[freeopinion]

IMO, the best questions around revolutionizing school should address whether children should be coerced into learning something.

It seems obvious to me that the answer should be yes. So the follow ups should be figuring out how to move a student from an unwilling participant to a willing participant.

I think about three strata of students. The stubbornly unwilling, the coaxable, and the eager. It is pretty easy to design education for the eager. And discussing how to optimize that is a completely different discipline than the discussion about how to coax. The discussion about moving the unwilling to the coaxable is another topic on its own.

Having a mixed class of unwilling, coaxable, and eager in a classroom with a mantra of "no child left behind" is a huge mistake in the same way it would be a mistake to have one teacher in a mixed classroom for Geometry, Alphabet, and Orchestra.

[hn_throwaway_99]

> I think about three strata of students. The stubbornly unwilling, the coaxable, and the eager.

I have a real issue dividing kids up along these lines. I've found that virtually all young kids love to explore and learn things, and if anything schooling can extinguish this innate desire when it becomes a source of stress.

[anon-3988]

> I have a real issue dividing kids up along these lines. I've found that virtually all young kids love to explore and learn things, and if anything schooling can extinguish this innate desire when it becomes a source of stress.

This is a very bold claim. I don't think most kids are curious about the multiplication tables

[graemep]

Why learn multiplication tables when everyone carries a computer around with them? My kids never did (ineffective school plus later home education) and are good at maths as adults. A previous HN discussion contained this post

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48395840

and ultimately this about a successful experiment in other approaches to maths:

https://www.inference.org.uk/sanjoy/benezet/1.html

[g3f32r]

> learn multiplication tables

I think sibling comments are taking issue with `learn multiplication tables` versus `memorize multiplication tables`. I find no value in the latter in kids but incredible value in the former.

What I'm teaching my homeschoolers is to instead be able to quickly derive the table from the "easy" ones. Everyone practices counting by twos, fives, and tens at an earlier stage of math. So when multiplication tables come around, if you can fill 2s,5s, and 10s out easily, then any other thing you need is (usually) just one simple addition or subtraction operation away.

I do it this way for the same reason I'm against learning "tricks" like FOIL ( first-outer-inner-last) for binomial multiplication. You end up learning the narrow-scoped trick or you end up learning the table, and not a framework by which to solve problems of a broad class.

---

I've seen entirely too many kids who memorize the table up to 10x10 and then are totally stunlocked at 11x11.

[graemep]

True, you need to understand and teach techniques rather than memorise.

[revolvingthrow]

Why learn to read and write when everyone carries a computer capable of TTS? Why learn anything when your pocket computer has access to AI doing the thinking much better than the average highschooler and has 100x the knowledge?

[graemep]

Because learning to read and write still develop your mind and capabilities. memorising stuff does not.

A better analogy would be "why stop memorising long works now we can read things instead". No one memorises epic poems anymore but we read novel instead.

[rimliu]

This is very close to "Why use brains".

[graemep]

No its not, its why use your brains for useless things. Because my kids did not spend as much time on arithmetic and rote learning they learned algebra much earlier than most do. My older daughter did IGCSE physics when she was 11 and maths when she was 12 as a result. Their ability to read was always well ahead of average for their age.

[HappMacDonald]

Learning to read must have meant memorizing vocabulary though, right?

A multiplication table is just a single-digit multiplication vocabulary.

[nostrademons]

The claim was that "virtually all young kids love to explore and learn things", not that "virtually all young kids love to explore and learn multiplication tables".

[anon-3988]

I can easily claim that most kids are not interested in anything economically valuable. Probably most adults as well.

[thunderfork]

Well, there's your problem. You've gone from "teach kids" to "economic value". Keep your eye on the ball, not on the stands.

[bigstrat2003]

Sure. But the fact of the matter is that we must teach kids many diverse things, and most of them are going to be things that some (or even most) of the kids have no interest in learning. So one has to grapple with the question of how to teach kids who don't actually care about learning what you're teaching.

[bawolff]

I think a lot of kids can be motivated for that by having a game out of counting in multiples (e.g . Have them count by 4s, 5s, etc). Which is good enough for practical purposes.

[ChiperSoft]

> I don't think most kids are curious about the multiplication tables

Which is exactly why they stopped teaching them in US curriculum under No Child Left Behind.

[rvrs]

what? I started school in the early 2000s, after no child left behind started, and definitely learned multiplication tables lol

[ChiperSoft]

You're right, apparently this was a much more recent thing and california only. I just knew neither of my kids were taught them, so I assumed it happened longer ago.

https://www.thewellnews.com/opinions/california-removes-memo...

