different" may be a canard, it may still be the case that the only practical way to improve schools is through a distributed process of trial and error on a diverse set of teaching methods.

wmeredith• 13 years ago

Holy hell, if you think people brains all work in the same way, you live in a different world than mine.

RougeFemme7• 13 years ago

And there will be many people for whom those clothes don't really fit (feel, appearance, etc.). A lot of people will simply make do. But many other will alter the clothing or switch to tailor-made clothing. . .or a different pattern with a different range of sizes.

Daniel_Newby5• 13 years ago

For people who have specific disabilities, we should make adjustments, but I don't understand why a single way of teaching would not work for most people.

Most Africans have an IQ in the 80s, barely above mentally retarded. Most of them can barely be trained to even go through the motions of algebra, let alone use it to solve problems in new situations.

"College material" kids need to graduate high school with a mastery of algebra so they can learn calculus, which they will be expected to use unbidden to solve novel problems they encounter in other areas.

It seems unlikely to me that the vocational training of the dull can be combined with the education of the near-genius. It is like trying to teach carpentry and structural engineering at the same time.

Kids also have a gigantic range of self control. About 1 in 20 are profoundly delayed, being an average of 3 years behind "normal" in planning and self control. (This is called ADHD to pathologize it, but nothing that common can possibly be a true disorder.) So a typical freshman high school classroom will have pne student who can barely keep their shit together well enough to glue macaroni to construction paper. And will have one student, usually a girl, who operates on a fully adult level.

And then there are the variations in memory. One student learns the entire course in 20 hours, while another has to grind out practice for 150 hours.

There is simply no way for a single process to handle the range of human variation well.

Even the body is like this. My ideal bicycle could permanently cripple another normal person of the same height. Ditto for shoes.

aestra5• 13 years ago

If you are making clothing, you don't say "everyone is different", you make clothes based on the same pattern in a relatively small range of sizes.

Oh wow, you must have a common body shape/type. That range of sizes is actually kinda large, and there is "specialty" size ranges, for example, plus size, petite, big and tall. Bras especially have a giant range of sizes, and I still know woman who have to get custom made bras, and these are woman with natural breasts.

I personally don't fit into off the shelf clothing, period. I've never seen a pair of pants that fit me, I just make due with what is closest, and I've gotten used to constantly adjusting my pants, it is second nature to me.

Nelkins• 13 years ago

Can you elaborate on some of your personal experiences in teachers' unions stifling innovation?

I don't know too much about this topic, and the few friends of mine who are "in the know" are teachers. Not exactly the best place to get an unbiased opinion.

jstalin3• 13 years ago

I can't really give a concise treatment of the issue on here, but suffice it to say that the leadership of the teachers' unions are very, very change adverse. They are first and foremost a union and trade organization that exists to protect jobs and the status quo. Anything that threatens that status quo is usually immediately dismissed. For instance, the idea that teachers should be evaluated based on student outcomes is like kryptonite to union leadership.

Another issue I noticed was a strange aversion to letting anyone other than state-certified teachers do any teaching. The most striking example I came across was a brochure I picked up while waiting for my obligatory teachers' union candidate interview when I was running for office. I flipped through the brochure on teaching your child to read. The brochure explicitly stated that parents should not correct their child's improper spelling or pronunciation because that would somehow stifle learning or take away from the "professional's" ability to "properly" impart knowledge to the child. It was stunning. And weird. And that's why the issue of teachers' unions is complex and at time perplexing.

mathattack11• 13 years ago

You have a great background to weigh in here. Can I ask a few more questions?

On point #2 - why is that? Because of standardization? Lack of accountability?

Overall what is your opinion of the charter school movement?

jstalin3• 13 years ago

Yes, standardization, one size fits all, the belief that central planners can determine what's best for everyone. My opinion is that all school administration should occur at the school level. Teachers, principals, and parents are best equipped to know what each kid needs. At the central administration level, accountability is nonexistent and the larger a school district gets, the harder it is to provide dynamic and responsive education.

I'm a fan of the charter school movement mostly in the sense that it radically decentralizes education and that most charter schools are non-union. I've visited traditional public schools and charter schools and the sense of community, engagement, and accountability is palpable at the charter schools. At the traditional public schools, the sense was one of defeatism and calcification.

Now keep in mind that my experience was in a large urban area, so your mileage will vary.

fancyketchup2• 13 years ago

Actually, I believe that your point #4 is wrong. Teachers are underpaid, and the fact that most kids don't really learn anything is the inevitable result. Allow me to explain.

