All these anti-education articles are pretty tedious. If you believe it's the schools who have it all wrong by teaching subjects that aren't useful for building phone apps, you're probably already pretty set in your worldview.
The article clearly is pro education. It shows that the system is less so. Example quote:
> Almost everyone pays lip service to the glories of education, but actions speak louder than words. Ponder this: If a student wants to study at Princeton, he doesn’t really need to apply or pay tuition. He can simply show up and start taking classes. As a professor, I assure you that we make near-zero effort to stop unofficial education; indeed, the rare, earnestly curious student touches our hearts. At the end of four years at Princeton, though, the guerrilla student would lack one precious thing: a diploma. The fact that almost no one tries this route — saving hundreds of thousands of dollars along the way — is a strong sign that students understand the value of certification over actual learning.
> You can see the same priorities when students pick their classes. Students notoriously seek out “easy A’s” — professors who give high grades in exchange for little work.
Also, some comments here somehow manage to read into the article that it claims that you don't learn anything. Even just the quote above shows the opposite when the author describes the difference between going to Princeton lectures for free or for a piece of paper. From the second quoted paragraph, which is as testable statement, it seems that in practice education is not the main priority - and I don't see how one could interpret the article in a way that he supports that. It clearly is a criticism of those sad facts.
The author clearly shows what he would like even in just this single sentence alone:
> indeed, the rare, earnestly curious student touches our hearts
You mean anti-schooling. Education is much more than schooling.
Formal education is classroom-based, provided by trained teachers. Informal education happens outside the classroom, in after-school programs, community-based organizations, museums, libraries, or at home.
http://enhancinged.wgbh.org/started/what/formal.html
In other words, if I'm reading at home, undergoing on the job training, even picking people's pockets, I'm getting educated.
> Almost everyone pays lip service to the glories of education, but actions speak louder than words. Ponder this: If a student wants to study at Princeton, he doesn’t really need to apply or pay tuition. He can simply show up and start taking classes. As a professor, I assure you that we make near-zero effort to stop unofficial education; indeed, the rare, earnestly curious student touches our hearts. At the end of four years at Princeton, though, the guerrilla student would lack one precious thing: a diploma. The fact that almost no one tries this route — saving hundreds of thousands of dollars along the way — is a strong sign that students understand the value of certification over actual learning.
> You can see the same priorities when students pick their classes. Students notoriously seek out “easy A’s” — professors who give high grades in exchange for little work.
Also, some comments here somehow manage to read into the article that it claims that you don't learn anything. Even just the quote above shows the opposite when the author describes the difference between going to Princeton lectures for free or for a piece of paper. From the second quoted paragraph, which is as testable statement, it seems that in practice education is not the main priority - and I don't see how one could interpret the article in a way that he supports that. It clearly is a criticism of those sad facts.
The author clearly shows what he would like even in just this single sentence alone:
> indeed, the rare, earnestly curious student touches our hearts