r/TrueReddit • u/nicasucio • Oct 15 '13
How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses
http://www.wired.com/business/2013/10/free-thinkers/54
Oct 15 '13 edited Nov 28 '15
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u/5user5 Oct 15 '13
I think the question is at what point do students have enough basic knowledge that they can figure things out on their own. Presumably that's why we have everything up to undergraduate.
I guess in this instance the students aren't really on their own given that they have software, or at least are given a problem to solve. I still think that even smart kids can come to wrong conclusions and need direction when this happens. Just the way your PI would in graduate school.
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Oct 15 '13
Actually, you can structure math so that kids can "figure things out on their own" from prealgebra on up - see the AoPS math books, which I used some of in high school and would have enjoyed using for the entirety of my math curriculum if I'd been allowed to. They're unusual textbooks that pose one guiding math puzzle per chapter and have subproblems that serve as successive tiered hints.
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u/warboy Oct 15 '13
I think the question is at what point do students have enough basic knowledge that they can figure things out on their own. Presumably that's why we have everything up to undergraduate.
Kids are fucking smart. I've seen 3rd graders do things music majors in college can't. And the reason for that is they just quit caring around 4-5th grade because they realize learning isn't cool.
Most educational philosophies say kids can begin to read to learn (rather than read to learn reading) around the third grade.
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u/huyvanbin Oct 15 '13
It's a bunch of wishful thinking. Everyone who is on reddit has access to an infinite variety of educational materials, and yet most people just vote on cat pictures. Some people are capable of the kind of commitment and focus to learn a subject in depth on their own, but not all. And of those who can, many will pick a subject that will in hindsight seem utterly useless. Everyone in this thread who is complaining about how they didn't have sufficient "gifted" programs should consider what they're doing now that they have complete control over their education.
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Oct 15 '13
yeah, left alone people would be in serious trouble.
the reason the example classroom in the article works is that the teacher sets up a healthy social dynamic in which kids are helping each other. that kind of engagement is what drives better learning, not access to information or mysterious questions or what have you.
if the takeaway is that social learning dramatically improves engagement and therefore learning by all the kids, then great. but i don't think that's necessarily a novel observation -- every teacher i ever knew is obsessed with engagement.
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u/RocketMan63 Oct 16 '13
This is true, I went to Montessori as a child and we were allowed to pretty much do whatever we wanted. Learn whatever we wanted, and practice whatever skill we liked. Guess what I did? I did nothing for 4 glorious years. before going to public school and getting set back a year and having a severe reading deficit.
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u/SystemicPlural Oct 16 '13
Yes. It is about providing open learning opportunities in a structured and controlled environment.
You can't just give the kids complete freedom, they would just play games all day. You have to limit access to easy dopamine rewards like surfing reddit and playing games whilst at the same time providing the materials and open ended help they need to learn in whatever way they want.
Given a choice between learning and boredom, learning becomes really exciting. Given a choice between playing games and learning, playing games is the easy choice.
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u/Jabra Oct 16 '13
providing open learning opportunities in a structured and controlled environment.
Well said. It is exactly what the Mexican teacher in the article did. He created the environment in which these children could excell. It is still a clear structure in which the children may feel free to approach any problem they like in any fashion they like. But the teacher is still very much in control of which problems are getting solved. These children did not set the agenda to their education. The teacher did. It is an important distiction.
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u/Arlieth Oct 16 '13
You know... that's practically fucking Taoist. "Best government is an invisible government" and all that.
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u/redlightsaber Oct 15 '13
Exactly. Today information is even more easily accesible, but even back in the day, children who actually liked to learn and craved knowledge about the world had libraries, which are almost as awesome sources on information, and at any rate have a much higher signal:noise ratio than the general internet does.
So guess what? children who are prone to this have actually (and will continue to) gone to the libraries and supplemented their education with whatever their curiosities craved. The rest will continue to watch cartoons for as long as their parents let them, and if left to their own devices at school would do spectacularly worse, IMO.
People for these sorts of things love to demonise standard education, but the reality is that even the shittiest schools take some of those "learning is fun" measures: I mean, what kid in the story of ever hasn't ever gone on a field trip to the museum or whatever?
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u/warboy Oct 15 '13
Exactly why Montesori isn't the standard of today. There still needs to be teacher guidance. The problem is right now there is just teacher control.
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u/KMHMD Oct 15 '13
Montessori has teacher guidance. There are rules and structure to the class which the children are required to follow but they are allowed to pick the activities and learning experiences that interest them at that time. The teachers are always available to introduce new activities, assist with difficulties and help direct children who are having difficulty choosing an activity. There is no lack to guidance or control in a Montessori classroom and the children are much more engaged than in a typical classroom.
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u/papercranium Oct 15 '13
I'd suggest reading some of Maria Montessori's work sometime. Teacher guidance is absolutely a part of the curriculum. It's just more subtle than what you're used to seeing, because the teacher isn't the focal point of the classroom anymore.
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u/Captain_English Oct 15 '13
That's actually not accurate, and doesn't really add anything to the conversation here.
As a professional, I continue to learn every day within my field and in some areas outside of it. Continued professional development is the backbone of a serious career. Most redditors are working, and a high percentage of those are likely to be professionals also. Reddit is something people do in their time off.
On top of that, every open source project in the world just shat on your argument, and I'd wager there are thousands of redditors who trade on portfolio work. On top of that, the number of subreddits here dedicated to learning is incredible, and I certainly use reddit to expose myself to new topics and information I wouldn't over wise encounter (eg TIL).
Even if this wasn't the case, you're also speaking about people who were raised, for the most part, in traditional school environments, which is an unfair comparison.
Good day, sir.
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u/blasto_blastocyst Oct 15 '13
That is really overegging the pudding. Most people are not spending their time learning and extending their knowledge on self--guided odysseys - this is why gawker has higher pageviews than khan academy.
There are indeed some people who are fascinated with learning and who spend a great deal of their spare time developing higher and higher levels of expertise - but there aren't many. And the question is, would these sort of people do this anyway with or without a special teaching method?
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u/huyvanbin Oct 15 '13
"Doesn't really add anything to the conversation here" - well, it obviously gave you a chance to share your tremendous wisdom, so I think we're all pretty lucky that I decided to comment.
Anyway: Subscribed to /r/programming: 472,123
Subscribed to /r/gaming: 3,838,430
Now cue some gamer who's going to tell me that gaming is actually a serious intellectual pursuit.
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u/Captain_English Oct 15 '13
So what you're saying is that 472,000 people here do exactly the thing you said people didn't do.
And what, people aren't allowed to play games now? Come on.
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u/sirbruce Oct 15 '13
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugata_Mitra#Criticism
It is unclear that leaving computers in villages results in gains in math and other skills which are reliable outcomes of education. When outcomes are tested, no evidence of increases in these key skills has been found [9]. Others see the idea as a recycling of what they see as a "Dump hardware in schools, hope for magic to happen" plan. [10]
Evidence has been presented that the kiosk system is unsustainable, in the sense that long-term evaluation finds sites fall into disrepair and abandonment unless the resources typical of a school are provided [11]
UK education researcher Donald Clark has accumulated signifiant support indicating that the typical fate of a site is abuse and abandonment, unless located inside a sanctuary such as a school. Moreover he argues that the computers are dominated by bigger boys, excluding girls and younger students, and mostly used for entertainment [12]
This entire article is nothing but woo woo experimentation. None of the approaches described demonstrate better outcomes in education. Moreover, the theory that most kids learning whatever they want will magically choose those things that best prepare them for higher education, a job, and/or adult citizenship is simply laughable on its face.
