Atari's Founder Hopes to Hack Three Years Off High School
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The idea is brilliant, the end comment is not, when you got the chance to teach them quicker why would you end that sooner and push kids into the job market?
It's a prime setup for labor abuse making it worse for everyone.
Teach them faster and teach them more, don't be afraid to push the kids over old peoples capabilities, yes they will get hate but in the long run it will be better for everyone.
All in all I find it simply awesome that someone is finally stepping up the education process, we were in stale waters for far too long and in the US it was slowly turning into a swamp.
It's a prime setup for labor abuse making it worse for everyone.
Teach them faster and teach them more, don't be afraid to push the kids over old peoples capabilities, yes they will get hate but in the long run it will be better for everyone.
All in all I find it simply awesome that someone is finally stepping up the education process, we were in stale waters for far too long and in the US it was slowly turning into a swamp.
This is a really good idea since people learn things better when they find them interesting.
Kind of weird that he says he wants the schools to be as "chaotic as possible". That seems like nonsense since people don't rebel against a system that rewards them for doing what they like. Mabey he means there should be no schedule?
@ Mr.K : I don't think it would be terrible to allow kids to enter the job maket at a younger age than we expect no-a-days. like anybodywho worked for an education it would be their choice, plus I find young people are usually much more capable than we think.
Kind of weird that he says he wants the schools to be as "chaotic as possible". That seems like nonsense since people don't rebel against a system that rewards them for doing what they like. Mabey he means there should be no schedule?
@ Mr.K : I don't think it would be terrible to allow kids to enter the job maket at a younger age than we expect no-a-days. like anybodywho worked for an education it would be their choice, plus I find young people are usually much more capable than we think.
Hey you know whats funny about that guys statment is he forgets students need money too, and that he somehow thinks more specialized workers means a higher population. It's like he forgets that buisnesses/technologies are also created by people with a higher understanding of their field, not just through momentary flashes of insperation by a casual observer, or dumping boatloads of cash into a buisness model.SmashLovesTitanQuest said:
Capable yes but also alot more gullible and easy to manipulate, and any good businessman knows that is the way to the big bucks.GuyUWishUWere said:
Or to put it otherwise when I got my first job in my profession I was working more then anyone in the company and payed less then the cleaning lady, completely new and clueless I was just happy to be somewhere, only started thinking about it once they worked me to the bone and I had nothing to show for it.
Apply this to even younger kids and the abuse will be endless.
I think that experience is a better educator than age. What you experienced could have been avoided through a co-op program. My school offers them and the students gain valuable skills and insight into the industry. An educated kid shouldn't be any easier to manipulate than an educated adult(and certainly not by an adult with less of these life skills).Mr.K. said:
Plus when you start out you always get paid less(you boss still sounds like he cheated you though) Their are so many factors effecting salary I don't think age is something we need to focus on(how critical is the work you do? How much effort do you put in? how well can you stay on top of the environment)
Plus some jobs are just friendelier to young people. Computer related work is usually given to the young people as apposed to there similarly experienced older counterparts due to the belief that all kids are computer wizes
This guy can go screw. "Dysfunctional teachers?" Please. We're held to far higher standards than our private-school counterparts, and we are give infinitely less control over our classrooms. Additionally, we can just turn away problem students the way cushy private schools can. If we could toss a kid out at the first sign of behavior problems, we'd be able to pad our test scores and graduation rates, too.Brian Albert said:
You've got two people, each with an injured leg. One person says, "I have 75% of my limbs in good, working order." The other person cuts the bad leg off so they can say, "I have 100% of my limbs in good, working order."
The public school system is dysfunctional because there are no mechanisms in place that let schools (primarily teachers) stand up to dysfunctional parents. By the time a kid is 18, he's spent around 12% of his life in school. That includes bathroom breaks, recess, and locker time. Each teacher gets a fraction of a percent of that time. Yet it's the teacher that's to blame if a kid can't behave long enough to learn something? What about the parent, who has them the rest of the time?
Anyhow, back to the topic:
Not even almost. Education isn't just about cramming knowledge into kids. It's also about knowing what is developmentally appropriate for the various age groups schools serve. After that, it's about knowing how the students' brains work, so that we can teach them in the most effective ways. And above all, we want to teach these kids skills, not just facts.
1. It is not developmentally appropriate for kids between 13 and 17 to be unsupervised for the entire day. Parents work, and these kids can't have full-time jobs. They're also not mature enough (by and large) to handle them, even if they could get one. School provides a structured environment where it is desperately needed in a society that has fewer parents at home. This is a fraction of what schools do, but it's still important.
2. What this guy is talking about isn't "learning." It's "training." You can train an animal to sing and juggle, but it doesn't understand what it's doing. It can't seek out and add its own knowledge to that in any meaningful way. "Do trick, get treat," that's it. This isn't learning, except at the most basic level. We should aspire to better than that for an education system (and we do).
3. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure he's read research on behaviorism, and knows the principles of "positive reinforcement." Carrot and stick, we get it. It's not that it's untrue, it's just that this type of training is aimed at the very bottom of the barrel when it comes to intelligence. It's what you use to train obedient and marginally-capable drones.
4. Yes, you can "get a kid through math" in less than a year, if what you mean is "go down a checklist of assignments completed with at least X% accuracy." But real learning builds skills, and students must be able to apply these skills in novel situations with a high degree of fluency. That kind of fluency only comes through practice. What this guy is talking about is just teaching to the point of "familiarity." (Yeah, I've heard of differential equations... but hell if I remember how to use them after a week away. I'm familiar, not fluent.)