[JoeAltmaier]

They may refuse to learn multiplication tables (a popular subject if I remember right, reciting them as far as we could, a competition) while memorizing baseball stats.

Kids will learn anything that gives them social standing or self-worth in another way, whatever it takes to be a cool kid.

[lnenad]

> "Kids will learn anything that gives them social standing or self-worth in another way, whatever it takes to be a cool kid."

"nerds" would disagree with you. I think the point that OP was trying to make is the three groups are dynamic based on the topic. So the groups are not the same for biology, maths and for literature.

[Lord-Jobo]

Nerds are a group that have a separate definition of social peer and “cool” but aspire just as much as other groups to achieve social status or coolness.

It’s exceptionally rare to encounter any person, adult or otherwise, that genuinely holds no value in any opinion of another. And even those people hold to their own self evaluations which do not spawn from pure noise.

[FloorEgg]

While my experience relates to learning in higher-ed, I completely agree with those three categories... Though a helpful nuance may be that it's a spectrum, not hard boundaries, and every subject/exercise can have a distinct relationship with the learner and context.

When rubber hits the road with a learning objective, I think the two most important axis are: how much does the student want to learn (this), and how easy is it for the student to learn (this)?

Both can depend on a variety of factors... For example a masters student paying their own way mid career maybe really wants to learn as much as they can, but a specific research report assigned during a busy work week, and some family emergency, etc. may mean they treat the assignment as "I just need to get this done" instead of "I want to get as much as I can out of this", and one way that can show up is how much they depend on an LLM to do the work for them...

[jltsiren]

When I was involved in higher education, people talked about three motivations: passing the class, being good at whatever is being measured, and learning the topic. Those were not distinct categories but separate axes, and they were understood to be situational rather than inherent qualities of the person. We didn't care much about the people who scored low on all three axes. Education was free, and if you didn't have the motivation, you were probably better off doing something else.

In any case, people who wanted to learn were easy to deal with. The other two motivations could be used to coax the person to learn, but they required different approaches.

[FloorEgg]

That sounds right to me. I like that model and will remember it, thanks.

[snhshshjss]

I used to believe this until I got kids myself.

There is no stress, they just don’t want to “explore” things they see as non-urgent.. basically everything you need like writing, reading and calculating properly.

No amount of coaxing, gamification or whatever works consistently. The only thing that got my smartest kid through anything is by force. Not too much, but still, they need some amount of coercion no question about it. Anyone that denies this I find very, very hard to take seriously.

Interestingly the slightly less cerebral one is easier to guide through gamification. I guess the smarter you are the easier you see through BS. It’s easier to just learn to suck it up and Do The Thing instead of “learning is fun”. It isn’t and it doesn’t matter.

[ambicapter]

Then think of them as the same child in different phases between "extinguished innate desire" and "loves to explore and learn things".

[arjie]

I’m curious about homeschooling and alternative methods of schooling so this is of interest to me. By “virtually all” I assume you mean “all but those developmentally delayed”. Have you run a program that uses your principles or have you tested your thesis in some way that you are willing to share?

[ai_critic]

Real talk: which kids have you interacted with? What social class? What ethnicity? What household structure (nuclear, multigenerational, single parent, single parent plus intermittent partner, divorced with shared custody, dirtbag but grandparent covering)?

I've found that the people who are more optimistic about kids tend to live in a particular category of socioneconomic bubble.

[eszed]

Ignoring whatever you mean by injecting "ethnicity" into the question, I've interacted kids in all of those socio-economic situations and think both that GP's point about innate curiosity is true, and that GGP's unwilling / coaxable / eager concept is a reasonable framework. That's not to say that I'm necessarily optimistic - socio-economic difficulties create absolutely enormous challenges to learning - just that I've never encountered a group of kids, regardless of background, where there weren't students in each of those (unwilling / coaxable / eager) sets.

[bwhiting2356]

It's hard to convince kids why they should learn advanced abstract math, beyond what is necessary to calculate the tip on a restaurant bill. The number of high school students who will use advanced math beyond high school is very small, but those that do will have high impact, which is both in society's interest and their own interest as high earners.

The kids that study and apply themselves, I don't think it's so much that they can see they understand the benefits of linear algebra at the time, it's that their parents and the social network they're a part of sends them signals that this is what they should do to be successful and they're rewarded for doing well in school.

