[youssefabdelm]

Rooting for you guys. If anything this should cause some people to question the very educational structure they've set up. If people are attempting to evade homework it's because it isn't interesting to the student, which hints at a deeper problem that the school/teacher/entire school set-up and structure needs to address. They essentially need to throw out everything they've set up because they're operating it more like a police state/prison "Ooo let's CATCH the cheaters! Let's CATCH the plagiarists! That'll show them!"

Instead of saying "What are we doing that isn't capturing the students interest in these tasks? How can we connect this subject to the students most meaningful, important, and immediate concerns and goals? What concepts from this subject can we teach the student that'll help them achieve those salient goals?"

The creators of these companies seem less concerned with actual long-term meaningful learning and more concerned with playing policemen.

Educational institutions need to be way more student-driven and student-concerned, allowing the student to shape their journey, as opposed to turning out cogs for the system like military training.

Alternatives exist like behavior analysis's programmed instruction, but even that needs a radical upgrade or integration with AI.

[josefresco]

>If anything this should cause some people to question the very educational structure they've set up.

I played basketball growing up. Much of our practice was boring things like passing drills, dribbling drills, running, countless free throws. We all grumbled & complained - "Why can't we just scrimmage?" we'd ask. "I already know how to play the game, why do I need to work on these boring skills?"

I don't think I need to explain why this logic is flawed, and why our coach was in fact using the best methods to teach even if they were occasionally boring.

In the academic world I was very similar to these guys. I automated/cheated with tech whenever I could because I felt the grunt work was "below me" - fast forward to college and I realized how many fundamentals I had missed and struggled mightily.

[faeriechangling]

In chess I drilled tactics puzzles, I drilled endgames, I memorized openings, I studied the game, all things typically considered less interesting than actually playing. Yet I never felt this was very difficult because I paced myself out, I skipped it when I was bored, I did extra when I felt more encouraged, I alloted a fixed amount of time to this sort of practice. I used spaced repetition software and generally optimised for actual learning of the skill.

The big difference with sports and games vs school is that in sports and games you are optimising to win the game, and in school you're optimising to pass an arbitrary test which only exists in the context of school. It's depressing for the same reason people grinding leetcode puzzles just to get through interviews is depressing. I've had to drill many pointless things over the years to prove to some authority that I'm willing to waste tons of time if they want me to.

[youssefabdelm]

The dependencies still need not be taught in a boring way. For example, if teachers did surveys of students strongest interests and goals, they can think of ways to 'inject' (in a genuine way) dependencies as stepping stones to their goals. "In order to achieve goal X, you need to know how to do Y, and in order to know how to do Y, you need to know how to do Z". Let's assume Z is the boring task. Just by connecting it in a sequence to the student's goals it becomes less boring because the student instantly sees the relevance.

Contrast this with "Do this" "Why?" "Just do as I say if you want good grades"

So in practice this would be "Ben, I know your most important goal is to become like LeBron James. LeBron James has this special trick that you like called X. He has said in the past that the fastest way to achieve this is to practice Y boring technique for at least 2 hours a day"

"John, your most important goal is greater flexibility. To be as flexible as possible, you need to do this other boring exercise more frequently 3 hours a day"

If the goal is important enough, they will go through it. However, an even wiser method is to frame it this way: In your brain you have the 'you-now'/thalamic/elephant part of your brain "Give me candy now" and the 'you-in-the-future'/cortical/mouse riding elephant "I have to lose weight". These 2 are always competing, but the 'elephant' always wins. In order to solve this, one has to research what is it that 'tastes good', and develop a diet that tastes better than the junk they already eat. If you do that, you'll stick with your diet long-term. Why? Because your diet is always the best tasting thing on the menu.

The dumb approach is to say "I'm going to force myself"... you'll burn out eventually. Reference: "Immediate Rewards Predict Adherence to Long-Term Goals" https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1177/0146167216676480

In other words, the higher-level abstract representation of this is both the 'elephant' or the 'you-now' has to be as maximally satisfied (given its range of options, the 'best' one is the most fun one), and the 'mouse thats trying to direct the elephant' or the 'you-in-the-future' also gets what it wants.

Put simpler: if you don't have fun, it will never get done.

Emphasizing relevance is in the spirit of just-in-time learning. To give an example, years ago, I struggled to learn programming for a long time. I'd watch 11 hour courses, and nothing would stick. "Today, for-loops, and conditionals..." In my mind: 'who cares? How is this relevant to the thing I'm trying to do?'

It wasn't until I found a meaningful goal and exciting project that still was simple enough, and broke it down into a series of 'google-able steps' that I finally learned and remembered what a "for loop" meant.

The irrelevant rote approach is not a good method of memorization or learning. More intuitive approaches which try to build on your existing background (reducing the friction), and your existing goals (increasing attraction), are more likely to help you remember.

[mmcdermott]

Most people aren't going to be interested in what is taught in school. Is there a way to get such a person interested? Maybe in some cases, but not everything in life will be interesting and engaging. Sometimes hard work and diligence are simply required.

[mensetmanusman]

Fundamentals are almost always hard. There will always be struggle, just like working out is painful. It’s part of human nature.

Many people shy away from doing hard things and use words like boring.

There are strategies to make fundamentals more fun, but those strategies only work for a small subset of people. Other people look at those strategies and think they are boring as well.

[pnt12]

TFA mentions the website creator actually congratulated their achievement, advised them and worked with them to fix the cheating problems. That's spectacular and not often seen.

I think most of these platforms are created in good faith. In the internet, we can watch millions of videos, chat with strangers all over the world, listen to basically every song ever made. What if we could educate everyone? That's a noble goal.

I think we could usr a mix of both styles education: boring exercises which are nevertheless important for learning, and these could be automated, leaving room for student driven learning where a teacher can guide and evaluate a student.

[jonahx]

> Instead of saying "What are we doing that isn't capturing the students interest in these tasks? How can we connect this subject to the students most meaningful, important, and immediate concerns and goals? What concepts from this subject can we teach the student that'll help them achieve those salient goals?"

While this is not a bad question to ask, asking it won't avoid this kind of thing. Because it doesn't matter what the learning system is, or how good it is, many students will always do stuff like this if they can. Because it's fun. Because you get to stick it to authority.

Whether that authority is just or has your best interests at heart or is trying as hard as they can to do a good job is beside the point when you're young...

[youssefabdelm]

Very fair point. But perhaps if they did focus on those questions in the first place, they'd be viewed less as authority and more as friends.

[jonahx]

I feel like this can happen with individual teachers that you have a personal relationship with. I don't believe it's possible with a company, no matter how "pure" the company's intentions were, even if they were not for profit, etc. At best, it would a bit less likely.

[hedora]

I think it is telling that the first version simply skipped the mandatory 20 minute YouTube video.

Just provide a transcript! MathML and Latex exist.