
School is a prison and damaging our kids - gz5
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/26/school_is_a_prison_and_damaging_our_kids/
======
tokenadult
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](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4728123)

[2] [http://learninfreedom.org/](http://learninfreedom.org/)

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

~~~
pekk
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'.

~~~
tokenadult
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.

~~~
logjam
Oh for fuck sakes, your spin that homeschooling is mostly "culturally diverse,
community-involved, and intellectually curious" is really getting old.

Even with your anecdotal assertions, do you really, really expect us to
believe that you're unaware of the number of parents in this country who home-
school their kids largely if not solely to prevent access to such dreaded
concepts as, oh.... _evolution_ :

"Christian-based materials dominate a growing home-school education market
that encompasses more than 1.5 million students in the U.S. And for most home-
school parents, a Bible-based version of the Earth's creation is exactly what
they want. Federal statistics from 2007 show 83% of home-schooling parents
want to give their children "religious or moral instruction. "The majority of
home-schoolers self-identify as evangelical Christians," said Ian Slatter, a
spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association. "Most home-schoolers
will definitely have a sort of creationist component to their home-school
program.""

[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-03-08-home...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-03-08-home-
school-christian_N.htm)

In what way is homeschooling to suit a parent's utter stupidity _not_ a
prison?

~~~
zdean
1) tokenadult doesn't make any generalizations about the homeschooling
community at large. He simply shares his personal homeschooling experience and
rational for pursuing it.

2) what difference does it make if 99% of the early adopters are ultra-right
wing, conservative Christian creationists? If homeschooling my kids gives them
the best environment to develop academically and socially, why should it
affect my decision to know the motivation of everyone else that's doing it?

~~~
sanderjd
Ignoring (1), the difference (2) makes is that some people believe public-
schooling to be a lesser evil than the probability of home-schooling being
indoctrination instead of education, and those people tend to be in favor of
policies making it more difficult for parents to have complete control over
the home-schooling of their children, which home-schooling proponents like
tokenadult are typically (understandably!) opposed to.

~~~
knewter
The fact that homeschooling is referred to as indoctrination when compared
with public schooling sickens me. I can't really think of many more poorly
designed systems than (1) a popularly elected government, who (2) controls
what its future voters are taught.

As engineers, this should be an easy point to take hold of. How is the
publicly elected government planning curriculum somehow less indoctrination
than a parent doing the same?

~~~
sanderjd
Well, in my view, it's similar to how we manage a publicly elected government
planning laws; we set up an adversarial system with different actors with
different incentives all having a voice in the process. So federal government
entities have a (admittedly, too loud IMO) voice, but so do local community
school districts and the parents that go to their meetings and argue with
them. This system acts to sort of filter whatever indoctrination is happening
through the lens of all the people that were involved in the process. For
better or worse, there is no such filter with home-schooling, it can be purely
what the parents think best.

------
jstalin
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
_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.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
_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.

~~~
batemanesque
a white supremacist w/ 1865 karma: congratulations, HN!

~~~
Daniel_Newby
This is a discussion of science. Kindly take your partisan political posturing
elsewhere.

The science on IQ shows that European Jews > far east Asians > Caucasians >
Africans. There is still some uncertainty about the exact numbers and
rankings, but there is zero controversy about the existence of the
intelligence hierarchy.

In a few years we will resurrect the Neanderthals, who had larger brains than
any living human race. It is entirely possible that in 50 years they will be
winning all the physics Nobel prizes.

~~~
yimmer
An extremely basic knowledge of statistics would show you that for a set of
overlapping bell curves with a reasonably sized standard deviation, a
difference of a few percent in the median is far too little to make a
statement like "Group X > Group Y" on with a straight face. Most people you'd
pick at random from any group will be fairly average, and geniuses are
uncommon, but exist, in all the groups. Even differences of a standard
deviation are fairly trivial compared to the differences that exist within
each group; it's not like intelligence medians vary by 5 standard deviations
between ethnic groups within one country...

Needless to say, a black Nobel laureate such as
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_William_Arthur_Lewis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_William_Arthur_Lewis)
is vastly more intelligent than the median member of any ethnic group...

Underprivileged students from minority backgrounds can do quite well at
calculus - some teachers, like
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Escalante](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Escalante)
, dedicated years to trying, with quite impressive results. This has been
demonstrated again and again at schools with poor track records. Simply having
a competent teacher and an environment that isn't entirely hostile to learning
can do far more than many people tend to realize.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
The original question was whether one-size-fits-all classrooms can work.

