
Ask HN: For those of you who hated public school, how would you change it? - quadrin
Currently enrolled in one right now, and I am curious to how public schools could cater to:<p>-autodidacts<p>-ambitious kids in mediocre environments<p>-fixing the <i>college is the only respectable path</i> mindset<p>-implementing more freedoms in terms of courses (I fail to see why literature would be useful to a math-minded student)<p>I strongly feel that the US public school system is broken for all of the reasons above being neglected. I&#x27;m curious to what solutions there could be to these issues.
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lacbuddah
Public school is designed to teach a broad array of fundamental skills to a
large audience. It's also an educational complex (industrial complex) in
itself - a lot of people make a living in the public school space. Not just
the visible people like your teachers or office staff, but custodians and
district administrators, organizations and unions behind the scenes and all
the logistics chains that sell all the goods the school consume. It's crazy
huge and won't easily be changed which is why it doesn't change.

Even with that said, It's not designed for autodidacts. However, you should
take away from school the skills on HOW TO LEARN. Then use those skills to
teach yourself whatever you want. Public school serves as a base or platform,
ie not the education to be achieved but the platform you use to then achieve
want you want to learn.

It might also seem trivial that public school repeats or overlaps a lot of the
same topics year over year, but this is to improve your comprehension. Think
of it like watching your favorite movie, each time you watch it you notice
something different. Each time you read, write, solve an equation, etc, you
are increasing your efficiency and/or effectiveness to do those things better
the next time, and next time, ad infinitum for life.

Fast forward both of the above, you're now in your career and able to out
think, out maneuver your coworkers. If you start a business, you now can out
think and out maneuver your competitors. It's far easier to change yourself by
getting the skills you want out of school, then necessarily changing the
school to give you those things.

Set goals, polish your lense, and put in the work - it all pays off later.

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sloaken
Class size is a biggie on the repair list. I believe if you have class size of
10, your first 2 issues go away.

For the 'college of bust' mentality, there are multiple issues here. I believe
it is a failure to rate schools/teachers. Without a better method the only
yard stick left is: how many go on to college. Germany has an interesting
system. Although I have had some German friends say they hate it.

Your last point, and when I was your age, I agreed with. However, somewhere
around the age of 35 I realized it was a good thing. I cannot promise you the
same, but I can safely say, the smart money is betting that way.

Your last point, and when I was your age, I agreed with. However, somewhere
around the age of 35 I realized it was a good thing.

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jlongr
I think that at least two of your four points are primarily concerned with
gifted and talented students (autodidacts, ambitious kids).

I would like to point out that calling the US public school system broken
because it doesn't sufficiently serve exceptional students seems to ignore the
plight of many kids who face problems including but not limited to: bullying,
learning disabilities, domestic instability, or food insecurity.

Just my 2 cents. Sorry for not really answering your question.

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butteredpopcorn
“Unschooling” might interest you.

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framebit
My public magnet high school was a weird setup where the kids had a huge
variety of educational backgrounds.

It was striking to me to be alongside kids who were naturally intelligent and
gifted but who had gone to really crappy elementary and middle schools. I
remember a math class in 10th grade where the boy next to me was really
struggling through his work and shyly asked if I knew what he was doing wrong.
I, in my arrogant 10th grade way, told him "don't you know about the
commutative property??" And he gave me a blank look in response. When I
explained it, he immediately understood and flew through the rest of his work
with no issue. That was when it really hit me that I was no smarter than him,
I just had the privilege of an elementary and middle school education that
didn't suck. That boy has gone on to get a Masters from Yale and I think he
might be working on his doctorate now, but he had to work hard to fill in some
fundamental gaps.

I'm truthfully alarmed by the "free college" debate because of credential
inflation. Our high school diplomas are nearly worthless, a bachelor's degree
has become compulsory for a lot of careers that shouldn't need it, and
graduate school is leaning the same way. I would rather see us as a country
fix elementary and middle school education so we can make high school
education meaningful again. While we're at it, my county took away stuff like
auto shop and any kind of trade school class, which is ridiculous and even
criminal IMO.

Of course, so much of what we talk about when we talk about education is
inequality. In the haunting (paraphrased) words of one teacher that I heard on
a podcast, "How am I supposed to teach them long division when they haven't
eaten in days and they're going to get raped tonight when they go home." That
whole "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" study didn't control
for household income, so all it really showed was that kids who are food
insecure do way better on standardized tests when they eat anything at all
beforehand.

There was also an interesting article in The Atlantic[1] recently discussing
the really strange US practice of teaching skills instead of knowledge. The
idea is that kids learn how to learn, but the outcome is that they're
horrifically confused and don't know what or why they're learning anything.
When teachers switched back to knowledge based curricula, the measurement of
skills went way up.

I suppose this is a rambly non-answer. I grieve the state of public education
in the US where so many good people face so many barriers (poverty, clueless
administration, their own food and housing insecurity, etc.) to doing good
work.

[1][https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/08/the-
rad...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/08/the-radical-case-
for-teaching-kids-stuff/592765/)

