
Training for Discontent - tim_sw
https://medium.com/@saraheisner/training-for-discontent-42591cf57baf
======
keithpeter
Disclaimer: I work as a teacher in a Further Education college in the UK (like
a general education college) and I teach adult education classes.

Politicians here are fond of talking about 'raising standards', and ordinary
people you talk to have started to echo this language. I've developed a
strategy for dealing with this. I just ask 'what is a standard? what do you
mean, what is it we are raising?'. The result is a stuttering fall-back on
things that can be measured (pass rates on our national tests and external
exams and so on). I suspect the bathwater is thick with babies - we are
focussing on the scaffold/feedback at the cost of the underlying process we
wanted feedback on. Exam results seem to replace the things the results were
symptoms of.

Before I started teaching, I studied physics at a reasonably good UK
university then tried a PhD at another good one. I didn't write up the PhD but
had a good four years and learned lots.

What got me into physics?

Its 1963. It is raining. I'm _dawdling_ which Mum doesn't like but I'm coming
home by my self now. I have my yellow raincoat, wellies and souwester on. I
like those because they look like the seamen on the tugs.

I'm watching the rain running down the gutter on the side of the road - the
road cambers gently to the curb so the cross section of flow is wedge shaped
with a slight curve - water running fast but there is a _stable pattern_ of
waves at an angle to the kerb that _stays the same_. The water is running
through the structure of waves. How does the structure of waves stay there if
the water is moving? I drop leaves in the water and watch them race down the
hill under the waves that stay still. I stay for what seems a long time
(probably about 2 minutes!) and listen to the rain on my hat - little rattling
sound. Then carry on home.

Most of my work in physics was (in one way or another) to do with that
question. I don't think you can schedule that kind of experience. In praise of
dawdling.

~~~
fierarul
>Its 1963. It is raining. I'm dawdling which Mum doesn't like but I'm coming
home by my self now. I have my yellow raincoat, wellies and souwester on. I
like those because they look like the seamen on the tugs.

>I'm watching the rain running down the gutter on the side of the road - the
road cambers gently to the curb so the cross section of flow is wedge shaped
with a slight curve - water running fast but there is a stable pattern of
waves at an angle to the kerb that stays the same. The water is running
through the structure of waves. How does the structure of waves stay there if
the water is moving? I drop leaves in the water and watch them race down the
hill under the waves that stay still. I stay for what seems a long time
(probably about 2 minutes!) and listen to the rain on my hat - little rattling
sound. Then carry on home.

>Most of my work in physics was (in one way or another) to do with that
question. I don't think you can schedule that kind of experience. In praise of
dawdling.

This was beautiful.

~~~
keithpeter
Well, thanks, but this memory has been re-remembered a lot (recent work on
memory suggests that we tell ourselves stories and sort of retain the
structure of the story), and is an important part of my identity as you can
probably tell.

My point was: are we scheduling/measuring children a little too much? I have
no answers. Just a gut feeling that the algorithm of 'measure - intervene -
remeasure' is getting a bit out of hand in education. See the BBC News article
below...

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32682280](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32682280)

------
eldude
What an alarmingly raw exposure of the narcissism that pervades the Valley.
The author's conflicted, borderline self-loathing struggle for counter-
cultural self-awareness amidst the myopic career obsessed pursuit of
"achievement" and relevance is quite revealing.

Should she further the "achievement" of her child through cultural conformance
and obsession with "achievement" and corresponding status, or is it her who
needs to find her own voice, not defined by external validation. She laments
how comfortable she is with her status accredited largely to Stanford, and is
ambivalent to whether she wants her child to drink from the same source.

This is a "humblebrag" mix of a genuine and slightly insincere search for yet
more validation. Children are a symptom and reflection of their parents'
values. To acknowledge the limitations or shallowness of a life defined by a
pursuit of "achievement" and validation for her child, she must become self-
aware and acknowledge the same throughout her own life.

~~~
javajosh
_> Should she further the "achievement" of her child through cultural
conformance and obsession with "achievement" and corresponding status, or is
it her who needs to find her own voice, not defined by external validation._

'Voice' and 'validation' are inextricably intertwined in a social being. She
_is_ finding her own voice within this piece. Indeed, I rather admired her
self-awareness and questioning of her own assumption and influence
(culpability?) in the problem she was addressing.

~~~
eldude
While typically intertwined, voice and validation are only equivalent if you
lack character or integrity, which by definition are voice in the face of
opposition. I'm suggesting that the author is struggling with precisely this:
whether to hold to alternate values that will make her son happy, or encourage
her child to seek the limited happiness founded in dependency on validation
through achievement. In other words, she is conflicted about teaching her
child anti-individualism or independence.

------
javajosh
This reminds me of some deeply troubling things I've read about the education
systems in China and Japan, where students are heavily burdened and stressed,
and suicide rates are also high.