[abdullahkhalids]

I will bet that the number of adults who ever engage in coloring or painting as adults is extremely small. Probably less than the number of full time scientists, engineers, finance professionals etc. Yet no one complains that we are forcing students to do art in school, even when many students don't particularly like doing art. Why? Because we recognize that developing general artistic ability in humans is important, so we need art classes.

The other argument about teaching "advanced math" is the same as why Cristiano Ronaldo spends a significant part of his training in the gym lifting weights? Ever seen Ronaldo take out a barbell and start doing squats during a game? One should reflect on this.

[WarmWash]

Math is a tool for solving problems, and people will do work to create value that they will share with you for helping them solve a problem which will ultimately create even more value.

In short, math is a powerhouse tool for carrying society forward.

Art, while cool to look at and experience, has a pretty low efficacy in terms of "motivating people to do work, or removing obstacles, to carry society forward"

In short, starving artists.

There is also the whole thing where art is an abstract concept with a subjective definition, and a solar cell sporting new tech with 33% efficiency objectively being better than one with 24% efficiency.

[abdullahkhalids]

I cannot support such thinking. Art is foundational to human experience. People crave that their free time is filled with good food, good music, good books, good movies and shows in beautiful houses with beautiful gardens. All of these are various forms of art.

There were humans for tens of thousands of years before there was high technology. But there were hardly any humans around before there was art.

[bawolff]

> Art, while cool to look at and experience, has a pretty low efficacy in terms of "motivating people to do work, or removing obstacles, to carry society forward"

Idk, the soviets didn't invest in socialist realism propaganda for nothing.

Less sarcastically, art has had an outsized influence on society and culture. Take any social movement you want, and there was probably some novel or work of art that galvanized it.

[WarmWash]

My argument isn't that art doesn't have an impact, my argument is that the artists to impact ratio is insane.

10,000 artists in, one $20k work of art out.

Whereas something like the engineer is closer to

5 engineers in, $500k of work out (and even that is pretty conservative)

[bruce511]

Firstly, measuring art in $ terms ignores the benefits that extend way beyond $ terms. Most fine art produced has a value approaching 0. My wife and I buy art from time to time, but we've never spent more than about $100 or so, yet get disproportionate pleasure from it.

As a first order approximation the "price" of art (as distinct from its value) is a function of branding not asthetics.

Secondly most artists get paid, not from doing fine art, but from adjacent careers that require good color, balance, composition, and so on. Industrial designers (think Jonny Ive), interior design, food presentation, magazine layout, web design, architecture and so on. Art skills are all around us. In the same way engineering is around us.

Put another way, engineers build ugly (think beige PC boxes). It took an artist to give us the iMac. And it was a marketing genius (yet another important skillset) to bring the artist and engineer together.

Teaching math goes far beyond creating mathematicians. Teaching art goes far beyond teaching artists. Societies that drop art because it is unproductive get ugliness permeating everywhere.

[bawolff]

I'm not sure i agree witb the ratio. I think its much more lopsided. E.g. 100,000 artists in, one trillion dollar work of art out. (I'm counting indirect value. e.g. All the people who read Dune or a silent spring and become environmentalists as a result should have their value attributed to that work of art)

Also i'd point out the selection bias of not counting people who fail out of engineering school but still counting every unsuccessful artist.

[vkazanov]

I have this inner model of something i call "the rock star economics": many people want to do music but only one becomes a rock star and makes serious money. But he gets so much attention that many more people want to become rock stars.

Applies to art, fashion, media.

Most practical (including engineering) successes are much less externally attractive but do make decent money for everybody involved.

[williamoforange]

I know this is going to seem reductive, but especially with young children we teach art due to the value it gives them as individuals developing. Not for the GDP or individual fiscal benefit.

Further, judging the value of art to society by how much it costs is ridiculous and an asinine comparison.

[servo_sausage]

Art class as part of public education is not completely uncontrovertial.

It grew out of a time where basic artistic skills were expensive to learn, and could be a real class differentiator (and had some employment benefits).

That's now a fair bit less true; but still continues to prevent these things becoming the sole domain of private schools.

[ghaff]

Never had art in school.

Did do writing although a lot was extracurricular.

[parpfish]

re: not teaching math to kids is a pet peeve of mine.

the number of adults i've met who cannot add two fractions together is depressing.

at some point each of them had decided "i'm just bad with numbers, hahaha" and they gave themselves permission to stop trying math. worse, society gives you a pass at not knowing math. we need to apply the same constant social pressure to mathematics skills that we do for learning to read.