For all the rhetoric about the need for teacher accountability, school principals and district superintendents already have the power to fire teachers. Yes, it's true: Primary and secondary school-teachers do have a form a tenure, but it's not the same kind of tenure that university professors have. In primary and secondary education, tenure simply means that there is a more formalized process for firing a teacher. More hoops to jump through, if you will. But, principals can jump through them if they really want to.

The logical question to ask is, so why don't they? They don't fire the bad ones because, simply put, they need butts in seats. Or, rather, feet in shoes in front of the blackboard. If you have 4 teachers for 100 students in 3rd grade, firing one and increasing the average class size to 33 students isn't a tenable option. As a result, the principal must hire a new teacher to replace the one he just fired, and therein lies the rub.

There simply aren't good teachers on the market at the prices that school districts are willing to pay. That qualifier at the end of the sentence is important, so read it again. Many of my cohort from grad school were fantastic teaching assistants in the classroom (many were bad, too, but we'll save that discussion for another time). That's not to say that they would automatically make good primary school teachers, but if I had kids, I would wish that those excellent TAs were in the classroom. I'll bet that many people on HN know similarly talented people from their time in university, who were natural leaders and mentors.

Unfortunately, very few (read: none) of those people who are good at teaching are employed as teachers. Why not? It has nothing to do with teacher's unions or certification requirements or institutional bureaucracy or barriers to innovation, and everything to do with the labor market. Namely, a good engineer or scientist with a masters or doctorate can out-earn a teacher by a factor of at least two. Then there's the fact that an engineer employed as an engineer isn't required to restrict his use of paid vacation days to just a few weeks each year (a couple high-school teachers with whom I'm still in contact tell me that they've never been able to take their kids on vacation for spring break because their spring break didn't line up with their kid's spring break).

So, I think the solution is easy: Pay teachers a salary that is competitive with other high-skilled professions, and you'll get good teachers.

burntsushi• 13 years ago

I completely agree with you.

But let me offer a personal anecdote that suggests pay isn't the only problem. If pay were to remain exactly as it were today, but the bureaucratic bullshit went away, I would very seriously consider looking for a teaching position in a high school after I graduate. (I am currently a 4th year Ph.D. student.)

But all of the bureaucracy that goes on just makes it an absolute non-starter. It almost completely destroys the perks of teaching for me, namely, the freedom and flexibility to mold a curriculum. (The perk of having summers off just doesn't make up for it for me.)

Even if you doubled the pay, I'm still not sure I would go for it. But that's me.

fancyketchup2• 13 years ago

In addition to down-voting, it would be helpful if you could explain why you think I'm wrong (because, hey, there's a first time for everything ;) Thanks.

icelancer10• 13 years ago

So, I think the solution is easy: Pay teachers a salary that is competitive with other high-skilled professions, and you'll get good teachers.

The problem with that argument is that the supply vastly, VASTLY outstrips demand. How can you possibly argue that we should pay these candidates more when you have 100 applicants per position in most school districts?

Doesn't this suggest a real problem with the upstream pipeline?

frozenport• 13 years ago

I don't like the salary argument because it has worked poorly in practice. For example raising tuition per student did not increase the performance of Chicago public schools, nor did my highschool teachers - who were making about 70K teach any better then our fresh out of college teachers who were making 34K.

I think we are looking at an existential crisis.

twoodfin3• 13 years ago

Some teachers (talented young ones) are severely underpaid. Some teachers (older, lazy ones) are severely overpaid.

The problem with simply raising teacher salaries is that, due to the tenure system in public schools, most of the increase will accrue to the oldest teachers regardless of skill.

darkarmani• 13 years ago

There simply aren't good teachers on the market at the prices that school districts are willing to pay.

I don't find that to be true. There are good inexperienced teachers that are searching for jobs, but go to interviews for jobs with 20+ applicants.

mtdewcmu4• 13 years ago

I've come to be skeptical of what everyone believes and no one questions, that schools are failing kids. So much hand-wringing has gone into this issue for so long, so many things have been tried and failed; the simplest explanation to me is that the problem simply lies elsewhere. We can try to force-feed kids more and better education, but we can't guarantee them the kind of jobs they want after they graduate. I suspect the problem is economic, but regardless of precisely where it lies, I don't think it can be fixed through changes to education. It's like pushing a rope.