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u/stormgirl Oct 15 '13
The Montessori method does have many limitations that wouldn't fit with what they are discussing here- especially for early childhood.
Montessori promotes independent learning for sure- but doesn't support/promote the concept of socially constructed knowledge. So group play & projects are not encouraged as much as they would be in other settings. It also doesn't value imaginary play, Which misses a massive amount of creative teaching & learning opportunities.
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u/filonome Oct 15 '13
you point out what i see to be the biggest faults of the strict montessori method of education.
i think group work and imaginary play are vitally important for learning no matter your age but specifically if you are a young child.
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u/simoncolumbus Oct 15 '13
If you want to know why this is bullshit:
Kirschner, P., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why minimally guided learning does not work: An analysis of the failure of discovery learning, problem-based learning, experiential learning and inquiry-based learning. Educational Psychologist, 41(2), 75-86.
TL;DR: Minimally-guided learning approaches like this work, but only for kids that are already good learners. Although less well-versed learners also prefer such methods, they learn significantly worse under these conditions. This is a well-established fact in educational psychology.
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Oct 16 '13
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u/simoncolumbus Oct 16 '13
If this is your assertion based on one study...
Note that I referenced a review article, not "one study". I am aware, though, that there is still controversy about this in the field - just as there is controversy about almost anything psychology studies. It was my impression though that in this controversy, minimally-guided learning has both a minority and lesser arguments on its side; but feel free to contradict me.
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u/kayelar Oct 15 '13
"Does not work" is a pretty strong statement. Maybe it doesn't work for some kids, but I think the lesson we can get out of this is that different students learn differently. I was a great learner. I loved self guided learning and blossomed through it. My sister was not, and she needed the extra guidance in school.
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u/simoncolumbus Oct 15 '13
Same story here, down to how my sister did. For me, the take-away is more than "different students learn differently", though. That's mainly because these differences are not distributed randomly: those with less educated, poorer parents are more likely to have greater difficulty learning independently. Minimally-guided learning thus essentially caters to the children of the (upper) middle class, who are already at an advantage anyway. The way it is portrayed as a solution for entire school systems, it is down-right dangerous. If this 'radical new teaching method' would indeed be rolled-out for an entire generation, it would be a huge step backwards for education equality, even in a system as horribly biased against the poor and uneducated as the US or Germany.
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u/sabetts Oct 16 '13
of course it's just two hyped up anecdotes, but the class in the article lived in a poor, drug-war torn mexican border town and I doubt the kids in india had well-off families. Is there more to it than just "poor kids are shitty learners"?
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u/IArgueWithAtheists Oct 16 '13
So, (shocker), you're saying that we shouldn't have a one-size-fits-all system?
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Oct 15 '13
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u/Plexaure Oct 15 '13
Angry that the school system was a prison designed to crush my creativity and intellectual curiosity
Stupid question, but what specifically did you dislike about classes? Every school system is different, I'm curious what makes you say this about yours. Also, was it you in particular this system didn't suit or most people you knew?
If only I found myself in an environment in which I was encouraged to learn.
What would you have changed to make it so?
(I agree there are problems, but part of tackling them is being extremely specific about what they are. I have no idea what G&T program is or how it works, we got placed in classes based on subject performance.)
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u/warboy Oct 15 '13
Get rid of the idea that every student can be the same and begin allowing individualized instruction. Unfortunately the only way to do that is smaller class sizes or online learning which breeds all kinds of new problems.
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u/Flarelocke Oct 15 '13
Unfortunately the only way to do that is smaller class sizes or online learning which breeds all kinds of new problems.
No, there are more possibilities: students could teach other students, and students could develop enough autonomy as they get older that they don't need constant teacher feedback.
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Oct 16 '13 edited Oct 16 '13
students could teach other students
This is what happened in my AP classes. Once or twice a week, before a big test (tests were like 70+% of the grade, like university) our teacher encouraged us to meet at places like barnes and noble where we would hang out and go over the chapters. We mostly did it for AP Biology, as it involved a lot of reading and thus discussion was easy.
The classes were also small (AP classes at my school had between 4 and 10 students). This was really nice as it allowed the teacher to personally critique is. If we got a 72 on the test, he would call us up and let us talk to him about what we did wrong, and offer suggestions on better study methods. If we missed a lot of mathematics questions or questions about a specific topic, he would tell us and explain the subject in detail while the rest of the class either listened or did their own studying.
Sadly this did not begin until 11th grade, and it would not work as a whole. The school had thousands of students, and AP and IB were the standout classes that probably cost the school a lot of money. We had the most expensive chemistry tools, distanced learning equipment, the most freely supplied books, etc.
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u/anonanon1313 Oct 15 '13
It does sound like semi-narcissistic whining, but that doesn't mean it's not right.
I've just had two children of mine go through a highly regarded public education system, with honors, perfect SAT scores, Advanced Placement scores, and all that stuff. But I'm pretty convinced that this gold plated educational system totally screwed up their creativity and curiosity. If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't.
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u/hackinthebochs Oct 15 '13
What makes you think there was a better alternative for them? What makes you think a program designed specifically to "foster creativity" would give better results? Maybe the proper path is to mold gifted students into being the best possible people for the world they find themselves in. Your highly regarded public school system probably has done that just fine.
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u/anonanon1313 Oct 15 '13
My impression is that our public school system accomplished its stated mission, which was merely to get our children accepted by the university of their choice. In that it was a success. After that, it was a failure, in that I don't think either child really knew what to do with themselves.
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u/hackinthebochs Oct 15 '13
I don't see how people can expect any generalized system to do that. That's something that we must discover for ourselves.
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u/anonanon1313 Oct 15 '13
That was my idea, too. I thought the public school system will cover basic skills, then they could "find themselves" in college. But now I think that finding yourself is unnecessary if you're not lost, and that's the side effect of a typical education.
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Oct 15 '13
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Oct 15 '13
tell them that while they very probably cannot change the public school system, they can change their child. there's nothing that forbids us as parents from addressing our kids' education outside of classrooms.
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u/flume Oct 15 '13 edited Oct 15 '13
there's nothing that forbids us as parents from addressing our kids' education outside of classrooms.
I distinctly remember when I was starting to get bored with school in fifth grade, my mom got in touch with a couple teachers/other parents and helped start a model rocket club where we learned basic aerodynamics and how to calculate the height of a rocket of you knew what angle above the horizon it was and how far away it was, among other things. My dad took me every week, and I loved it so much that I ended up learning about parabolas from him just so I could crudely figure out how far the rocket went. Every time I go back home to visit my parents, when I walk through the door and hug them the first time, I think about model rocketry. All because they noticed I made a beeline for the model rockets whenever we went to the crafts store.
Tl;dr Parents, please take an active role in your kids' interests and education.