 _Most people you 'd pick at random from any group will be fairly average, and
geniuses are uncommon, but exist, in all the groups._

Our civilization has come this far by cultivating genius. A billion average
people sweeping floors will never discover penicillin or invent the
transistor. And geniuses are radically less common in some groups.

 _An extremely basic knowledge of statistics would show you that for a set of
overlapping bell curves with a reasonably sized standard deviation, a
difference of a few percent in the median is far too little to make a
statement like "Group X > Group Y" on with a straight face._

Genius lies at the upper end of the spectrum, where the normal curve drops off
steeply. A small difference between group averages becomes a huge difference
at the top end, thanks to the steepness. It is basic statistics that the
elites are dominated by whatever groups have a small advantage at the average.
(This is why airlines are so paranoid about quality control. If a company lets
its average slip a little, it will kill most of the people who die in air
travel, which turns out to really hurt bookings even if their average is a
zillion times safer than cars.)

So if you design classrooms to "leave no Group Y child behind"—as the U.S. has
done—you will necessarily leave behind _all Group X elites_. Thus answering
the original question of whether uniform education works.

Yes, there are African geniuses. The problem is that they are really, really
rare. So rare that a typical school has _zero_ of them.

~~~
yimmer
Obviously, one size fits all classrooms don't work - but this must not be used
as an excuse to further existing inequalities. I hear a lot more horror
stories about people being discouraged from sufficiently challenging material
than being pushed into it -
[http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1lrvit/what_memor...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1lrvit/what_memory_from_school_still_makes_you_rage/)
has a lot of examples, to pick one random internet thread from this week. One
thing that we can fully agree on is that NCLB is horrible policy. Uniform
education, with no catering to the genuine interests and capacities, is
stupid; only a few alternatives, like not educating the majority of people, or
basing education on statistical arguments about amorphous groups rather than
individual merit, are stupider.

Our civilizations, for the most part, don't cultivate genius, unfortunately.
And geniuses aren't radically less common in some groups, unless you mean
groups like "people who suffered severe childhood malnutrition". Normal
schools aren't really set up to deal with people with IQs more than a standard
deviation, or perhaps two standard deviations, from the norm.

If you define genius to be an IQ of 160+, and model it as a Gaussian with a
standard deviation of 15, most schools have no geniuses of any race. If you
take a more-reasonable fat-tailed distribution, many schools still don't.

My personal, anecdotal bias: the best school I went to was quite small, and
had several geniuses - including a black one. There weren't many black kids,
but the ones who were there were exceptional; I wouldn't be surprised if they
had the highest average IQ of any ethnic group at the school (and yes, there
were plenty of Asian and Jewish students, from several countries).

------
newbie12
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.

~~~
wyclif
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.

~~~
pekk
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.

~~~
wyclif
Perhaps you should try reading the article and my comment for context, because
it's apparent you didn't understand them. I'm saying that Gray is demonstrably
wrong about authoritarianism wrt the Reformation, because the Church was _not_
above criticism. The article, and my comment, was on-topic in that regard.

------
zwieback
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.

~~~
mattm
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)

~~~
vacri
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.

~~~
Mgccl
How about "Math beyond arithmetic is not important at all for the vast
majority of adults today."

~~~
vacri
No, because as I said, learning statistics has helped my critical thinking
improve - and that's something _everyone_ needs. There was even an example in
my comment regarding reduced susceptibility to yellow journalism, which can
only be a positive to both the individual and society in general.

------
mathattack
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.

~~~
craigyk
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.

~~~
jug6ernaut
> 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.

~~~
mathattack
But wasn't a lot of money wasted on all those other years? Or are you
suggesting that you need to waste that money for each classroom teacher to
reach 1 or 2 a year? (And eventually everyone gets caught)

~~~
jug6ernaut
No i would not say so. Just like any other profession there are those who are
better and worse. I am not saying that these other teachers did a bad job,
hell a lot of them were great teachers. What i am saying is that even if they
had been bad, it would not have made much of a difference as those few awesome
teachers had already instilled in me what it takes to learn.

I am of the opinion that if someone wants to learn, they will. But i also
think it can take someone who tells you, shows you, and helps get to that
point so you can know that its possible.

------
the_watcher
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
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.

~~~
tokenadult
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_watcher
Agreed. It's just the standard top-X list for law schools. The point of
referencing it wasn't to give them credibility.

------
eli_gottlieb
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!".

~~~
echohack
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.

~~~
L_Rahman
> 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.

------
16s
If the goal is to teach kids to shut up, sit down and get in line, then it
works as expected.

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

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I'd call that a critique of civilized society.