A lot of people are in agreement that the problem begins and ends with teachers, but this sounds suspiciously like scapegoating.

icelancer10• 13 years ago

I've come to be skeptical of what everyone believes and no one questions, that schools are failing kids.

Amen. Schools are failing SOME kids, there is no doubt about that.

But the question I have - which is controversial, to say the least - is this: Do we really CARE that it's failing some kids?

bluedino• 13 years ago

> without questioning it, and to obey authority figures without questioning them.

There isn't much debate in reading/writing/arithmetic.

> It’s no wonder that many of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs and innovators either left school early (like Thomas Edison), or said they hated school and learned despite it, not because of it (like Albert Einstein).

We're using a genius and one of the most prolific inventors America ever saw to rationalize the idea that school is bad for kids? Not to mention they were in school so long ago.

> even the “best students” (maybe especially them) often report that they are “burned out” by the schooling process.

I'd imagine being the best is quite a lot of work. I'd be burned out too.

the_watcher8• 13 years ago

There is a lot of debate in writing. Why is it taught exclusively in English classes? Why does academic writing focus mainly on literature until college, and even then, English is the equivalent as a writing major? PG wrote about this once [1], but it makes no sense.

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html

eli_gottlieb20• 13 years ago

Yeah, I got through my schooling long, long ago and that one is still a mystery to me.

I can tell you why there's a debate, though: different contexts have radically different standards for what constitutes good writing. If I attempted to publish some of the stuff I've written or seen written in research literature as a prose nonfiction article, I would be rightfully crucified for crimes against communication.

And yet, attempt to write clear, explanatory prose in a research context, and you will be called a sloppy amateur.

/grumble /grumble

chongli• 13 years ago

There is a lot of debate in writing.

And in reading. Literary criticism is a big deal! And in math, for that matter. There is a great deal of math research taking place. To suggest that it's all settled and there's no room for debate is pretty silly of the GP.

Goronmon• 13 years ago

There isn't much debate in reading/writing/arithmetic.

I think it's less about a debate and more about the answer to a student's question about "Why do we do X this way." being something other than "Because that's what I told you to do."

namenotrequired• 13 years ago

> There isn't much debate in reading/writing/arithmetic.

I'd say it's not even relevant whether there is much debate about whether what's being taught is correct. They're still being told what to do and to obey that person, rather than finding it out themselves, and we're killing their curiosity and creativity in the process.

> We're using a genius and one of the most prolific inventors America ever saw to rationalize the idea that school is bad for kids? Not to mention they were in school so long ago.

Perhaps, if our school system was better, we'd have many more of such 'geniuses'?

> I'd imagine being the best is quite a lot of work. I'd be burned out too.

Is this intended to take away from his points? If anything it confirms them.

chollida1• 13 years ago

This is a big reason why my wife and I just dropped 5 figures to send our oldest daughter to a Montessori school instead of public school.

The larger time outdoors and less strict teacher lecturing to students sitting in desks were the two biggest drivers of the decision.

jimiray2• 13 years ago

Have you looked for any public Montessori schools? We have 3 Montessori charter schools in Denver.

jessaustin• 13 years ago

Many of the people on HN would have done well in a wide variety of different learning environments. Think Abe Lincoln. Most of the others on HN would have done well in a specific subset of learning environments that doesn't happen to include what the USA public education system provides.

ArtDev2• 13 years ago

I am a great example. I was raised internationally and born dyslexic. I had a very hard time in school socially. I didn't learn to read till I was ten. Luckily my parents were very dedicated. Homeschooling, international school and a number of different hippie schools (Waldolf & Quaker Friends) saved me. I even went to a hippie college that didn't have grades (The Evergreen State College). The result: I taught myself design and programming and now work at Intel. I love learning. I want my kids to always love learning as much as I do. That is why they are not going to public school either.

zwieback4• 13 years ago

This article is so black and white and elitist to add practically no value to the public school debate.

I have two middle schoolers in an affluent public school district and our experience is very different. There are many motivated teachers constantly tweaking their approach to keep students engaged. If anything, I'd want more structure in our schools.

The much bigger issue is that alternative schooling approaches work only with a high degree of involvement from parents and the community. Do we really thing "Sudbury Valley" schools would work in inner cities or the deep South? I rather think parents are glad to have someone keep their kids out of trouble while they work overtime to scrape by.

