
American Schools Are Training Kids for a World That Doesn’t Exist - ingve
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/on-learning-by-doing
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pdkl95
[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-
americans-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-
stink-at-math.html)

This is one of the better articles I have read regarding the education issues
that are far too common. More importantly, it actually addresses the root
problem instead of reiterating what the the results should look like.
Applicability to a job is nice, but it is a goal, not a cause. Switching to
new teaching standards such as New Math or Common Core is also a goal; they
are selected with the hope that students will learn important, modern methods
instead the techniques we _used_ to use.

The problem is that goals don't matter if most people don't actually reach
them, and we shouldn't _expect_ people to reach any of these goals when
many[1] of the _teachers_ are just as unprepared.

The article discusses one approach to fixing this, that seems to have had some
success in Japan, where teachers have a far lighter workload, and are given
paid time to research _methods of teaching_ and opportunity experimentally try
them, and far more opportunities to continue their own education and learn the
from other teachers. This means a few months every year, not a weekend
conference once a year. There are probably a variety of ways to solve this
problem, but any proposal needs to address teacher ability first[2].

[1] Note: this is about elementary level teaching, and "many" != "all".

[2] As Chevalier discusses, the availability of massive amounts of educational
opportunities on the internet might be changing the entire concept of "getting
an education".

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whoopdedo
I think there's a feedback mechanism in effect. The people who benefit the
most from the way schools work become the leaders who decide how schools
should work. To their perception, the education provided is perfectly adequate
for preparing students. So if you don't succeed in a career after going
through the school system, it must be something you did wrong.

~~~
gatlin
In UTeach this was mentioned by several of my professors on the first day, as
a kind of anthem we should keep in mind: that we were at that university
because we succeeded in a broken system and that we should be mindful not to
lean too heavily on what we were familiar with lest we simply perpetuate the
system's failures to another generation.

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Scribblenaut9
Schools are tasked with the impossible challenge of preparing thousands of
unique children, each with their own unique situation and aspirations, for
their adult life. There's no way such a system can tailor to all of these
possibilities, therefore it basically caters the lowest common denominator. It
teaches you skills that anyone—no matter how dumb you are—can learn. The least
intelligent people are brought to a point where they can functionally work the
lowest class jobs. Everyone else is basically disserviced. Students just need
to forge their own path. You know what you want to do in life, and highschool
isn't going to teach it.

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untilHellbanned
All of college should be “one and done” like the NBA.

[https://medium.com/@timrpeterson/all-college-should-be-
one-a...](https://medium.com/@timrpeterson/all-college-should-be-one-and-done-
like-the-nba-690555668255)

~~~
Chevalier
I agree, most students don't need a full 4-7 years of college... but I'm a
little confused why the author thinks everyone needs at least one year so they
can learn the fundamentals. Shouldn't that basic education be provided in high
school?

~~~
logicalman
It's about living on your own, and setting your own day's structure. I agree
with him about having students do one year of college before going straight
into the real world.

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bediger4000
Are we supposed to be surprised or outraged? Or just think, "well, dadgum,
they're correct!"? Because as near as I can tell, it's always been this way.
US public schools have always trained kids (train - not educate, that's for
the upper classes) for a world that no longer exists.

~~~
Tloewald
Once change became the norm (probably the 1970s) this was probably the case
all over the world. Given that it's pretty difficult to change school
curricula and retrain all your teachers, what does anyone expect? In any
event, it's not the purpose of education to be great vocational training. The
problem in the US isn't that schools are training kids for a world that
doesn't exist, it's that they are training kids to pass idiotic multiple-
choice tests.

~~~
thebradbain
A college representative for Durham University in the UK told me the entire
British system is more focused on test scores than the US is, which is why for
an American applying to UK schools much more weight is placed on SAT scores
and AP tests than extracurriculars, essays, recommendations, and qualitative
achievements compared to US schools.

~~~
michaelochurch
Test scores and grades are far better criteria than that socioeconomic
nonsense. It would be better if American colleges admitted purely on academic
factors. They'd also get better students, even if they'd lose their elitist
"mystique".