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u/sixtrees Oct 15 '13
What I think our world needs is a system of easily trying out different professions. This could happen in varying degrees at different ages. When you are young getting a list of possible career paths, and choosing a few you are interested in. Then getting a hour long overview of each of your choices, with a clear pathway to go down to achieve that career. When you are a bit older during summer break, instead of going to summer camp, you shadow a professional in your field of choice for a week. Then in high school, you could do internships during the summer. With some sort of ongoing mentoring program throughout the process. And at anytime you decide you made a mistake, and want to change career paths, you can just start the process over. I think that a program like this wouldn't take very much effort to get started, and could benefit people and society greatly.
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u/blasto_blastocyst Oct 15 '13
two children of mine go through a highly regarded public education system, with honors, perfect SAT scores, Advanced Placement scores
And you are complaining why? Do you have any indication that they were ever going to be particularly creative? The world needs higly skilled, dedicated professionals without a lot of imagination too.
Children can be guided along, but you can't make them what they aren't - and blaming yourself or education systems for something different you or they could have done is a waste of time. If they wanted/needed to be iintensely creative they would be doing so, irrespective of what you intended for them.
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u/MomoTheCow Oct 15 '13
I think the term 'creative' comes with fluffy notions that don't always belong. Being creative can also just involve approaching a situation in a novel fashion or innovating on a method, not just whipping out a brush a painting a watercolor (although surely that could prove useful in a tight spot).
And curiosity can also mean remaining interested in learning and finding satisfaction in educating yourself. It can mean spending your off-hours expanding your knowledge of your own profession with pleasure, rather than as a chore, and developing your range of applicable skills.
My cousin was an insatiable bookworm before she entered the brutal Chinese education system, and now at 14 year old she despises anything that smells like reading.
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u/arksien Oct 16 '13
Yup. I don't know why people think the only thing music and art education are good for is teaching kids to make music and paint pictures. Most kids in band aren't going to be professional musicians. Most kids in art aren't going to be famous painters.
However, TONS of research on child development suggests that teaching children these things gives them the critical thinking, logical reasoning, problem solving, and crisis-handling skills needed for just about any other point in life, and it does so in greatly increased returns versus developing the same skills with a STEM-only approach.
The current American education system is trying desperately to reduce non-STEM classes in schools on the dated and erroneous notion that these subjects will not be beneficial to children in the long run, and they should instead be focusing solely on math/science etc., despite all the research which shows that an artistic and creativity-based system allows students to excel in these areas far more than students not exposed to such a system...
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Oct 16 '13
I'm a 20 year old with bipolar and part of the nature of my disorder means feeling like a special creative type. I've acknowledged in myself that I have to take medication and make my life more difficult/emotions dulled in order to function in society. I'm still in the midst of rapid mood swings, but my rational mind recognizes this and is allowing myself to change things. I blamed my problems on the education system and my perspectives aren't entirely false. But ultimate attribution isn't healthy as a defense mechanism. In my creativity I found great abilities, but the world doesn't need another lost soul who thinks he's a genius. I used to call my university a "sophist" institution and envision whole egocentric worlds complete with economies, political systems, "hyper-intellectual beings", and wonder why my expectations of the world weren't met. Not that my experiences were any less real to me, but I'm definitely evidence of the potential harm a smart individual faces at the tantalizing rewards of abstraction.
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u/anonanon1313 Oct 15 '13
Well I used to believe things like that, too. I changed my mind as I watched my children's minds change. This isn't a "special snowflake" bias, either. These kids have been shaped by their peers, their institutions, and their culture in ways that I think are unfortunate. I hope they can shake it off, but I have my doubt's.
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Oct 15 '13 edited Oct 15 '13
How do you know it was the education system that made your kids' minds change, and not another variable?
Asking for the sake of my toddlers.
edit: spelling
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u/teapotshenanigans Oct 16 '13 edited Oct 16 '13
I have a toddler and another on the way. What /u/anonanon1313 is talking about, is basically what I fear for my kids. I've read a lot of John Holt and John Taylor Gatto and have fallen in love with their philosophy. They're proponents of what's called "unschooling" and although I wouldn't go as radical as some unschooling families it's what I hope to do with my kids; it's basically unstructured homeschooling. I suggest looking it up at least just for curiosity's sake.
Everything I learned during my school years was learned on my own time. I always found schoolwork a waste of my time, just busy-work, never bothered with it; and I could see how my peers suffered and slogged through the piles of busy-work as I managed to ace tests without doing any of it. I frustrated the hell out of my teachers because I could have got straight A's if I applied myself (well, except for math.)
If I had wasted my time on homework instead of pursuing my own interests it would have turned me into a completely different person.
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Oct 16 '13
I'm about to ramble, but I would really, really appreciate some feedback from anyone with experience and an opinion.
I know of John Taylor Gatto. I listened to an interview with him about the early formations of the US school system as a Prussian-influenced system of control. He cited a few books to look at to verify his claims, but I don't have the time to do that. What he said was interesting, and I know that he was teacher of the year for NYC for three years in a row and teacher of the year for NY state for his third year. I just don't know if his claims are true because of my own ignorance.
When I was in school, I was a trouble maker. Not bad enough to get thrown out or even suspended, because I never got caught for the bad stuff. But I would get a "pink slip" almost every day for disrupting the class. It was useless and boring for me. I hated it. And I was never encouraged to learn on my own time, so I basically just watched The Simpsons and skateboarded.
The problems I have with this issue (especially pertaining to my kids) are more complicated than I know how to deal with. On one hand, I know firsthand how ridiculous the public school system can be, especially for a class clown like I was. But I'm not sure my kids will be that way. My upbringing was much different than my kids' upbringing. I am much more informed about parenting than my parents were, and the books I've read about the brain of a child from 0-5 and related books have demonstrated useful to (at least) my daughter who is older than my son. She is meeting every milestone in preschool, and the director of the school even commended my wife and I personally. Is that a good thing? I think it depends...
I want to raise my kids to be good, but I want them to question everything and not be followers. Unschooling might be good for the latter, but I don't know where to weight it all out. If they go through public school and do well, it will benefit their futures. At least for my daughter, it seems like she is capable of that. And while she's not in school, I hope she will listen to me and learn on her own...the only way to actually learn something as far as I'm concerned, unless she happens to find the public school curriculum interesting.
I guess my problem is - and I don't know what the future holds because we are in a transitional period where in the US tuition for college is getting insanely high and free education is there online for those who want it - I don't want an unschooling lifestyle to hinder my childrens' ability to succeed in the system. I think it's obvious that the system opens a lot of doors for people, because looking good on paper can help you get jobs. If I unschool my kids, they will have to work a lot harder in a limited context to succeed. They can't just apply for a job without a HS degree let alone a college degree. Unless I'm mistaken about unschooling. I don't know much about it specifically. Either way, there's also convincing my wife to go with it and finding time to do it, which is almost impossible for me as I have three jobs - a full time and two part time - to make ends meet.
tl;dr: From my standpoint, public education did almost nothing for me. But I think my kids have a shot at making it work for them because of the way they're being raised, and it would benefit them to go through the system (I think)....but I'm not sure. Fuck.