The problem unique to the West is 'do your best' doublespeak. There is a real,
objective standard that, if kids do not meet it, means they will live a
materially worse life. Their prospects at virtually every level, personal and
professional, will be reduced. Effort is not actually what our kids need to be
elite: admission to an ivy league school is, and that means objective
achievement.

Preparation for admission requires ever increasing levels of achievement,
where _achievement_ means "fewer and fewer mistakes" approaching an asymptote
of no mistakes, ever. This pressure apparently starts to kick in around 6th
grade.

Maintaining that kind of consistency is itself a very real burden, no matter
what age, activity or the difficulty of the task. Imagine being told that, as
long as you press a button every hour for 8 hours a day, for 4 years, you'll
get 20 million dollars. If you miss once, you get 10M, twice 1M and three
times, 0. Would this create a healthy psychology, or would it be stressful?

~~~
nitrogen
_Maintaining that kind of consistency is itself a very real burden, no matter
what age, activity or the difficulty of the task. Imagine being told that, as
long as you press a button every hour for 8 hours a day, for 4 years, you 'll
get 20 million dollars. If you miss once, you get 10M, twice 1M and three
times, 0. Would this create a healthy psychology, or would it be stressful?_

Sounds kind of like the Lost scenario, where failing to push a button will
destroy the world. It certainly did not result in a healthy psychology in the
show. I always wondered why they didn't just rig up a machine to push the
button (and type in the numbers) for them.

------
kirsebaer
Very sad, but typical story.

> “What’s a bad day?” I ask the class, when I’m done reading. “A school day,”
> Lea... says. Lea has always seemed perky and upbeat. I start to laugh as if
> Lea’s comment is a joke, but no one else does. Her eyes look watery. The boy
> beside her nods. I ask Lea why, and she tells me she is stressed out and
> unhappy, “every single day” during the week.

The principal of the school would like to eliminate homework, but the parents
demand that their children are "challenged". There is no evidence that this
pressure and forced study actually benefits children.

What about letting kids find out what they want to do for themselves? Try
things out, feel free to fail without an adult standing over and judging them.

There is a totally different style of education called "democratic free
schools" or "Sudbury schools" where children are free to do as they like
(within democratically made rules), no curriculm, no mandatory exams or
meetings, no book reports, no required English or math. In follow-up surveys,
graduates are happy, well-adjusted, and successful.

Here is a 9 min intro video about the original Sudbury Valley School:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awOAmTaZ4XI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awOAmTaZ4XI)

And here is a book "Free to Learn": [http://www.amazon.com/Free-Learn-
Unleashing-Instinct-Self-Re...](http://www.amazon.com/Free-Learn-Unleashing-
Instinct-Self-Reliant/dp/0465025994/)

------
guard-of-terra
Yeah, being a child sucks. Unless you're in Romania (and perhaps even then).

Every day I am happy I'm not a child anymore. I don't have to "study". I can
have what I want. I can choose. I work on meaningful things.

And I know it could be a lot worse.

~~~
poloniculmov
The educational system in Romania sucks, it's based on memorization and high
school can assimiliated to a full time job. Kids usually learn to trick the
system.

------
jes5199
it's stunning to me how the Bay Area / startup scene culture has become such
an extension of Stanford culture. And that seems to be almost entirely due to
network effects- it's not like Stanford is a particularly better education
over Berkeley or Harvey-Mudd or Waterloo or Indiana U (which is my list of
where the truly great programmers I know have attended), and none of those are
really more that a few percentage points better than any decent program at any
of the thousands of colleges and universities in the world

~~~
song
I went to an top ranked university (so called Grande Ecole) in my country.
Since I graduated, I've never really had a use for the prestige of my
university.

Of course, part of the reason is that I've worked almost exclusively abroad
and there nobody knows that my university is well ranked but I strongly
believe that what really matters in the end is the actual skills you have and
not where the diploma comes from.

I find it sad when kids waste their childhood because their parents push them
to got to the one perfect ivy league school. I don't think it's beneficial for
a kid to choose extracurricular activities based on how the admission
committee will look at them. I also do not believe in hours of homework that
prevent the kid from having time to assuage his natural curiosity and to have
fun.

------
siscia
I don't have children, nor I used to do my homework, so I speak from the
highness of my inexperience...

But a nice way to handle the to1 many homework is to use homework as "family
time", doing homework together with the kids... Not like doing homework for
the kids, but more like have them have fun while they do their homework, ask
them question, and let your kid explain fraction to you...

~~~
gumby
Yep I do this. Every night, sitting at the kitchen table, doing a little work
but mostly answering questions, checking to see if that computer is really
doing homework and not something else. It's for solidarity, not nagging.

Frankly it's way too much work for kids and not enough idleness. But when I
try to put a stop to it's the kid who objects. He's fearful that if he messes
up his whole life is screwed.

When I point out that his parents didn't follow the straight-and-narrow he
just says "well it's different these days".

Oh, and another cost of this: I can only work on low-concentration tasks, so
have to catch up on the rest of my work (professional or domestic) between
midnight and 7AM, by either going to bed late or getting up early.

