[umangrathi]

I am looking forward to the day, when quality formal education is available online to all which you may complete at your own pace instead of going with a strict semester and class system. Also, along with offline schools for supporting social learning and helping classes which require offline components like labs, in person support classes, interest based study groups etc.

[BoxOfRain]

My school made foreign languages completely unappealing to me by teaching them in the most dull, tick-box way possible in a school where even the top set contained pupils who massively cut into teaching time by behaving like animals, if you've ever seen the UK series The Inbetweeners my school was basically that but with grotty 1950s asbestos-chic buildings that hadn't really been upgraded since they were built. I thought I hated learning languages and promptly forgot the little I learned, but online learning at my own pace rather than a hastily thrown-together timetable with a course that's not being disrupted by constant piss-takers is a completely different experience. I've started learning French and the experience is night and day.

I can't help but feel very let down by my state education experience, it feels like British state schools are a uniform Ford-esque production line that takes children as an input, utterly breaks their spirit, and produces a docile blue-collar workforce that doesn't really ask questions as an output. Private schools on the other hand actually seem to set their pupils up for life rather than simply being a cog.

[andrepd]

You would be mistaken if you think that is not by design.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Care to explain how you think that is by design? I think it's more a side effect of trying to measure everything or design a system that is easy to measure.

[photochemsyn]

When a culture/society becomes intensely class-stratified and divides into an aristocratic (British posh) and serf (British prole) structure, this kind of educational system (one tier for the aristocrats, another for the serfs) is very likely to arise. It may not be 'by design' as much as something that develops over time and becomes an unconscious social norm.

The driving force behind this is that the well-paid jobs requiring certain skills like facility with maths, excellent reading and writing and verbal communication (presentation) skills, etc. end up being reserved for members of the aristocratic class and are obtained more by social connections than by some open competitive process. These include professions like lawyers, corporate managers, etc.

Hence, the educational programs for the serfs are cut down to the bone (as the serfs are not going to need those skills in their jobs as assembly line workers, miners, agricultural field hands, janitors, etc.). This of course helps perpetuate the class division in such stratified societies. Incidentally, encouraging contempt for education and skill development in the serf class is part of this whole problem. "What, do you think you're smarter than everyone else?" etc. Kids getting bullied for getting straight A's etc.

There has always been a strange borderland between these two zones, however, where the technologically adept can arise and prosper. Michael Faraday is perhaps the best example of a member of the serf class who broke the pattern.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

So it's not by design. I like your response though, good jumping off point.

[photochemsyn]

The notion of a conspiratorial cabal of aristocrats plotting together to sabotage working class education in the name of preserving their exclusive privileges makes for good cinematic content, but I'd guess simple indifference and the desire to pay less taxes is more of the issue.

I think it's disastrous to the long-term success of any nation, however. If America continues to slide towards such a system, it will fall behind China in technological development. Britain seems to have suffered from this issue: even though Britain was an early leader in computer technology (Turing, Colossus, etc.) they never had a Silicon Valley moment.

[mattferderer]

It probably doesn't meet your definition, but if you were a K-12 student you could:

* Homeschool

* Use your local school's curriculum or a public one like Common Core or another one of your choosing

* Use one of many amazing online sources, like Khan. The great thing is if you struggle, you can always find an alternative teacher. I've found sometimes I need multiple different explanations over the course of weeks to understand a topic.

* Many communities in larger towns & cities have tons of offline learning opportunities for groups.

[yupper32]

> Many communities in larger towns & cities have tons of offline learning opportunities for groups.

Yeah, schools.

[shreyshnaccount]

That, and the education structure guided by actual research instead of politics, is the holy grail

[andrepd]

Unless we automate teachers in the near future, I wouldn't hold my breath. Educational content on the internet is paradigm-changing, don't get me wrong: with access to the internet you can access a virtually unlimited set of learning materials: high-quality encyclopedias, books in the public domain, (books outside the public domain if you're willing to pirate), endless videos on virtually any language, any musical instrument, lectures by illustrious thinkers on topics from economics to physics. You cannot overstate how big this is, most of it would be unthinkable that anyone on earth could access it.

But learning needs teachers, and it needs teachers in small groups (classroom sizes of 20-30 are far too big). You cannot solve this with tech alone.

[bsenftner]

We can't automate teachers, in any effective manner. To teach requires an empathetic comprehension of the student's misunderstanding. That right there requirements an AI goal so far a head of our current capabilities, it may as well be called impossible. Modern AI has no capacity whatsoever for comprehension, and that is about as big a failure as something called an artificial intelligence can fail.

[Diris]

I'm not saying you're wrong but maybe this'll be interesting to some.

A New Era: Intelligent Tutoring Systems Will Transform Online Learning for Millions https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.03724

[zozbot234]

We can definitely automate many parts of tutoring, but physical teachers will still be important for the reasons you describe.

[bsenftner]

My point being, the critical support a teacher provides when they "help a student" requires the teacher to comprehend the misunderstanding of the student - that comprehension step is beyond current known science to artificially replicate.

[endisneigh]

How exactly is what you’re describing going to work logistically?

[Yajirobe]

MIT OCW

[BouffantJoe]

I love MIT OpenCourseWare, but they only seem to have video lectures for a small proportion of the courses. Mostly the introductory courses with the larger audiences. I'd love for them to try and get video for more lectures because I don't feel confident enough to try and understand many with the lecture notes alone.