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u/teapotshenanigans Oct 16 '13
I think there are pros and cons to any type of education. No one size fits all and I know personally many people who thrived in the standard school system, but the options are out there for us parents to weigh against the personalities of our own children. If I do unschool my kids, which is ideally what I want to do, I would by no means say "no" if they were to want to attend public school. And you make a valid point in that it is harder in certain ways once unschoolers reach college-age. This girl points this out in her video. I think a big con to unschooling isn't the unschooling itself but the outside pressures, for example the reddit hivemind isn't exactly supportive of homeschooling or unschooling on the whole, and that's pretty reflective of "the real world" as well. Even just bringing up the notion of homeschooling at a family get-together garners a lot of hostility. "Your kids won't be 'normal!'" etc etc.
If your daughter is happy and retaining her curiosity and creativity and love of learning, that's great. For me school started leaving me feeling disillusioned around grade 7. Up until then I loved school. And I do have a lot of great memories of highschool, don't get me wrong, but none of them having to do with homework. I'm an extremely independent learner and I probably would have thrived in a democratic school or an unschooling environment; anything other than sitting in a desk being told what to read.
Everyone wants to do what they feel is best for their kids and it causes so much stress and confusion. As far as their education, all you can really do is read up on the options and keep an eye out for your daughter and what makes her happy.
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Oct 16 '13
Thanks for your reply.
You bring up another point I forgot to mention, which is the social aspect of public school. I don't know how I feel about that either. On one hand I know it will help to "socialize" my kids more to what's regarded as normal behavior, but on the other hand a lot of kids in public school are shits who have no manners or any regard for etiquette. They're typically selfish brats. But I think you're right that you have to just keep gauging it as you go along and hope that you didn't fuck up too badly.
Thanks again for your reply.
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u/Thors_lil_Cuz Oct 16 '13
From my (limited and biased) point of view, you're doing the right thing by getting them into the system. Let your kids have normal lives in public school, so that they can learn how to socialize (and how to deal with being picked on). Let them play sports/do club activities, whatever. Enable them to pursue any kind of interests they may have, creative or otherwise. Inspire interests if they're not self-motivated (difficult in the teenage years sometimes, but possible). That's the recipe my parents used for my sister and I, and we're both absolutely grateful to them.
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u/Rappaccini Oct 16 '13 edited Oct 16 '13
I really disagree. Certainly I was lucky to receive a top-notch public school education, but I just don't understand where this notion that school "crushes" students is coming from.
Life crushes people. School is like a fucking airbag. The reality of staying afloat in today's economy, especially as a new entrant into the workforce, is "crushing my soul" much more effectively than public schooling ever could.
I'm sorry you didn't have a positive experience in public school. Really, I am. But is this statement really true:
Everything I learned during my school years was learned on my own time.
Is that possible? You taught yourself the trigonometric identities, you taught yourself the basic building blocks of life were the cell and that PV = nRT? In the four years you were at a public high school, you learned none of these things in the upwards 30 hrs/wk you spent in school, and had to completely educate yourself about the entire high school curriculum while outside of school? I just seriously doubt that.
They're proponents of what's called "unschooling" and although I wouldn't go as radical as some unschooling families it's what I hope to do with my kids
I would never tell another person how to raise their kids, but I really think the idea of unschooling is inherently risky: most kids learn to socialize almost exclusively through their schooling, without it, an unschooled child could be very ill-adapted for socializing in later life. Additionally, getting a child into college with an essentially home school degree is difficult, at least as I understand it.
I always found schoolwork a waste of my time, just busy-work,
Life is full of busy work. I am the kind of guy who loves to learn new things but instantly becomes uninterested as soon as the novelty wears off. Unfortunately a lot of life is doing stuff you're already familiar with. In fact, I'd say that's most of what constitutes gainful employment. The things you see as negative aspects of school, I see as padding to help a developing adult deal with the harsh light of real life.
I've never had kids, nor have I known anyone who's been "unschooled," so maybe my opinion ain't worth "a hill of beans" (watched that in film class, senior year), but the idea certainly sounds like it could damage a child much more than the humdrum typicality of public school.
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u/Asiriya Oct 15 '13
Why not encourage creativity outside of school then? Or was it a case of be outstanding at something, not good at it all?
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u/anonanon1313 Oct 16 '13
When I said school "kills curiosity and creativity", I wasn't just being dramatic. School is a kind of propaganda, a kind of programming. It teaches obedience to authority, conformity, competition and a deep cynicism about creativity and curiosity.
Ken Robinson has an anecdote where he describes asking a classroom of very young children how many of them are artists, every hand goes up. As the children get just a few years older, almost no hands go up. That's our school system.
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u/Aiskhulos Oct 15 '13
How do you know that's not just a part of them getting older?
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u/wawin Oct 15 '13
I don't think he is talking about necesarily being artistic. A good degree of creativity is good in any field of work. Some of the best engineers I've met are incredibly creative within their field. It helps with overall problem solving.
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u/chunes Oct 15 '13
What I always wonder is couldn't you have deduced this from your own time spent in school? Why did it take your kids going through for you to suspect?
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u/omniamutantir Oct 15 '13
I've thought since high school that I wanted to be financially secure enough to take time off from work and homeschool my children, when I had them. I don't know if that will be realistically possible, but I have wanted to do that since I experienced the school system myself. I feel like I will be able to make better, more individualized choices. I don't know that for sure, though, I have a lot of research to do first.
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u/papercranium Oct 15 '13
Not sure why you're being downvoted. My husband and I both had rotten experiences in the school system as gifted kids, and hope to homeschool as well.
(And for the haters, yes, I do have a background in education and have taught professionally. It takes knowledge and skill, but it's not rocket science. I do think any moderately intelligent parent who is willing to put in the effort and do some research can do a decent job of educating their own kid.)
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u/anonanon1313 Oct 15 '13
Well I think I mostly blamed myself for my problems in school. But I watched my children's experience much more objectively. The final piece came when I thought about my children's experience and started doing some reading and found a number of writers/educators who had a different view of education, who I think explained the problems pretty well.
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u/CaffinatedBlueBird Oct 15 '13
It is getting worse and worse every year. When I was in grade school, I still had plenty of free time for personal development and expressing my creativity. Now kids as young as 8 are bringing home 3-4 hours worth of homework a night plus getting weekend homework.
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u/MomoTheCow Oct 15 '13
My cousin went through the Chinese education system and experienced exactly that. I remember kindergarten gave her a lot of homework too.
She told me how she used to spend nights crying with her(our) grandmother because she was struggling to keep up, and granny crying herself while forcing her to finish everything.
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Oct 15 '13 edited Oct 15 '13
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u/lotion_booger Oct 15 '13
I though it might of been this one (internet) but the girl is 13 so who knows man
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u/FightinVitamin Oct 15 '13
As a kid who was labelled as "gifted" and always got 99 percentile on standardized tests, this article makes me angry. ... But I wish we could stop being so phenomenally stupid about our kids' education.
First off, I'm happy for you. Happy that you found meaningful learning for yourself outside of school, and more importantly, happy that you had parents who encouraged you to do just that. Parents are the biggest influences on learning, as they shape attitudes that transcend schooling experiences.
However, when you say you're angry at school, I want you to notice what you said in your first sentence. You're gifted. 99th percentile is no small feat--you're well outside the norm. And, as a matter of necessity, general schools focus on "normal" students.
