
The Lost Opportunity: Our Education System - sthomps
http://blog.sokanu.com/the-lost-opportunity-our-education-system
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icefox
"The Purpose Of Education" - He left out "babysitter" as one of the purposes.
Another purpose of education is to babysit children, teach them that they are
a number and to blindly follow authority without question. If they happen to
pick up some math or reading along the way that is nice too.

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sthomps
I can see why you say this, it seems to be that way in a lot of cases. This is
most likely the fault of the system though. Students wouldn't be that bad if
they were taught properly from the beginning.

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andrewce
I agree with the general premise of the article (that school's purpose should
be to help children become adults who know their talents (and have talents)),
and will ignore the notion of "discovering" purpose (as acknowledging it
requires that we discuss whether purposes are created or found, which I don't
care to discuss beyond this cursory treatment).

However, the pragmatics of it all are quite a bit messier.

Helping each individual student discover his/her individual talents and skills
and passions requires that we restructure schools almost entirely.

1) The current system of 22+ students per class means that, in a 50 minute
class period, each student can get a maximum of just over 2 minutes of
personalized time, assuming a minimum of time wasted. Over the course of a
school year (180 days), this works out to be about 6 hours. Hardly enough time
for direct individual feedback or for solid relationships.

(I understand that there is a lot more to it than simple contact time, and
also that small groups can be more efficient than 1-on-1 interaction). If all
you are doing is lecturing, it does not matter how many people are in a room
so long as their behavior is not disruptive (or so long as their behavior can
be controlled). If you are hoping to deal with their ideas, though, there is a
definite point beyond which it's impossible to do much meaningful work.

2) The school system, as it is, is mostly designed to get as many kids through
as possible. Again, individualization plays only a cursory role, typically
only with students who are "exceptionalities" (read: who have IEPs). Not the
environment needed for the type of learning the author describes.

3) In order for the changes the author wants to see happen to actually happen,
students (and teachers) will need a lot more autonomy. This means freedom to
set one's own schedule to at least some amount, freedom to at least somewhat
choose one's own learning, and access to all types of competent and caring
adults and older peers who can help guide the student.

Personally, I'd love it if a student who was very talented in music was able
to spend 4 or 5 hours a day practicing and learning those skills, and the
other 3-4 hours per day doing the other bits of learning necessary to be a
competent adult (literacy, numeracy, scientific and historical thinking, and
so on, as well as reflective and metacognitive thinking).

Conclusion: the current system was built by people who see students as points
of data and entries in a gradebook, and needs to be rehauled dramatically to
provide the freedom and opportunity necessary for the type of individualized
teaching the author suggests.

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aik
I agree with you mostly.

On point 1: I don't think there is much that is more important than
personalized time. I don't think 2 minutes of 1-on-1 time a day is ideal,
though it's 100x better than what we have now. Something better may be if each
week a teacher spends 10-15 minutes of quality time with each student,
rotating who to spend time with from week to week. Still, naturally we need to
try to have less students per classroom.

On point 3: Ideally there would be more autonomy, though as a first step to be
significantly more successful, some slight bending of rules would do mounds.

On your conclusion and mine: I believe a major re-education of teachers would
solve a lot of the issues. Most teachers think their main job is transferring
knowledge in whatever subject they teach. However, in today's world where
practically all knowledge is freely available, that job has been mostly taken
care of. I believe a teacher's role is being a mentor for each student -
assisting each student in discovering the world and their respective subject,
inspiring them, freeing their minds, passing on curiosity and intrigue.

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sthomps
Very interesting how you see the role of the teacher. I never thought of it
that way, but it's so true. With "free" learning available anywhere, their
jobs are more to do with mentoring and less with transferring knowledge.

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jadentaylor
I feel that we do need to reward the "good" teachers a lot better than what is
currently common practice. Having two close relatives that are teachers I hear
firsthand the struggles they deal with just to be teachers. Sometimes it is
hard to imagine why anyone would ever want to go into that field, but knowing
these people the way I do I know that it is their true desire to be there and
to do everything within their ability to be good teachers to our children. So
why wouldn't we want to reward them for taking on such a huge and important
responsibility of educating our children.

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rokhayakebe
I would like to see high school having an optional two-year extension. During
those two years teach students skills they are likely to use and start earning
a living. Then let them now go and start making money.

A few years down the line, when they have figured what they really want to do,
they can go an enroll and pursue advanced studies.

As of now I can spend lots of time learning and understanding history. When I
was 19, I was just not interested in history, geography, medicine etc...

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aik
My understanding is that Quebec has a system not unlike what you describe with
the extra 2 years.

About your point of going back to pursue advanced studies - the problem there
is that most people end up not going back once they've stopped, even if their
intent is to return. This once again though is a matter of having them truly
understand the benefits.

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rokhayakebe
Sorry for the late reply. I have not configured my Notifo correctly.

I respectfully disagree. Lots of us here cut back on our working hours, or
quit our job to go start companies. That is because we feel we have a fall
back plan which is the experience and knowledge we have acquired on the job.

~~~
aik
I'm confused. What do you disagree with?

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twillerelator
Premise: _learning is fun._ Premise: _school children are bored._ Conclusion:
_learning is not taking place in schools._

This seems as true now as it has ever been. The belief that schools can be
fixed is one of the main reasons people become teachers and why the existence
of schools will drag on for at least another half century.

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andrewce
I worked with a teacher a few years back who would repeat the mantra "Learning
is not fun. Learning is never fun. The only time you can have fun is after you
are done learning."

But you're right; honest engagement with a discipline is a brilliant
combination of fun and frustrating (and more importantly: the right kind of
frustrating).

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pstuart
I beg to differ: struggling to learn is not fun, practice and homework are not
fun, learning something that seems pointless is not fun.

Learning without the above constraints is fun.

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KentHealy
It's about time this topic get the attention it needs and deserves. And I am
glad to see so many people take interest. I hope this article will turn some
heads. Very timely with new Waiting for Superman movie. If you don't know what
I am talking about, you need to read this post.

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Reclix
I'm totally with you about being excited that the topic is getting the
attention it deserves - if enough people are turning heads, lending a dollar
and a hand, maybe we can fix the problems with our education system.

However, the hardest part about giving a lot of attention to a topic is that
people who are not authorities on the subject end up with opinions about
what's going on, purely based on the media or the propaganda campaigns of the
bigger players.

Even in examining my own perspective, I find myself dramatically in favor of
destroying the teacher's union, expanding school hours and curricula, and
providing more freedom to the students, so that they can engage themselves in
the subject that most interests them and appeals to their strengths. Sounds
idyllic, doesn't it?

But the problem with this is that I'm not an educator. I don't know what
conditions are like and I don't know what the real challenges are - I just
know what I'm being told by the media. Just as in a startup, we have a lot of
potentially unproven hypotheses that need testing.

This then to me is the real promise of the charter school movement - not that
all of them are successful (most are not - even the ones featured aren't
nearly as great as they seem, as I'm finding out from working with them), but
that they represent the freedom to try new things, measure them, and figure
out what does work.

What scares me is that people think they have the silver bullet, rather than
the silver hypothesis. Even in making these drastic changes, if no improvement
is wrought, then what? Will people give up? Or pivot?

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Deskie
Our education system needs a facelift! And this is a great post. More people
need to recognize what is said in this article. Very interesting read.