Also, self-motivated learning gets you only so far. Without some external pressure I don't think most kids would decide to study calculus or statistics or other dry but important topics.

mattm2• 13 years ago

And why is calculus or statistics important. My wife hated math and even would get 0 on some tests and yet she is a very successful nurse today. Math is not important at all for the vast majority of adults today. Why should children be forced to study it? (I say this as someone who did enjoy math and did very well in it)

notahacker• 13 years ago

I hated maths and wound up with an Economics major and a job where an above average grasp of stats is greatly beneficial. Go figure. I suspect the proportion of adults for whom some form of mathematics assumes at least some basic importance in adulthood vastly exceeds the proportion of kids that would voluntarily turn off MTV to do arithmetic puzzles.

Put another way, if you drew a Venn diagram of "stuff that would be useful for adulthood" and "stuff most kids would study until they were at least adequately skilled entirely of their own volition", the circles would barely overlap.

Sure, this doesn't apply to the average Hacker News reading autodidact, but one of the first things you learn in statistics is not to make judgements based on outliers.

mathattack11• 13 years ago

Educators tend to be big on calculus because it correlates with college success [1].

Independent of the studies (there are more) I think that stats is very underserved in society. Nurses should know statistics. Knowing joint %s and Bayesian stats are useful in treatment and diagnosis. Much of health care is moving from doctors to nurses, and it's important for them. Stats are also important for people making investments. And buying lottery tickets. And buying a house. And making judgements in daily living.

[1] http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_701JBR.pdf

zwieback4• 13 years ago

Totally agree - not important for most adults to lead a happy and useful life.

However, a grasp of calculus and statistics (those two came to mind, there are surely others) is useful if you want to break past existing boundaries because they give you some tools to think abstractly. Personally, I want my kids to learn that. They already have plenty of time to explore on their own - the time spent in a classroom should, in my opinion, be spent on learning fundamentals very deeply.

It's not only hard to teach yourself calculus, it's also something you wouldn't think of doing unless you're Gauss or one of those guys.

VLM3• 13 years ago

Not this again.

The point of learning math is there's an inflexible scorecard of reality for an incredibly complicated logic puzzle, and the only determiner of adequacy in the subject is persistence. Now if you want to excel you need the knack or genetics or whatever, but mere adequacy only takes a certain amount of sweat.

So it teaches that at least some times there's certain logical rules where one follows from the other or can be combined with another, and if you're persistent you can figure it out. Or just summarize to persistence and logic.

I really don't care if your wife can solve 2x=4 for x, but I would be unhappy to be under her care if she would give up on complicated situations (oh he's not breathing AND no pulse? I'll just give up), or refuses to notice cause and effect relationships.

vacri5• 13 years ago

Learning statistics has been a fundamental part of the development of my critical thinking. Being able to understand that 'many' is a weasel word and why (see my other comments). It makes me less susceptible to things like yellow journalism, and makes me require more rigorous arguments to sway my opinions.

Statistics gets a bad rap, but it is far more important for day-to-day life than people give it credit for.

Math is not important at all for the vast majority of adults today.

This is just plain not true. I can't speak for calculus, but in addition to what I mention above, there's plenty of day-to-day need for math by the general public - money handling skills, for example, are something that almost everyone should have.

Everlag• 13 years ago

A great idea shared by many. A point that my European history teacher made that stuck with me works quite well here:

When, after high school, will you have to factor a quadratic or describe to me in detail how a cell works? Who after high school does that? A very small population. However, who lives in an organized society with a set of beliefs that will have to judge and effect those beliefs? EVERYONE! Who will have to read something or judge a document put out by the government? EVERYONE!

(The full caps is somewhat required as he would always stand on top of his desk and yell it at the class...)

andrewfong• 13 years ago

Sudbury Valley schools do feature adult supervision I believe -- so if the goal is just to dump the kids somewhere while the parents work overtime, that model works fine.

As for whether external pressure is necessary to get kids to learn calculus or statistics, maybe. But I'd argue that there are forms of "pressure" that would better motivate kids to learn such topics apart from "my teacher wants me to learn this" or "I won't get into college without this".

For example, getting children interested in statistics isn't that tricky. Play games of chance. Poker is a pretty good introduction to some basic concepts in statistics. And if you don't want your kids gambling, there are board games. Or fantasy sports. Granted, games alone won't teach you everything there is to learn about stat, but it might get a lot of children interested in the overall topic enough to pick up a textbook and learn a topic of their own accord.

redcircle• 13 years ago

It works very well in inner-city schools. See The Lives of Children: The Story of the First Street School by Dennison.