~~~
unimpressive
Fielding a viable military, as one example, does require some amount of
discipline in your troops. Fielding a 21st century military will require even
more of it, if the model predicted by the Rand company I read about in a book
on Special Operations is anything to go by. (Small teams that group together
to complete objectives and then disband to avoid becoming a target.)

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Except that society doesn't need every single citizen in the military. Even we
Israelis only need _most_ people in the army for a few years rather than going
to total war.

~~~
anigbrowl
It's true in lots of work situations besides the military. Also, taking turns
to let other people speak and doing things in an orderly fashion is the basis
of legislative and court proceedings, as well as more basic things like not
driving your car on the sidewalk or ignoring red traffic lights. My personal
opinion is that humans in groups tend to engage in lowest-common-denominator
behavior by default, and hierarchical structures are useful for preventing
crowds from degenerating into mobs.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I don't see any actual links between being able to run a competent government,
being able to drive properly, and being inculcated to have "sit down and shut
up" as your chief response to most of life.

~~~
anigbrowl
_You can 't say that living in civilized society doesn't require [the ability
to sit down and shut up] at times._

...is a far cry from 'as your chief response to most of life.'

------
cphuntington97
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.

~~~
ArtDev
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.

~~~
Wingman4l7
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.

------
gkoberger
One of pg's best articles talks about this:

[http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html](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.

------
jsnk
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.

~~~
RougeFemme
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
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_says_schools_kill_creativity.html)

[http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_educatio...](http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education_s_death_valley.html)

~~~
aray
And obligatory PG essay on schools-as-prisons:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html)

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

------
jimiray
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_watcher
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.

------
tekalon
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

~~~
Zigurd
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.

~~~
tekalon
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.

------
unimpressive
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.

~~~
john_b
"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.

------
dccoolgai
>"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...

------
hawkharris
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.

~~~
danielweber
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.

~~~
Wingman4l7
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.

------
debacle
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
_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...](http://www.salon.com/2013/08/25/i_taught_at_the_worst_school_in_texas/)

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.

~~~
debacle
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).

------
socrates1998
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.

------
jessaustin
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.

~~~
ArtDev
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.

------
chollida1
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.

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

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

~~~
the_watcher
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)

~~~
hosh
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.

~~~
the_watcher
It wasn't presented as breaking news. Salon is not the Associated Press, but a
long form journalism publication. Also, if he never read Gatto, he still could
have reached the same conclusion.

~~~
hosh
Heheheh, I find your comments interesting. I am not sure why you feel a need
to defend the author's honor. I bring up Gatto's work because his conclusion
is more far-reaching and in-depth than what this author wrote about in his
article.

In any case, according to some of the other comments here, this journalist is
less a journalist and more of an author who has done his own research and
wrote an extensive book about it. In a way, the article promotes his book, or
at least, it promotes his views.

Which, if true, would make the failure to cite Gatto's book even more
interesting. It's possible that he did all this in-depth research and wrote a
book without having once come across Gatto. I find that unlikely though, but
hey, the world's a pretty big place. Lots of strange things are possible.

Speaking of "ground breaking", I've been reading something about the education
system in ancient Sumer. I am not sure if they had compulsory education in
Sumer, but they certainly have a sort of disciplinary-based education system
that is eerily similar to our modern one. The connection is described in
Gatto's book. The US compulsory education system was created and patterned off
of the Hindu education system, one where a single upper-caste Brahamin can
control a large classroom of lower-caste students. (The implication being, as
this author has found out, the US education system is more about control and
indoctrination and less about being given the knowledge and rational tools so
one can be a free-thinking citizen). There is some interesting evidence that
the Hindu people themselves, came out from a Mesopotamia civilization that had
itself been derived from the Sumerian high civilization.

If _that_ one is true, then we would have been thrashing about with this sort
of education system for 6000 years now. Has it been working?

------
AznHisoka
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
Where is this happening and what is the penalty?

------
atlantic
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
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.

------
bluedino
>> 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_watcher
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](http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html)

~~~
chongli
_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.

------
tbirdz
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.

------
juanre
"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.

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

------
jheriko
"...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...

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

------
quadlock
The
[http://threeriversvillageschool.org/](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.

------
rodolphoarruda
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](http://www.escoladaponte.pt/ponte/projeto)
; content in Portuguese, you may need to use a translator.

------
rumcajz
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.

------
bryan11
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.

------
anuraj
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.

------
rnernento
Prison is a prison and damaging our kids...

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

------
benaiah
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](http://hslda.com)

~~~
dinkumthinkum
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.

~~~
benaiah
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](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.

------
graycat
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!

------
vacri
_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.

------
vacri
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.