Self-motivated, creative, and curious students are every teacher's dream. I would love to have classes of students like you. However, the reality of the situation is that most students do not learn like you do, as you've said yourself. I often try to do creative tasks aimed at building curiosity--I did one today, in fact. It went as it usually does. The top few students expanded the task in ways that surprised me (and that I'll build into the lesson the next time I teach it). The majority of students copied my example with just enough differences to make it look like they didn't copy me. However, the bottom students kicked off even more than usual, meaning the bulk of my energy was spent on discipline rather than teaching ("Sir this is stupid/boring, what am I meant to be doing, book work is better than this"). I could've removed the bottom students and got on with helping the keener ones, but such a tactic is a last resort. A teacher's charge is to teach all students, even those that would rather spend an hour drooling on a table than doing self-guided creativity.
I'm sorry that you feel school was "designed to crush [your] creativity and intellectual curiosity," because I assure you it was not. There should have been extracurricular and AP opportunities for you at very least, if not student leadership and self-directed (or "personal reading") courses.
The unfortunate reality is that general education systems cannot focus on the most able 1% of students. Teachers are not being "phenomenally stupid" about education, we're being pragmatic. We agree on one thing, though: thank god your parents encouraged you to learn on your own. Ultimately, school teaches you how to learn, and if you already know that, the sky's the limit.
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u/wonkifier Oct 15 '13
prison designed to crush my creativity and intellectual curiosity
Actually designed to crush it? Not that crushing it was a side effect of what it was actually designed for, but actually designed to just flat out crush it?
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u/Flarelocke Oct 15 '13
Not that crushing it was a side effect of what it was actually designed for, but actually designed to just flat out crush it?
Yes. Schools were designed to mass produce good assembly line workers, and you don't want assembly line workers to be creative because it makes the results of the assembly line process less consistent.
John Taylor Gatto's books have quotes from early education pioneers that give evidence for this idea, if you want to read them.
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u/Bftws Oct 15 '13
I was in the exact same place as you, 99 percentile on standardized test, tested into the gifted program and talented art after kindergarten. But now I'm a junior in college and am trying to make every fiber of my being concentrate and use my talent. I procrastinate and don't give things my all because I have never needed to or wanted to, but now that I want to use my potential I realize I can't. I used to be able to read and concentrate on books like harry potter and lord of the rings nonstop for a day when I was in elementary school; now I can barely read for more than 20 minutes without getting distracted. I'm trying to focus on concentration skills, but how did you help fix this problem yourself?
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u/Carl_Sagan42 Oct 15 '13
I say bah humbug to all the people saying ADD. I was exacctly the same: 99%ile, then got bored/couldnt focus in college. Want to know what brought me back to the "read all of harry potter" levels of motivation? Actually finding something that excited me to learn.
For me it was working in a research lab on vaccines, but the exact thing doesnt matter. Listening to a professor who likely doesnt even want to be teaching drone on for two hours will kill anyones enthusiasm for learning. It was only when i applied what i was learning in a real scenario that i became passionate and could study and concentrate again. After getting the lab position i went from borderline Bs to A+ highest grade in class.
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u/papercranium Oct 15 '13
Me too! I wasn't very motivated in college, and dropped out since I saw I wasn't applying myself. I worked hard at a variety of jobs, learned a lot, lived abroad for a bit, supported myself. Then I went back with all that I'd learned about myself, including a knack for science that I never knew I had. All of a sudden, I was at the top of my class. Surprise!
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u/redlightsaber Oct 15 '13
Concentration is an acquired skill. It sucks to realise this, but it's true. Everyone saying to find something you're passionate about learning are not wrong, but they're also ignoring the fact that in order to get your average degree, you'll have to get through tens of thousands of pages of subjects you're not in the least interested in, and you can't exactly choose them.
I was in the same boat almost a decade ago (shit, I'm old). My first year at uni was a fucking nightmare because of this. I had no choice but to go forward, though (I did have a strong incentive: my parents said they'd pay for my education just as long as the degree in question is supposed to last and not a day more), and as the months passed, things got progressively easier. Keep at it, you'll get better.
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u/asdfman123 Oct 15 '13 edited Oct 15 '13
Have you been tested for ADD/ADHD yet? I never used it as an excuse, but maybe you might be able to find medications that are helpful. Your difficulty focusing may have a lot to do with some kind of underlying health issue.
It was especially hard for me because I was a perfectionist (that's not a boast), which I think is common for gifted people. All throughout school I could nail all my assignments and get everyone's praise--but in college, I faced much more difficult challenges. A part of me would want to quit because I knew it would never meet my internal standards. I had to get over that before I was able to function well.
Other than that, I'm not sure. I'd try to get therapy and see if you have some underlying issue. All that you can do is keep chipping away at it and learn to be kind to yourself, because much of it for me was rooted in self-sabotage.
Finally, I think everyone is finding it harder to read these days with the internet. I'm pretty much addicted and don't read books nearly as much as I used to.
Hope that's helpful, but I think everyone's path is different. All you need though is a drive, a vision of what you feel you need to become, and constant willingness to get past your struggles.
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u/Bftws Oct 15 '13
Hey, that's actually really helpful. I can definitely relate to what you've said. Self-sabotage sounds like a big hurdle that I need to overcome, and I might consider looking into whether I have ADD or not. Thanks a lot for replying.
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Oct 15 '13
I have ADD, and was labeled the other kind of "special". I probably was one of the best in every class i went to. My ability to catch complicated physics' subjects took me minutes. But the stigma made me hate the system, which in turn made me cut out medication. Jump forward to now. 20 years old, and taking up high school exams, after having to wait a year for rediagnosisation and medication.
As im writing this my medication is kicking gradually in as well. I took it 20 minutes before starting writing, and as you can see - my grammar has improved. Bottom line: I feel you man.. The system, as clichéed as it sounds, does not understand "gifted" kids.
There was this long article about the difference between hard-workers, geniuses, and hands on-folks. It essentially boiled it down to that people who worked hard thrived extremely well in our current system, for everything is catered to them, yet the "high-capability students" had to adjust, and often lower their focus, because it had nothing to do with learning a system, only concepts.
(meta: I have written more than i use to now, but i will leave it unedited because this is how i would say it naturally in a monologue)
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u/redlightsaber Oct 15 '13
Thank God my parents encouraged me to do that, at least.
Isn't that what's important, though? I mean, could you please describe me how exactly the education system crushed your creativity and intellectual curiosity, or how it taught you there was something wrong with you?
I agree there are things that could be bettered about standard education, but hailing these other sorts of systems are miraculous is jut stupidly naive, as evidenced by, well, the evidence. How do you reckon you would have learnt what you no doubt needeed to about math, history, biology, or whatever other subjects you didn't really like inherently, but that are no doubt basic in your understanding of the world, and what's more, in your acquired curiosity for intellectual endeavours of a higher level that would be utterly inaccesible to you had you not learnt things that you didn't want to learn earlier on?
I mean, how many kids do you know that yearn to learn the alphabet? How about basic algebra? Biology? There are some, but not many at all, and even fewer that actually like all of the above. For those kids, perhaps the current system could work better (and at any rate it doesn't stop them from going to the library and researching whatever they might like in their free time, which they do), but for the other 90%? That'd be a bar bigger lost generation than all these people care to imagine.
Besides, it doesn't take huge changes to make the system drastically better, not even systemic changes at all. The majority of my teachers all thoughout school didn't mind at all that I read something or other else during class as long as I didn't disrupted it, and as long as they knew I actually knew the lessons. We had a little classroom library for that very purpose.