I think that the extracurricular "holistic" component is deeply harmful. If
the top universities admitted on academic criteria, then Americans would
accept that not everyone good-- because there clearly are good students who
aren't great at standardized tests; "not a good test-taker" is a real thing--
goes to Harvard (which is true anyway) and get over it. I certainly know smart
people who were mediocre students in high school.

The extracurricular bullshit (which is, in fact, heavily socioeconomic and
racial and always has been) is a bit of branding that works wonders on
17-year-old kids, and their parents, by creating the appearance that college
admissions are a "holistic" judge of the applicant as a person. It's brilliant
insofar as it drives up tuitions (even at less prestigious schools) but it's
really bad for society.

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nraynaud
Funny, because even if they would prepare for the future, it would still be
for a world that doesn't exist.

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Chevalier
As someone with a professional degree from the Ivy League, and therefore as
someone with a vested interest in maintaining the mystique and prestige of
higher education: Educational institutions are parasites on American youth and
we should not subsidize them.

If you want an education in the modern world, it's free and RIDICULOUSLY
convenient -- just log on to Coursera, Udacity, or edX and learn any subject
to your heart's content in your local coffee shop, from the finest instructors
in the world. You're free to pursue any field of study at whatever pace you
choose at no cost.

Kids should NOT be encouraged to take out no-default loans upwards of $200k to
get a certificate in art history. (I say this as someone who borrowed a ton of
money for a worthless humanities undergraduate degree and a slightly less
useless professional degree.) If you want to read poetry, join a book club.
There's no reason why society should subsidize the pursuit of degrees that
don't qualify the holder for any particular job and don't provide any
particular return on investment.

But because an undergraduate degree has become the new high school diploma,
any kid who doesn't get one has almost no chance of landing a professional
job. So all students with potential are locked up with academic busywork until
at least age 21. This isn't too bad for the future doctors and engineers, whom
we want certified in biology or physics... but there's no point for most
people to get degrees in business or the humanities. Why do we care if our
poets or salesmen have Irish Studies certificates?

By now, entire generations have given up their youths in exchange for
significant debt and pointless certificates, rather than starting new
businesses, writing new books, or creating new industries. And this debt
impacts lower socio-economic classes the hardest, despite idiotic rhetoric
that the only thing holding us poors back from billionaire status is a Cornell
class in gender studies. We have the least capacity to absorb such a heavy
cost. And since we're often ill-prepared for STEM courses (and through
affirmative action we're placed in competition against students with higher
aptitudes and more academic cultures), many of us pursue pointless-but-easy
degrees that give us no professional skills to pay back such huge debts.

We should subsidize higher education for fields with high ROI, and immediately
cease subsidies and loans for all other academic pursuits. In practice, this
means doctors and scientists can and should go to college for free; poets can
join a book club or pay out of pocket. (No, rich people won't have an inherent
advantage now that they alone can afford Irish Studies certificates.) This
frees up the youngest, most innovative segment of our population to join the
work force; ends the debt slavery that most Millenials will suffer through our
old age; and disentangles profit-seeking institutions from actual education.

Let young adults discover, innovate, and contribute to the world. Higher
education is little more than a long party interrupted by pointless busywork
and a long debt hangover. I have no intention of sending my kids to college
(if I can eventually afford to have kids) unless it's absolutely required for
their professional careers. And by then, I hope society at large will
recognize most undergraduate and masters degrees as the participation medals
they are.

~~~
lacker
All your criticisms only apply because you got a "worthless humanities
undergraduate degree". My computer science degree sure came in handy, and I
would recommend it to anyone.

~~~
Chevalier
Well, I did say the following:

>We should subsidize higher education for fields with high ROI, and
immediately cease subsidies and loans for all other academic pursuits. In
practice, this means doctors and scientists can and should go to college for
free; poets can join a book club or pay out of pocket.