[WalterBright]

When young people ask me why they should learn math, I point out that managing your money requires math, and there are plenty of people who will steal from you if you are unable to recognize it.

An inability to understand compound interest is classic.

[marcus_holmes]

But that's basic arithmetic, and we have calculators to do that. Totally agree that understanding the problem and being able to frame a solution are also needed, but again, that's not hard maths.

I think we're more talking about algebra or, really, anything "higher" in maths than arithmetic. Does a solid knowledge of, e,g, Set Theory, give any benefit later in life?

And also, if we think that basic financial management is a good thing for kids to learn, why don't we teach that?

[freeopinion]

No, we don't have calculators to do that. AI, maybe. But a calculator cannot form an equation out of a social context and solve the equation.

If you bought 6 liters of soda for £3/2-liter bottle with 8% consumption tax, how much should it cost?

You have to shape that all into a series of operations for your calculator. The calculator can't do it by itself. Even basic arithmetic takes some education before the calculator can be useful.

[bawolff]

> But that's basic arithmetic, and we have calculators to do that.

I would disagree. How to minimize a function, how to calculate interest, first derrivative are all pretty useful in finance, and a bit beyond basic arithmatic.

> I think we're more talking about algebra

"Algebra" as a term covers a lot. Being able to solve for x is a very useful skill and often what people mean by algebra.

If you mean understanding groups, rings, fields, or whatever, then sure that is probably not very useful to the average person's day to day. However i dont think that is usually tought in high school.

> Does a solid knowledge of, e,g, Set Theory, give any benefit later in life?

Pretty sure nobody in high school is getting a solid understanding of set theory. That is more university level.

> And also, if we think that basic financial management is a good thing for kids to learn, why don't we teach that?

I guess it depends on where you live, but i had to take a class on that in high school.

[thaumasiotes]

> Does a solid knowledge of, e,g, Set Theory, give any benefit later in life?

Is there any benefit to being able to distinguish logical entailments from non sequiturs?

The things that are taught under the label "set theory" are taught elsewhere under the label "basic logic". The most primitive symbols are intentionally matched: in logic, "and" is ∧ and "or" is ∨, while in set theory, "and" is ⋂ and "or" is ⋃.

The symbols stop matching quite that well after that - compare logical ⟶ and ¬ to set-theoretic ⊆ and ᶜ - but they continue to consist of the same material.

[vkazanov]

Set theory is actually the basis for all of math. This includes basic counting of the number of things in, ehm, sets. Cant be nore practical than this.

[WalterBright]

A calculator won't help at all if you don't have a grasp on what compound interest is. I've seen many laments on X from graduates who could not understand why they've paid more money to their student loan lender than the amount of the loan, and still have a balance that was more than the loan amount.

These are college graduates.

> Does a solid knowledge of, e,g, Set Theory, give any benefit later in life?

Knowledge of statistics will help a person a lot.

Another example. I wanted to put an elliptical brick patio in my yard. The contractor gave a square footage and I signed a deal with the charge per square foot. He staked it out.

It looked a bit peculiar to me. So I measured the major and minor axes and computed the area of the ellipse. It was 1/3 smaller than the contracted amount. The pallet of bricks was sitting in the driveway. I multiplied xyz to get the square footage of the bricks, and walla, it matched the area staked out.

I.e. I was being cheated. The contractor evidently was used to math challenged customers, and discovered how much he could cheat before being noticed. I pointed out the "error" (hahahaha) and the contractor reduced the bill by a third.

> why don't we teach that?

Exactly!

[bruce511]

An excellent example that shows the value of understanding very basic geometry.

I'll add that math isn't really just about that sort of practicality though. It's also about a fundamental understanding of numbers and what they mean.

For example, inflation is in the news a lot. It's high, or low. Most people (the US president included) think that if inflation was 0% prices would come down. But that'd be a profound misunderstanding of the topic.

A grounding in numbers, in this case percentages, makes for a better understanding.

Any business owner needs to know fundamental truths to survive. Cost price, markup, margin, selling price, fixed expenses versus variable expenses and so on. All are grounded in basic math. Without that you can't do basic accounting. Without that you can't effectively run a business.

Anti-vax arguments are built on very bad math, and people bad at math fall for it.

We all use math all the time. People bad at math are at a major disadvantage. Populations bad at math are easily manipulated.