I can't imagine that this article was supposed to add value to the public-school debate. Here are two non-controversial goals that children should achieve while growing up: 1. They should build durable cognitive connections. 2. And they should flourish (which has a psychological meaning). The public schools address neither goal. They can't. They actively work against both goals. Most children would be better off without school (since public school is a massive opportunity cost).

hawkharris• 13 years ago

I've heard this argument against compulsory education & standardized testing many times, and I'm still not convinced.

Look at the countries ranked highest in education, according to the 2012 Pearson study that is often cited by news networks. [0]

The top 30 nations have widely different attitudes toward compulsory education & testing. Some embrace it much more strongly the United States. Others deemphasize it. For example, juxtapose Finland and Korea.

Before we can categorically dismiss compulsory education & standardized testing, we have to acknowledge that it sometimes produces amazing outcomes — some of the world's best.

Some may argue that the rankings focus on standardized testing, which is an inadequate measure of what students know and what they can do. But Pearson's study and similar studies didn't just measure tests; they considered a "wide range of social and economic indicators."

In other words, compulsory schooling & testing isn't always the devil, and I don't think there's any magic bullet for improving the U.S. education system.

Analyzing the United States' approach to education alongside the approaches of other nations in the world rankings, it's clear that there are other factors at play, which may account for U.S. students' poor performance.

danielweber2• 13 years ago

What compulsory education does is put kids who don't want to be in school with kids who do want to be there.

And the former don't just sit there quietly. They take it out on the latter.

High school was awesome the past two years, once all the kids who wanted to drop out did so.

Wingman4l72• 13 years ago

The saddest part is that some of the former might be perfectly happy apprenticing for a trade instead -- a chance which has really been destroyed in the last few decades in some areas.

The real issue is that we're trying to forcibly prevent delinquent members of society, just like you force small children to eat their vegetables and go to bed -- because as an adult you have the foresight and ability to delay gratification that they lack -- but it doesn't always work.

Where do you draw the line? When do you give up on kids and say "fine, screw it, don't go to school, go eat candy and smoke pot behind the 7-11"? There are the kids who, if you force them to go to school at 14 when they don't feel like it, will grow up and realize that playing videogames for 12 hours a day would have been a bad life decision.

Then there are the other 14-year-olds who will fight it until they can drop out and become a chronic plague on the rest of society, no matter what sort or form of education you offered them. The problem is that no one wants to admit the politically incorrect truth that there will always be some children left behind.

gz5• 13 years ago

The system works quite well for some. But isn't it also true that some of the folks succeed despite the current system?

To me, the problem is that the desired outcome is no longer to build the factory worker, yet the foundation of education is still (largely) built to that dated objective.

Note: that in no way discredits the wonderful schools and teachers that we do have that do their best to truly educate students within those old world confines.

AznHisoka• 13 years ago

As an aside, I find it disgusting that public schools are penalizing students who bring their own lunches because it means less subsidization for them when it comes to allocating the budget.

aasarava• 13 years ago

Where is this happening and what is the penalty?

dccoolgai• 13 years ago

"The idea that schools might be places for nurturing critical thought, creativity, self-initiative or ability to learn on one’s own — the kinds of skills most needed for success in today’s economy — was the furthest thing from their minds. To them, willfulness was sinfulness, to be drilled or beaten out of children, not encouraged."

... Perhaps that's because you can teach discipline, but you can't teach creativity. You need both to be really successful, but to be at least moderately successful, you need at least discipline... No matter what you do, you can't take creativity away from the kids who are really creative...they will be off making things and designing things and writing things and painting things, because that's what they do... you can't stop them, even if you try.

If you teach discipline, you will end up with disciplined creatives and disciplined non-creatives...I can tell you as a person who was kind of a dumbass when I was at school (although a creative dumbass), that I got much more benefit from learning what little discipline they managed to impart than some fruitbat curriculum that tried to "encourage me to be creative"...which I probably would have responded to by intentionally being less creative.

...sometimes the people who designed the things around us are more clever than we give them credit for being...

vacri5• 13 years ago

It’s no wonder that many of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs and innovators either left school early (like Thomas Edison), or said they hated school and learned despite it, not because of it (like Albert Einstein)

Hrm, I am using the critical thinking skills that I developed in late high school and university, in a teach-and-test environment, to determine that this is both using weasel words ('many') and is an 'appeal to authority' fallacy.