But while I support subsidizing STEM degrees, including CS, this is one of the
few professional fields where credentialism really isn't that necessary. You
can easily take CS classes through MOOCs for free and sit for Microsoft
certification or some equivalent if you'd like outside verification of your
knowledge. Otherwise, it's more than possible to just enter the work force
directly out of high school if you're capable of the work.

Silicon Valley should be considered a role model for nearly every other
professional field. There's no reason for lawyers to need juris doctors rather
than apprenticeships. Banks benefit from the sorting functions of higher
education, but a great deal of the work doesn't require advanced courses. And
let's not start on the inflated credentialism that's crept into teaching,
nursing, policing, or virtually all middle-class professions.

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coldcode
It's always been that way. Yet all of us who learned in public schools in the
US still managed to change the world.

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michaelochurch
I'm going to take a contrarian view. I think that American public schools are
decent. Many are quite good. Only a few are excellent, but that's true of
private schools as well. I don't think that it's our _schools_ that are to
blame for American ignorance. (And no, putting more money into them probably
won't solve the problem.) It's economic inequality (underprivileged kids don't
fuck off because they're stupid, but because they know that even if they work
their asses off, the deck is still stacked against them) and a culture of
ignorance and anti-intellectualism that pervades all social classes, top to
bottom. People value ambition but not insight in this country, and deep
knowledge makes you a fool who didn't have "the guts" to charge into the
working world, beat someone up, and take a place.

For the world that _should_ exist, where humans of average social
connectedness and social class are equipped to solve the problems bearing down
on us as a species, American students are undertrained. If the shit really
hits the fan on energy, ecological concerns, or social unrest... we're all out
of our depth. It's not just the schools, with their supposedly "outdated"
emphasis on timeliness and conformity. The first 10 years in the corporate
world, except for the upper-class kids who get a rope-bridge over the shit
pit, kills any creativity that people might have had. The corporate world is
much more destructive to creativity and, in the long run, intelligence, than
the schools are. (It's also why intelligence tends to decline, in the U.S.,
after 22. That's not normal, and in other societies, people peak much later.)
This society produces one thing: private sector politicians.

For the jobs that most of them will actually get, American students are
overtrained. You don't need a college education to be some shitty private
sector subordinate, nor an understanding of CS to do business-driven
engineering in some VibratorFactoryVisitor-laden Java Shop. Knowing that stuff
will just make you angry and make it harder to do your damn job, stay
employed, and feed your family.

The claim that American schools are training kids for a 20th-century world
that requires conformity is missing the point. The 21st-century world requires
just as much conformity from individuals in the short term. Those lessons
about not talking back to authority are just as important today. The hard
challenges that humanity will face will take more, and our generation may be
underprepared to take them on when they arrive, but we won't get a verdict on
that one until we're tested.

~~~
saraid216
> (And no, putting more money into them probably won't solve the problem.)

I don't disagree with this, but I generally advocate for higher funding
because more resources provides more manuevering room, which makes it less
risky to try new things. Sometimes it feels like Americans only believe that
desperation-driven innovation is valuable, so we drive everyone to desperation
by taunting them with scarcer and scarcer resources until they collapse and
die.

I'd rather see us pour resources into education. It won't fix anything by
itself, but you'll stop getting responses of, "We can't afford to try doing
that," every time a change is suggested.

> This society produces one thing: private sector politicians.

This is so quotable. I like it. Not sure I agree with it, but I like it
aesthetically.

~~~
michaelochurch
_I don 't disagree with this, but I generally advocate for higher funding
because more resources provides more manuevering room_

I agree. Also, the good teachers deserve to be paid better. Paying them
properly is just the right thing to do. Moreover, funding public schools out
of property taxes is also rifuckulously classist.

If the Wired article is right and the challenges of the 21st-century really do
require creative thought (and, I think, they will) then we may get a front-row
seat, in the US, for a society laid low by its own inequality. Disallowing 95+
percent of people, mostly based on born social class, to have access to
creative work has rendered us subordinate, apathetic, and weak... and, because
of it, we may not be up to the challenges bearing down on us.