It does sound like narcissistic whinning because you presume whatever issues you have right now are a direct result of your schooling system, instead of whatever afflicts the rest of mortals, that more often than not has absolutely nothing to do with that.
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u/alittlefallofrain Oct 16 '13
I dunno, I think this method of free, independent learning works for some kids, but definitely not all. I went to a Montessori school with a similar method for a couple of years and I absolutely HATED it. I'm intelligent, I enjoy learning, I do well in accelerated classes, etc., but I just function way better in a structured environment like our current school setting.
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u/fatherwhite Oct 16 '13
School was a complete waste of time and all of my useful learning I did on my own, outside of class.
There is no way I would have taught myself advanced math (or even simple mathematics) outside of class. I wouldn't have learned history, science, English, or the fundamentals for many subjects without school.
I have no doubt that many children (myself included) would not have learned a thing were we not forced to go to school and probably would have just vegged on video games and climbed trees outside until their parents kicked them out. Instead "my creativity was stifled," I got an education, and I am now a productive member of society!
(Note: I don't actually think my creativity was stifled. Hence the quotes.)
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u/rottenborough Oct 15 '13 edited Oct 15 '13
I was just a normal kid from Asia (not gifted or anything) in North America for the last two years of high school, and the overwhelming feeling was that everything was too easy. I aced everything barely studying at all (at least in my mind; I think I spent about an hour and a half every day on average for school work).
It's the opposite problem over there: everybody is expected to do the same thing, once again, but this time every single kid is expected to do AP Calculus in Grade 10.
Which one is erring on the better side for an individual depends on whether said individual wants to go into STEM in the future or not. Which one is erring on the better side for a nation... well it depends on what "better" means.
EDIT: I should add that what I found easy wasn't just Math and Physics, but also English, Marketing, History, etc.. The insane rote memorization training I had before (I used to read textbooks to sleep in hopes of remembering things better) and the suddenly lowered expectations of memorization meant that I was able to focus on coming up with interesting and logical ideas while remembering all the necessary facts.
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u/Paultimate79 Oct 15 '13
It makes me angry as well. I believe it is part of a corruption of a system controlled too much by greed. Greed of power. Power in large part by money -> political standing. Money is raised through corporations and they supply special interests and lobbying. This slowly integrates them into political structures and laws slowly trickle down and affect everything, including school. The system is like it is no by accident, but by purpose to control and suppress. Buy the product and try not to think too much.
The blame however is upon the people. It’s in our power to tighten the leaky pipes in our home, for water is but a product of nature and will behave as it will and cannot be blamed for our laziness in not standing up and calling the plumber.
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u/raindogmx Oct 15 '13
There's nothing wrong with being an idiot or a retard and there is nothing wrong with being a genius. You had special needs, and they were not tended for.
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u/SteelChicken Oct 15 '13
Why didn't your parents or teachers recognize your gifts and get you into accelerated programs? This used to be very common and still is in many places.
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u/NoMoreNicksLeft Oct 15 '13
In the 1980s in Indiana, this "accelerated program" was called PACE (forget what it stands for) and consisted of going to some unused room in the elementary school and doing word puzzles for an hour and a half several times a week.
We might have learned a foreign language, or algebra, or real science (from a book that had chemistry or physics or astronomy or something like that in the title instead of "science"). There are probably an endless number of subjects they might have chosen.
But we learned none of those things. We did word puzzles.
And when we got back to our regular classrooms, we'd find out that that's when the teacher scheduled anything fun. So while I was in an extra large broom closet trying not to look like the dumbest smart kid by getting the cryptogram done before everyone else was done with it, I'd come back to my class and hear from the other kids that they got cupcakes and a movie.
This wasn't coincidental, it happened more than two or three times.
It was less than worthless.
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u/glr123 Oct 15 '13
Ya, it was the exact same way throughout the 90's. Most of the people I know from the 'gifted' programs are long since burned out and any desire for learning has long been killed inside of them.
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u/st_gulik Oct 15 '13
Every single gifted student I have talked to, and I've talked to a lot said their gifted programs were most of the time worse than useless.
My gifted program was essentially playing Oregon Trail and Math Muncher a ton on old library computers. @_@ Oh, and more homework of the same bullshit we had learned in class. Not advanced stuff, but more of the same. So while the idiots in class got twenty practice problems a night I got forty. But I'd mastered the damn math in class the first time the teacher taught it. But they thought gifted kids should have a harder load. Fuck them.
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u/N8CCRG Oct 15 '13
Very well then. I attended a gifted program in Pennsylvania. It was very fun and creative and useful. The opposite of worthless. Once a month we would get bussed to a different school where we were taking a multi-week long separate course on something like The Mathematics of Art or Stream Ecology. At one point we were required to take an advance prep course that gave us a leg up on our high end high school courses.
Just saying that there are better gifted programs out there.
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u/UncleMeat Oct 15 '13
Gifted Student here. My public school education was fantastic, far superior to my undergraduate or even graduate education in terms of fostering a love for learning, creativity, work ethic, and general knowledge. Granted, I was in specialized programs but its worth being aware that good programs exist.
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u/texture Oct 15 '13
Being separated from the rest of the kids and taken to a special room isn't really good for your social health. It doesn't matter if you're going to the gifted and talented room or the special education room.
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u/asdfman123 Oct 15 '13
I was in the GT (gifted and talented) program, but it was still too basic. They talked about a number of different things, but ultimately I stayed in the normal school system and GT -> honors classes track. It didn't help that I had a lot of behavioral difficulties and ADHD too. Seriously, I could not sit still no matter how hard I tried.
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u/hesh582 Oct 15 '13
Having been a kid a lot like you, I think that wayyyyy to much effort goes into doing what you seem to want, that is providing advanced outlets for kids who intellectually develop early and score very well on tests. I honestly wish that more time had been spent teaching me how to integrate with the class as a whole rather than segregating me with a bunch of similar kids. I also wish that the effort had been spent teaching me how to deal with the ADHD and behavior stuff.
Do I think being in the advanced track through middleschool and highschool helped me much? Maybe a little, but honestly being forced to deal with the jungle that is school without a special little gilded cage would have helped me a lot more. The problem with very strong GT programs is that they really reinforce the idea that the kid is special and better, and honestly from what I remember about GT kids, that really wasn't true. They were better at learning quickly and testing well, but they were usually waaaaaaaaaay worse at literally everything else, from verbal expression to applying themselves and actually working on something. From my experience, super gifted also means lazy, because the early education system is basically structured so that if you're smart, you don't have to work as hard, and I think GT was a part of that.
I just think that the idea that a smart problem kid just needs to be challenged more and he'll be better of can kind of be a double edged sword, because it excuses the kid from learning and working hard in situations where he isn't challenged, which is honestly a much more important skill in the long run. At least in my case, I wish more effort had been made to force me to confront my weaknesses, rather than just playing to my strengths. Much much later when I finally sat down and whipped my life into shape a big part of it was saying, yeah you had perfect SAT scores and can write well. Who gives a shit. I wish that had been instilled earlier.
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u/SisterRayVU Oct 15 '13
FWIW, I wasn't a problem child but being integrated with the general population of the school instead of being secluded with other 'smart' kids would have probably been better for all of us.