This is an argument where you very much need to present the numbers. Anything else is just an emotive ploy using cherry-picked data points.

atlantic• 13 years ago

I don't think the only alternative to the current system is home schooling. There are schools in which learning is less curricular and more curiosity-driven, and the pupils go on to be very successful in higher education. In Belgium I came across a schooling system called Decroly, and in Germany the Waldorf schools.

eriksank• 13 years ago

Home schooling is only a fall-back position. As a parent, I don't mind hiring teachers for particular purposes. But let it be clear that I am the "school". I am the employer. It is my money and these are my kids.

debacle3• 13 years ago

The current reality, I think, that everyone is ignoring is that time spent in school and money spent per child are not solving the problem.

Teachers, yes, parental involvement is a huge factor, however it should be less of a factor, I think, than you allow it to be.

Parents, yes, teachers need to be properly assessed for results, however if a standardized test isn't the best way to gauge your child's ability, why do you think it's the best way to gauge your child's teacher's ability.

The reality is that we are spending insane amounts of money on students - sometimes upwards of 20 thousand dollars per student - and the outcome of the education system is not what we expect it to be. This is a societal issue, and part of what I would call America's ignorance - there is an upper limit on how much money you can throw at a problem before they money you threw at the problem attracts the wrong kind of actors and makes the problem worse.

I'm not a libertarian, but I like many of the libertarian ideas surrounding education. I also know what "free market" means in my country. I don't like our healthcare situation, and that's all I can picture when I imagine "free market" education.

Teachers unions currently have a regulatory capture on school boards across the country in the US, which is a big problem. School boards, in my experience, are dispassionate, dramatic, and exploitative of residents. There are far too many administrators in schools, and far too many passionate teachers, but how can you be passionate about your job when you have so many eyes on your back, so many hoops to jump through, and so many layers of bureaucracy to report to.

Education is not an easy problem because it has turned into a self-interested Mexican standoff, with people on all sides unwilling to give an inch, and no one wants to act rationally until it is too late.

specialist• 13 years ago

time spent in school and money spent per child are not solving the problem.

Agreed. Finland v USA and comparative achievement. Etc.

The only thing that'll help improve education in the USA is addressing poverty and inequity.

Here's a recent first hand account:

"I taught at the worst school in Texas" http://www.salon.com/2013/08/25/i_taught_at_the_worst_school...

You can guess the story, but TL;DR: Teachers and schools cannot mitigate all the bad stuff happening to their students.

Back to the money. While more likely won't help, I would note the giant sucking sound of our tax dollars being diverted to cronies, via standardized tests, text books, charter schools, whatever.

debacle3• 13 years ago

Oh, of course. The biggest part of the problem is that there is a disconnect between residents paying exorbitant amounts of money per child on education and teachers having to try and cover the cost of their own classroom supplies. It makes taxpayers really, really angry when teachers ask for more money, because I don't think many people understand how little money the teachers are actually seeing (though I would also contend that, like other public sector workers, there is a benefits disconnect for teachers that needs to be corrected).

vacri5• 13 years ago

I should also mention that in early high school (grade 7 and 8), I went to a 'community school', where the kids had the freedom to learn at their own pace, and largely what they wanted to learn. Maths and art were self-driven, with teacher direction available. There was cool stuff like classes on massage (very popular!) or aerobics, and a few other things.

School was fun, and the teachers were nice... but this being said, I was one of the group of people (~10% of that year level? fuzzy memory) to choose to leave the school (no parental pressure) and go to a regular high school because "I think I am not learning enough". That was my own, personal motivation, not driven by anything external. And I was a kid who would come home and read the encyclopaedia for fun, cover to cover.

benaiah2• 13 years ago

I think one of the most important takeaways from this article is that you can fix this problem, for your own family, now. Homeschooling is legal in all 50 US states and in a number of other countries [1] - Gray mentions it in the article as an alternative. It works, and it's not as impossible as you likely think.

Historically, homeschooling is probably the most common form of education - the modern style of compulsory, state-run education traces back to the Prussian education system of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Anecdotally, I can attest to its strength: I'm a second-generation homeschooled student, currently pursuing a BS in Computer Science. I graduated with a 3.95 GPA, got a 96th percentile SAT score, and made it to the top level (Finalist) of the National Merit Scholarship program. I'm using a scholarship I got because of that to go through school.

Without homeschooling, I doubt I would have got into computers and programming. I had the freedom and the time to pursue what I wanted to do - it didn't feel like school, because it wasn't, but it was just as, perhaps more, important than my standard academics. I started teaching myself programming when I was 12, essentially on my own. I started by just creating games, but eventually got bored of that and moved into programming more general-purpose stuff. I basically taught myself, with oversight to make sure I was actually doing it, through the middle school - high school level.