You can also "teach a kid Polish" in less than a year... if you mean "Show a kid a long list of Polish words, have him repeat each one once, and then send him along." Skills take time to build.
SUMMARY: This guy is a whackjob, with absolutely no understanding of how learning takes place. Teachers aren't just people who know math or science. We train and labor and learn about our content area, sure, but we also spend just as much time training and learning about how kids learn. We don't just pop in a test at the end of the year to check progress--we are constantly measuring progress, adjusting course, and measuring again. We know what works.
And god knows, we already have enough trouble trying to get them to let us do what works in the little time we're given. You can't shortcut this stuff any further.
I love the idea, but there is major social change to consider. Right now college is seen as 1 part learning and about 50 parts socializing. I don't know the exact percentage of liberal arts students who actually work in their major, but it is not high. Therefore I think throwing a ton of 16 year olds at college could be incredibly disruptive. I'm not against the idea, I just think people will have to think about the 2nd and 3rd order consequences before implementing on a large scale.
I love you in whatever way is most appropriate. I say this as a teacher.BobDobolina said:
Also, I'll add that his claimed results are likely a result of a crop of students hand-picked to participate in this experiment. That's exactly what leads to the inflated perception of the results of private schools--sure, they have more control, which allows the teachers to do their jobs, but they also have the ability to casually discard problematic (or just lower-performing) students. Oh, and poor ones, too.
And even then, computers will always only be a tool. Rewards, similarly are just a tool. No matter how fantastic a hammer may be, it will never build a house on its own. Teachers are the experts trained in how to use these tools to deliver real learning. This guy is talking about speed-training, which shoves in knowledge to the point that students may be familiar with it, but they're not even nearly fluent with it. I can read a Calculus textbook in a week, but that doesn't mean I'll remember a damned thing about it in a month.Princess Rose said:
These idiots swarm in and use a single, ridiculously-stacked test to show the results they want, and then they insult teachers for good measure. We're in the classroom daily. We're performing the whole "instruct-assess-reflect-adjust-instruct" cycle every couple of minutes, and we're doing it for upwards of thirty individual students. They're popping out one or two tests a year and pretending they know what kids are learning and how.
Until any of these tests have questions on them like, "Did you get a good night's sleep? Did you eat breakfast, or even dinner last night? Is daddy still hitting mommy? Were you up until 2 am watching your little brother because your parents work the late shift?" I'm not buying that these yahoos, who've never been in a classroom, can interpret a damned thing about these results.
Teachers, on the whole, are great. They are experts in their content area as well as in how students of varying ages and backgrounds learn. We receive extensive training, and are under constant scrutiny in these regards. The problem is that we're being asked to teach too much to too many with too few resources. You can put Jesus Christ himself in that classroom to work miracles, but if you don't at least provide him those two fish and five loaves, it ain't gonna happen.MASTACHIEFPWN said:
The problem in education is that teachers know how to fix it, but no one will listen to them. We're in the classroom. We see the data, the evidence, the results, all the time. We don't just peek in twice a year with some one-size-fits-all test. But administration won't listen to us, and teachers don't have the time or money to get onto school boards to make changes.
@ Dasterdly
I cannot agree with any of that. "Training" DOES take place in school. "Learning" takes place everywhere. Humans of all ages are capable of looking at their world and experience insightfully. We learn all the time. Training is neccessary to do any job. If I told a carpenter or a PC technician that there education is akin to "train[ing] an animal to sing and juggle, but it doesn't understand what it's doing. It can't seek out and add its own knowledge to that in any meaningful way." I would be saying that they can never develope there own techniques or think about the problems they face in a meaningful way. That isn't right. Animals use the tricks we teach them in complicated, meaningful ways all the time. Seeing eye dogs observe there masters environment for them and find the best possible way to navigate it. Rescue dogs track people down in nightmare scenarios and rescue them. That takes alot of abstract thought.
You make it sound like no one learns anything themselves and that's just plain wrong.
I cannot agree with any of that. "Training" DOES take place in school. "Learning" takes place everywhere. Humans of all ages are capable of looking at their world and experience insightfully. We learn all the time. Training is neccessary to do any job. If I told a carpenter or a PC technician that there education is akin to "train[ing] an animal to sing and juggle, but it doesn't understand what it's doing. It can't seek out and add its own knowledge to that in any meaningful way." I would be saying that they can never develope there own techniques or think about the problems they face in a meaningful way. That isn't right. Animals use the tricks we teach them in complicated, meaningful ways all the time. Seeing eye dogs observe there masters environment for them and find the best possible way to navigate it. Rescue dogs track people down in nightmare scenarios and rescue them. That takes alot of abstract thought.
You make it sound like no one learns anything themselves and that's just plain wrong.
You certainly can shortcut it. High school teaches a whole group at a single pace, and if we can leverage technology to teach people at the fastest pace the individual can handle, many, many students will learn faster and more than the current performance that public schools offer.Dastardly said:
But this assumes that faster = better. Kids can certainly "move through the content" much faster. You've got students who can grasp a concept the first time it's taught, and yes, they can move faster than those who take a few tries to get it... at least on a superficial level.KaiusCormere said:
See, a lot of those kids are just "good at school." I was one of them. They can process content quickly and throw it back for a test, netting them fantastic grades. But retention? That's different. Application? That's even bigger. Those come through practice, and practice takes time.
Think of learning a language. I can "go through" a French book in a week... but am I "learning French" that way? Of course not. I'm just getting familiar with French, but certainly nowhere near fluent. Every subject basically has a "language" to it that we are learning to use. We don't want people who are "familiar" with the content. We want people who are fluent with the content.
We can certainly streamline education, but I caution against the temptation of "shortcuts."