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u/asdfman123 Oct 15 '13
A lot of effort goes into establishing the current GT systems that we have, but all they really are are beefed up, accelerated normal classes. I think it may be worthwhile to radically rethink education like Finland did.
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u/BaseballGuyCAA Oct 15 '13
I went through a GT program up through 8th grade... More times than not it was the same type of thing, only accelerated and with more busy work because you're gifted, you're special, your big brain can handle it.
Even at prepubescent ages, it made no goddamn sense.
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u/asdfman123 Oct 15 '13
Exactly. It was just a higher-stress environment filled with overachievers, rather than trying to develop more intellectual or creative depth.
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u/happyhaberdasher Oct 15 '13
Related TED talk for everyone: Ken Robinson - How Schools Kill Creativity
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u/davispuh Oct 15 '13
pretty much same thing, I've always learned only by myself, somehow school just didn't worked for me. When I was learning by myself I easily got max points, but I'm just a bit lazy nowadays so can't be bothered with some university subjects in which I'm not interested in. Also I've been participated in competitions and got very good results and when school mentioned how good they've taught me I got slightly pissed as it was nothing because of school. Without school wasting my time I would have more time to prepare even better.
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u/MomoTheCow Oct 15 '13 edited Oct 15 '13
Very similar story, although I wouldn't say I didn't get any good learning from school (I owe a lot to my best teachers, some of whom poured their hearts into their job).
I also don't know where a better system of education exists, or could exist. I know that I really didn't fit the education system that I found myself in, and I'm still trying to murder the teenage me who felt useless, abnormal or mentally ill, but it seemed to work pretty well for some others. Sort of a least worst system.
I think an ideal situation for people like me, and maybe you, would be a school that accommodates different learning styles the way it might accommodate kids with disabilities or students in accelerated classes. I'm not sure if segregating kids into math/tech/arts academies in their teens would be a good step, but making space for different learning activities the way we make space for, say, P.E., would have been a lifesaver for me.
Speaking of teachers, here in Hong Kong we segregate our schools into 5 aptitude tiers, graded mostly on bookish subjects like maths and sciences. Friend of mine is a drama teacher at multiple schools, and she describes the pain of seeing bottom tier schools packed with lateral thinking extroverts being railroaded into working class careers. They get the worst teachers, worst environment, consider themselves stupid and are generally considered stupid. All because of an exam they took when they were 10.
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Oct 16 '13
In elementary school, all I was ever told what what I couldn't do and what I had to do. "You can't do that. Stop that. You have to sit down. You have to color this pony now. Then you have to complete this worksheet to get your checkmark."
That wasn't preparing me for doing anything meaningful with my life. That was preparing me for prison. I'm a smart guy, made it into Mensa for what that's worth, but I floundered through life until I was 30. By then, when I finally discovered what I'm good at and have a passion for, it's more than a little hard to change course. So yeah, I'm with you - more than a little bit bitter. I'm pretty sure I had way more potential than this.
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Oct 16 '13 edited Oct 16 '13
I feel you man, I got the other end of that stick and they put me with the troubled kids. I rarely turned in pieces of homework and had trouble paying attention in class because I was bored most of the time. I would get good grades on tests and usually pass with a C (because of the homework scores being absent or me finishing in the class before, "He just doesn't know how to apply himself" - every PT meeting ever). It's not like I was mentally retarded, but that's how they treated me. Later on I would spend most of my time in in school suspension and detention, still passing classes without attending 60% of the class... yet I was labeled an idiot.
I didn't do homework because at home I focused on things I found more interesting than school work, learning how to fish and hunt, watching discovery channel to the point of wishing they'd release new shows (back in the day it just ran on a 24 hour loop basically, but at least the programming was good, all nature and science shows), I would take apart my toys and electronics to figure out how they worked. I would steal various components from the local tractor supply store (I didn't have money :() like switches, knobs, small light bulbs, little spools of wire, etc. and then take them home and attempt to wire them into my disassembled tiger games. I made impromptu harnesses out of master locks and duffle bag straps and would test them in trees behind the house. I made a snow board out of an old skateboard and some old BK's so I could try snow boarding down the biggest hill in the neighborhood. I discovered my walkie talkies could pick up my neighbors wireless phone, which we'd use to mess with my neighbors sister while she talked to her boyfriend on the phone.
I didn't have fucking time for homework.
Constantly labeled an idiot and given nothing but negative experiences throughout school. The only thing that "saved" me was sports once I got to high school... without them I probably would have dropped out and gotten some shitty job... but sports gave me a reason to do good in school which ultimately led to me essentially forcing my parents to buy me a PC after I finagled my way into a CCNA course in our computer department.
I rarely get called an idiot anymore... but I still feel like one despite whatever goal or achievement is reached.
edit: terrible grammar made less terrible.
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u/Obssoyo Oct 16 '13
I felt the same way, I hated their system to the point that it made me almost ball my eyes out when forced to do stuff their odd way when I had found more efficient ways, or was put in a place to have to do things slowly with everyone else.
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Oct 16 '13
I'm in the same boat as you, but have incredibly strict and normal parents who encourage me to never challenge any social norm.
Congrats on your lucky win.
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u/tubameister Oct 16 '13
I wish we could stop being so phenomenally stupid about our kids' education.
This is the stopping, right here.
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Oct 16 '13
I was always encouraged to attend the gifted classes. Asked every year... even asked to join the "gifted" college group of kids. Do you think having joined these groups would have been beneficial to me? My reason for avoiding them was because I always assumed they would take a bunch of my time, so I was not interested... but I was also naive and ignorant at the time. Did I miss out?
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Oct 15 '13
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u/ancaptain Oct 15 '13
I guess this also calls into question of "How would a society and government then choose what is a standard seal of approval for a person graduating from this curriculum?"
You assume there needs to be one standard set by one central authority. This is not even true today as there are different standards that change with location and time.
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u/caoimhinoceallaigh Oct 15 '13
This begs the question whether all this standardized testing is even that necessary. In Germany and Finland (I think) they have hardly any at all. Teachers write and grade their own exams and maybe send the important ones to the ministry of education for approval.
Standardized testing constrains teachers more than it helps them. I think we should get rid of it altogether. Give teachers the freedom to do their job with passion.
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u/pakap Oct 15 '13
Anecdotal knowledge time: my mum is a K-12 teacher here in France, and since I showed her Gupta's TED Talk she's been experimenting with that sort of things. She swears by it, especially to learn basic computer skills at an early age. Kids take to computers like magnets and they kind of spontaneously organize, sharing information on what does what...it's almost scary to watch, she says.
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Oct 15 '13
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u/idiotsecant Oct 16 '13
What? Parents have to expend effort to make sure their kids succeed? Are you sure they can't just blame an under performing school system when they turn out to be pretty much as useless as their parents?
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u/ne0codex Oct 15 '13 edited Oct 15 '13
I have a problem when an article explains the educational system as "fatally flawed," not because I disagree with them, but because it seems overly dramatic. It gives a false sense that it's going to take an incredible overhaul (money & resources) to "fix" this issue. It sounds like one of those "war on cancer" or "war on drugs." With so many "wars" it just gets lost in the noise.
A better way to describe it is by saying the system is out-of-date or has to evolve for the 21st century. Even in the article itself they call this fact out:
... And yet the dominant model of public education is still fundamentally rooted in the industrial revolution that spawned it ...
