| This article does point out a lot of things that have failed this decade - all fair points. But in focusing on failures it fails to capture that casual education (not formal, school education) has fundamentally shifted this decade. Today, I can learn almost anything I want for free on the internet. - I can get a world class mathematical education from 3Blue1Brown (seriously this guy's videos are just out of this world good). - I can get incredible guitar lessons on any song I want from youtube (I've taught myself guitar this year through it!). - I can find scores of language education podcasts to help me learn Spanish (I use coffee break spanish). - I can get world class SAT prep from Khan Academy (for free!). - I can get awesome yoga classes online for free (did this also this year). Seriously the wealth and quality of information available to us today is insane - it's the Library of Alexandria a search bar away. As someone who enjoys learning, there's no way I would ever go back 10 years in time. |
* Case in point there is a popular ML guy on youtube who is also considered a bit of a hack.
* When Khan was starting out some of his original videos were also critiqued when they were out of his area of expertise.
* My friend learned Spanish from a teacher from Basque area. He has an intriguing accent now...
* There are zillion Python videos on Youtube and many are not quite good.
The problem was pointed out in 1970 Future Shock by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Toffler .
It is much easier to spend time choosing an authoritative educational institution(online or offline) than individually choosing each teacher.
You let the school do the curating for you.
There will be bad teachers even at good schools but your meta cognitive load is lessened.
PS I am a bit biased since I teach at various non-profit and profit institutions (I also stream on youtube but privately)