The oldest of my brothers will also be graduating soon. He's totally different from me - loves the outdoors and wants to go into smoke-jumping. He dislikes academics, book-learning, and the technical side of computers, for the most part. Certainly doesn't pursue those things for fun. He was 86th percentile on his SATs.

We were both (along with our six other younger siblings) taught by our mom, who has very little education beyond a high school diploma (don't get me wrong - she's very smart, just not academically well-credentialed). She taught us alone, while living in a remote part of a remote state. Our social interaction was almost entirely in the church or the occasional homeschooling group. I'm a bit introverted, but my brother is an extrovert, and as socially well-adjusted as they come. Academically, we're both well prepared for life.

I know anecdotes aren't data, but I'm simply trying to make the point that it is reasonable and effective to teach your children at home. It doesn't take a college degree, teacher training, or a state program (our homeschool was entirely private). It takes love and hard work - but it provides a safe environment, cultures a love of learning, and gives academic excellence: all tasks that the public schools have proven themselves incapable of in most cases.

[1]: For more info on the legality of homeschooling, see http://hslda.com

dinkumthinkum• 13 years ago

Well you might be some kind of child prodigy or something but I admonish you to take your impressive brain and set it upon basic statistics. If you do, I think you will see that you are describing (i.e. your experience) is anomalous phenomena. Most home schoolers are out there solving Fermat's Last Conjecture at age 8.

Autodidacts (even alleged ones) in this kind of discussion always try to project their Einstein level of genius on to the rest of the population to make some point about how education should be. I think it misses pretty obvious points.

benaiah2• 13 years ago

You're missing my point - I'm no genius, just a bit academically oriented. My brother is the complete opposite - yet he still is far above what the public schools are pushing out. My younger siblings seem to be turning out the same way. And I can personally attest to many other families that have had similar results.

You want statistics, here they are: http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/200908100.asp

Homeschooled students score into the 84th-89th percentile on average. Statistically, it's unambiguously better at educating children. My comment was anecdotal on purpose, to try to show that, even in an extreme case (remote location, little social contact, mom had no college degree, no state homeschooling assistance) it still produces vastly better results than the public schools.

totalforge• 13 years ago

When the nations' school system was founded, it had a goal, which was, and is, to product a compliant work force for industry.

rumcajz• 13 years ago

The interesting thing is that eduacation by play is not a novel idea. It dates back at least to Comenius and was re-iterated over and over again since. Yet, after almost four centuries it's still not widely implemented. One gets a feeling that there are some strong socio-economic forces acting against it.

bryan112• 13 years ago

It's interesting that colleges actively recruit homeschool graduates because they are more likely to succeed. They tend to be more able to learn and study independently. They also tend to be better at working with diverse groups of people.

SquareWave• 13 years ago

I guess they didn't teach you about hyperbole from whatever prison you were in.

quadlock• 13 years ago

The http://threeriversvillageschool.org/ is based upon these principles. A Free(not as in beer) school that is now in it's first few days of classes that got help starting with successful crowdfunding campaign and a lot of hard work by dedicated smart people.

graycat• 13 years ago

Here was my solution in grades 1-12:

Too soon in the early grades, get dumped on by the teachers, just give up, learn enough just without really trying, and depend on social promotion.

When get to the good stuff, math and science in grades 9-12, just sleep in class, ignore the teachers, refuse to submit or admit to doing any homework, have utter contempt for the teachers, study the text largely independently, be one of the best students in the school on the state aptitude and achievement tests, end up with Ivy League SAT scores.

In college, do much the same, write a math honors paper, and get good GRE scores.

At work find a good problem and on an airplane ride get an intuitive solution.

Then back in school, in graduate school, use material in a great course in the first year to make good math out of the intuitive solution, write some illustrative software, submit the work as the Ph.D. dissertation, pass an oral defense, graduate, and be done with formal education.

So, do something like in the OP but within the formal system, with a lot of sleeping in class and ignoring that system.

There were some great times!

(1) In eighth grade general science, the teacher was explaining partial vacuums and applying those to the operation of a traditional farm house lift pump. I glanced at his diagram and put my head down to sleep.

He decided to call on me to explain the pump; yup, looked like he was trying to stick me for sleeping in class! So, I just closed my eyes, imagined the pump diagram, and went through the whole pump cycle in excessive detail, with each pressure difference and each valve opening and closing, and he never bothered me again!