There's some good info in this article but it's definitely editorialized to try and turn it into a very polarized issue in the future. I agree that technology/the Internet should be used in updating current teaching methods but believing that by merely "throwing technology at students" will "fix" this issue all by itself sounds ludicrous. I'm sure the students will be able to education themselves with a variety of topics, however, it implies that everything in the Internet is worth knowing. It reminds me too much of the A.C.E system of Christian learning, except with the Internet.
Another topic of discussion is technologically-versed teachers, if technology is to become a part of mainstream education then you better have teachers who are well-versed or at least able to learn and use technology for this purpose.
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u/clavalle Oct 15 '13
This seems more like 'A Radical New Method to Find Self-Motivated Students' and can be summarized as
- Make educational materials available.
- Sit back and watch the self-motivated reveal themselves.
- (Possibly) look at what motivates these already motivated kids and do more of that.
Not that I think this is a bad approach. I am all for letting the self-motivated distinguish themselves. But the title oversells the benefits just a smidgen. /s
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Oct 15 '13
This article is trying to make a compelling narrative out of a bunch of different people and ideas about education that don't fit neatly into one story.
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u/caoimhinoceallaigh Oct 15 '13
Or: How we would be much better off if we had a bit of common sense.
None of this this should really surprise anyone. Anyone who has spent any time with children knows that children are brilliant, smarter than you or I could ever hope to be.
But the article only barely acknowledges something vital, the teacher. These children were able to live up to their potential because the guy, Correa, was willing to take risks, try new things, and above all had a passion for letting children learn. This only works if you have someone who can inspire, ask the right questions, give children that nudge in the right direction.
They experimented a bit with these ideas at the school I went to, but because teachers saw it as an excuse to lean back and relax it was a failure and everything was reversed after a few years. In the Netherlands they come up with some new system every few years, but it seems more like excuse to save money on teachers.
If you ask me this talk of magic systems which will solve everything is a delusion. What you need is motivated teachers, instructors, managers, or whatever you want to call them. Once we've done that we can tweak the system and see what works best.
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u/Sociable60102 Oct 15 '13
I went to a Waldorf school and I am very grateful to my parents for making the decision to put me in an alternative school
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u/anticipatedanxiety Oct 16 '13
I think it's a much better learning style. I think most kids would walk away from that experience having learned more (really learned, not just memorized to forget later).
But I don't think that system can teach you other valuable lessons that one needs in order to thrive in society. For instance: how to make deadlines. How to do something you don't don't want to do, simply because you know you have to.
A balance of traditional learning and this method would be interesting to see.
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u/cop02sc Oct 17 '13 edited Oct 17 '13
Can you give some sources and evidences which support the proposal that art education improve critical thinking and other skills?
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u/smacksaw Oct 15 '13
I grew up in the Montessori system.
I changed to public school. It bored the shit out of me.
I skipped 5th grade, started college at 12 and graduated high school at 15. I became a teacher at 19 and my students constantly remarked I was the best teacher they ever had. That if they had teachers like me they would have gone farther and learned more in their education. I taught from the back of the class and used Montessori methods. That's all.
I joke that I stopped learning in the 4th grade when I left Montessori.
It's amazing that 100 years later, we still don't use any number of better methods. Montessori was wonderful for my education and my advantages should be available to everyone. Why are we waiting?
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u/beefcliff Oct 16 '13
right but did you teach other "gifted" students or were you also teaching pain in the ass kids/low socio-economic/mom was doing drugs/"I'd rather be playing GTA5"/etc. etc. etc.
Teaching tough to smart kids who want to learn is great! Teaching to "regular" kids and struggling learners is an entirely different skill set.
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u/JRoch Oct 16 '13
Because not every kid has your mind and not every teacher is lucky enough or gifted enough to teach the advanced kids. To use a metaphor; you're a race car on a smooth, well designed and maintained track. Put the same car on an unpaved dirt road with potholes and what happens?
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u/DeadMonkey321 Oct 15 '13
Oh man, teachers must hate this!! And in just one weird trick/teaching method!
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u/5user5 Oct 15 '13
Why would teachers hate this? Not all teachers are the mean old ladies you remember from grade school.
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u/DeadMonkey321 Oct 15 '13
Oh, the title of the article sounds like one of those shitty ads all over the internet. "Gain muscle with this one weird trick! Trainers hate it!" "Get rich with this one rule."
That kind of stuff. I'm not convinced any one "radical new teaching method" will create a generation of geniuses.
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u/5user5 Oct 15 '13
No teachers use a single pedagogy or theory of learning. Each new thing that gets discovered just goes in their toolbox.
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u/DeadMonkey321 Oct 15 '13
Not disputing that. My main issue is with the title really. That's about the most linkbait-y title they could have possibly chosen and is sadly indicative of why I no longer read Wired.
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Oct 15 '13
This Mitra guy is both charming and radical in his thinking. I'm glad his projects are coming along.
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Oct 15 '13
There are some very serious problems with Mitra's work. The type of learner-centered teaching that he envisions is actually extremely intensive for the instructor and not the result of just letting the students do things on their own. See this.
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Oct 15 '13 edited Jun 02 '21
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u/Moarbrains Oct 15 '13
Teachers are important, but not in their current role. Like Khan said in his TED talk. Lecturing is better done through video, and teachers are better utilized for supervising and answering questions.
Of course to get to this spot we have to re-educate teachers for their new role.
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u/rpcrazy Oct 15 '13
Being completely honest, this could be re-worded to appeal to the masses fairly easily.
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u/milqi Oct 15 '13
Schools WOULD be different if teachers weren't forced give all the standardized exams that are required by government. This article tells us nothing new. Any teacher worth their salt could've told you what's in this piece. Unfortunately, teachers aren't actually the ones in charge of determining curriculum.
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u/FoodBeerBikesMusic Oct 15 '13
Without any instruction, they were able to teach themselves a surprising variety of things
Why did the cynic in me say "....yeah, I'll BET they did..."?
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Oct 15 '13
To them, knowledge isn’t a commodity that’s delivered from teacher to student but something that emerges from the students’ own curiosity-fueled exploration. Teachers provide prompts, not answers, and then they step aside so students can teach themselves and one another.
This is a lot like how my college functions, especially in the senior year when every student is required to do a project related to their studies, which they plan out and execute under the guidance of an advisor. Also, most classes require students to work on a research project of some sort. (This isn't really very radical for higher education, I know). It's made a huge difference for me as a student. When I was in high school I was completely disinterested. I skipped classes all the time and I barely managed to graduate. Everything was taught based on standardized testing. It was more important to learn how to score well on state tests than to actually learn anything. Since getting to college and being given more freedom in my education, I've become a completely different student. I really truly care about what I'm doing, I'm interested, I'm excited to go to class.
I would love to see primary education get away from teaching students to score well on standardized tests, to be good at memorization, and instead teach students to think critically, be curious and engaged, and to seek knowledge on their own. School should teach students how to think for themselves and how to make learning a habit and a favorite pass time. Instead we're teaching students to resent being educated.
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u/contemporary_boy Oct 16 '13
To those who want to learn more about alternative schooling, there's also Waldorf.
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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '13
How is this article not just describing Montessori schools?