We may have to revise our education system so that it’s not connected to our credential system.
There’s a story about Einstein teaching physics and letting the kids who didn’t want to be there leave and do something else with the time. The ones who remained were quite attentive.
There are multiple models for teaching that do something similar, let kids approach a subject when they’re ready. Yes, they goof off a lot early on, but eventually even STEM and literature call to them, and they pass equivalency exams in their late teens.
In the meantime even when I was in high school in the 1980s, our system was created to sort kids into sports stars that might become college players, STEM kids that might become scientists and engineers, and House Hufflepuff (common laborers).
The education system has only gotten progressively worse since then, as its budget increases have not kept up with inflation. And then there’s the whole effort to insert evangelist Christianity (+ American Exceptionalism + Conservativism–Capitalism) into public school.
And to this day, we still use the lecture / lab / test model that excludes a lot of alternative comprehension and learning models. We’re not looking to teach kids, rather we’re looking to harvest the geniuses, and turn the others into bonded laborers and soldiers for billionaire vanity projects.
This is a nice idea, in theory, but once it touches reality, it falls apart, mainly for two reasons.
Not everyone is high-IQ neurotypical with high intrinsic motivation.
As an extreme example, put someone with ADHD into a Montessori/Walddorf/Unschooling setup (three well-known systems that do pretty much exactly what you are demanding) and that kid will fail hard. That’s the reports you read of 10yo unschooled kids who never cared for learning to read and who are now having an incredibly hard time learning anything at all, because material for that age group expects the kids to be able to read.
The most important thing to learn at school is not the subjects/material
Apart from the very basics (reading/writing/basic math), 95% of the content taught at school can be (and is) safely forgotten once you leave school. There are more than enough reports on the fact that adults fail most school tests if they have to repeat them a few years after leaving school.
And that’s ok, because what school really teaches you is how to efficiently learn material you don’t care about no matter if you have motivation for it right now or not.
That’s necessary to prepare the kids for higher education and work.
When I have to work on a new project with e.g. a new framework or some new stuff I don’t yet know, then my boss won’t wait around until I naturally accidentally find the interest to spend time learning the material. No, the project has a deadline in two weeks and until then I need to learn what’s necessary and do what needs to be done, no matter if I feel like it or not.
And that lession, which is much more important than the subjects you learn in school, is not taught at all by free-form student-driven learning systems like Montessori, Walddorf or Unschooling.
There are multiple models for teaching that do something similar, let kids approach a subject when they’re ready. Yes, they goof off a lot early on, but eventually even STEM and literature call to them, and they pass equivalency exams in their late teens.
Can you link to some more information on this? I’m curious about alternative education models
We may have to revise our education system so that it’s not connected to our credential system.
There’s a story about Einstein teaching physics and letting the kids who didn’t want to be there leave and do something else with the time. The ones who remained were quite attentive.
There are multiple models for teaching that do something similar, let kids approach a subject when they’re ready. Yes, they goof off a lot early on, but eventually even STEM and literature call to them, and they pass equivalency exams in their late teens.
In the meantime even when I was in high school in the 1980s, our system was created to sort kids into sports stars that might become college players, STEM kids that might become scientists and engineers, and House Hufflepuff (common laborers).
The education system has only gotten progressively worse since then, as its budget increases have not kept up with inflation. And then there’s the whole effort to insert evangelist Christianity (+ American Exceptionalism + Conservativism–Capitalism) into public school.
And to this day, we still use the lecture / lab / test model that excludes a lot of alternative comprehension and learning models. We’re not looking to teach kids, rather we’re looking to harvest the geniuses, and turn the others into bonded laborers and soldiers for billionaire vanity projects.
This is a nice idea, in theory, but once it touches reality, it falls apart, mainly for two reasons.
As an extreme example, put someone with ADHD into a Montessori/Walddorf/Unschooling setup (three well-known systems that do pretty much exactly what you are demanding) and that kid will fail hard. That’s the reports you read of 10yo unschooled kids who never cared for learning to read and who are now having an incredibly hard time learning anything at all, because material for that age group expects the kids to be able to read.
Apart from the very basics (reading/writing/basic math), 95% of the content taught at school can be (and is) safely forgotten once you leave school. There are more than enough reports on the fact that adults fail most school tests if they have to repeat them a few years after leaving school.
And that’s ok, because what school really teaches you is how to efficiently learn material you don’t care about no matter if you have motivation for it right now or not.
That’s necessary to prepare the kids for higher education and work.
When I have to work on a new project with e.g. a new framework or some new stuff I don’t yet know, then my boss won’t wait around until I naturally accidentally find the interest to spend time learning the material. No, the project has a deadline in two weeks and until then I need to learn what’s necessary and do what needs to be done, no matter if I feel like it or not.
And that lession, which is much more important than the subjects you learn in school, is not taught at all by free-form student-driven learning systems like Montessori, Walddorf or Unschooling.
Can you link to some more information on this? I’m curious about alternative education models
Unschooling and by extension, the democratically run Free Schools come to mind.