(2) In plane geometry, I was totally in love with the subject and ate the exercises like popcorn by the hand full.

There were some more difficult supplementary exercises in the back of the book, and one of these I didn't get on Friday afternoon so continued and finally got it Sunday evening. I worked 100% of the non-trivial exercises.

On Monday in class, the teacher worked an easy exercise with the same figure, and for the first and last time I raised my hand and said that there was an exercise in the back with the same figure. About 20 minutes later the teacher was loudly exhorting the class "Think, class, think! Think about the given ...."

Since I didn't want to be accused of ruining the whole class, I raised my hand and started "Why don't we ...", and the teacher screamed "You knew how to do it all along." Of COURSE I knew how to do it; no way would I have asked otherwise. Besides, how'd I know that she wasn't also doing all the exercises?

(3) A question on the state test was how to inscribe a square in a semi-circle. I thought, construct a square, circumscribe the circle, and find the crucial length in the given figure by constructing a fourth proportional, and after school wanted to check my solution so started and she said about my square "You can't do that". As I later learned, I'd shown her 'similitude', my reinvention of an advanced technique.

Of course the schools are from mostly useless down to really destructive, but, still, it's possible, especially if ignore the teachers and sleep in class, to learn fairly well anyway.

Besides, especially here on HN, nearly all of the US software industry depends on self-learning.

Yes, in time there will be some good groups for support and guidance for home schooling with, often, some occasional small classes by really well qualified teachers. Then the public K-12 system will be regarded as the cheap, low grade, bottom level, last hope alternative for disadvantaged children and be much less well funded than now because nearly all the good families will be using private alternatives and not care about the public system.

Yes, the current public system is a disaster for education and the children, but, you have to remember, it's really expensive!

socrates1998• 13 years ago

As a former teacher of ten years, I completely agree that school is a waste of time, money and resources.

School is a baby sitting service that doubles as an "education".

The whole system is flawed. No one wants to be there.

The kids hate it, the teachers can love the job, but usually hate the grind, and the administrators are there to stay out of the classroom and not get blamed for anything.

Kids go to school so parents can go to work. That is the system.

If there is no school, what happens to the kids?

Most adults prefer working to being around their kids all day, just ask a home schooling mom with multiple kids.

She stays home not because it is easy, but because it is good for the kids.

The author of the article completely misses the issue. Kids don't get the best resources in our system. They get bare minimum.

He recommends some special kind of school and way of learning. But, this won't happen because it would require re-training, re-designing, and other costs that people just don't want to spend on other people's kids.

juanre• 13 years ago

"The biggest, most enduring lesson of our system of schooling is that learning is work, to be avoided when possible." Indeed. The antidote for my 13 and 15 years old boys are being Udacity courses. I encourage them to study for school enough to get by, and to spend as much time as possible enjoying what they want to learn online. Udacity's lack of fixed schedules is perfect for them, and the experience is one of challenge and joy.

jheriko• 13 years ago

"...where their freedom is greatly restricted — far more restricted than most adults would tolerate in their workplaces"

wtf? which culture have you been living in recently? most people don't work in your workplace, they work in a factory, department store, supermarket, engineering shop, building site etc. and their freedom is suitably restricted i assure you...

rnernento• 13 years ago

Prison is a prison and damaging our kids...

hrjet• 13 years ago

I liked the approach mentioned here: http://beyondschools2.blogspot.in/2013/05/know-think-do.html

In a nutshell, the idea is to teach basic principles within the structure of a school and then let the pupil explore the higher grade subjects by themselves, with the intermittent guidance of a teacher.

anuraj• 13 years ago

No doubt. But it is the price we pay for our packed lives where we have little time to instruct or even emotionally connect with our kids. So we give it out to the schools to do all the great work - of making schmucks out of potential da Vincis.

rodolphoarruda• 13 years ago

Along with that school mentioned in the article, the Escola da Ponte[1] in Portugal is also a good example of non-traditional education which lead to great results.

[1] http://www.escoladaponte.pt/ponte/projeto ; content in Portuguese, you may need to use a translator.

tbirdz2• 13 years ago

Some of the points about children learning naturally by themselves remind me somewhat of Rousseau's "Emile, or On Education" However, I don't know if anyone had been able to actually pull this off in real life. I think one downside could be for things that you have to learn to function well in society but have no natural interest in. If you are left alone to learn for yourself, then you'll learn about things you want to learn.

School is a prison and damaging our kids

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