[parpfish]

nitpick: "walla" -> "voila"

[ThrowawayR2]

They're even proud of it, heaven help us. How many posts on HN by SWEs have we seen saying that people didn't lose any skills of importance when calculators became widespread?

[BeetleB]

> we need to apply the same constant social pressure to mathematics skills that we do for learning to read.

Ha Ha Ha! Cute you think society cares about reading abilities!

I mean, OK, you are expected to be able to do basic level reading. But, say, reading something independently to learn something? Even when I was in university 20 years ago it was a struggle to get people to read.

[watwut]

Motivation to learn has nothing to do with practicality. That was definitely that way for me, especially when I was young.

I know full well that languages are necessary and useful ... and were. I still found learning languages the most boring thing in the world. I liked abstract math despite thinking it is not necessary useful - I did not cared. I could go on, but relation between interesting and useful was never all that straight forward.

[raincole]

> kids why they should learn advanced abstract math

Could you clarify what do you mean by 'kids' and 'advanced math' here?

I personally believe we should stop believing advanced math is meaningful for everyone. Especially stop trying to push them down to high school curriculum.

When I say advanced math I mean anything involved with "what exactly is a ___ (vector space, real number, group, set, etc)".

[BeetleB]

> It's hard to convince kids why they should learn advanced abstract math, beyond what is necessary to calculate the tip on a restaurant bill.

When I was just a bit younger, I detested what I'm about to say, but now know as the "reality".

Your argument is focused on rationalism. You're trying to give kids/teenagers real world reasons to learn something.

People are rarely motivated by reason. They are motivated by emotions.

If you look, you'll find plenty of examples of very "rational" adults (college professors included) who clearly know something to be true, will admit to it, but will still go the emotional route.

As a parent, I looked into the research on changing/shaping children's behavior. And the key things that stood out:

1. If you know enough adults who do equivalently bad things even while they know the harm in it, don't expect kids to behave based on reason.

2. Focus on (positive) emotions. Give kids incentives. They shouldn't clean up the table because it will keep the house clean. They should clean it up because they'll get a (short term) positive reward.

3. Focus on building the ritual as a habit, and separate it from any semblance of morality. The brain needs to get accustomed to the actual behavior. The rationale can be added (now or when older), but if you focus too much on rationale without the habit, you'll get someone like me, who realizes a lot of behaviors are good for me, but won't do them because "my brain isn't wired for it".

Getting back to kids learning algebra, or whatever: Their lack of incentive isn't because they can't connect to practical skills in life.[1] The reason they don't want to do it is because it is not a valued skill amongst their peers. And it's also not a valued skill in American society.

That's why high school kids in Eastern Europe or East Asia tend to know this a lot better. If you can't multiply two numbers on paper, you're an idiot. Everyone will know you're an idiot. As much an idiot as not being able to read properly. So you learn it because you know that it's just a baseline intelligence marker you should have by a certain age. You don't whine about it any more than you'd whine about how to properly eat food without spilling it. Sure, once they're older and reflect back, they may say "I never needed algebra", but it doesn't bother them. Knowing it is merely part of being cultured.[2]

Now being motivated by shame is really not a great way to get people to do something, and that's not what I'm encouraging. The point is that it's a broader societal problem. Why should they learn it if they see no one else values it?

I wrote more about this about a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48065640

[1] Think about all the useless things kids can be good at. Did they have to rationalize why they should learn them?

[2] This is why California, in particular, had a strong push back regarding calculus not being taught in high schools. There's a strong and relatively wealthy Asian/immigrant community in those places, and they've tried to maintain the value of being decent at math. (All the stuff about impacting university education is fluff. I used to work at a university, and they had remedial programs for incoming students who didn't know algebra/pre-calculus. It adds to the time to graduate, but by and large is successful - it's OK if you go into engineering without being exposed to calculus).

[Telaneo]

> [1] Think about all the useless things kids can be good at. Did they have to rationalize why they should learn them?

'It's fun' is a pretty compelling reason for both kids and adults to learn certain things, but you can't just decide what's fun and what isn't. Maths rarely gets to have that reason (and when it does, it applies to people for whom this entire problem isn't relevant).

[BeetleB]

I'm not opposed to trying to make learning anything fun. At a larger scale, though, if that's the primary strategy, you'll barely move the needle.

[thaumasiotes]

> Focus on (positive) emotions. Give kids incentives.

I taught at an English-immersion high school in Shanghai.

It's worth remarking that the boy at the top of the class in each grade was dating the girl at the top of the class.

[BeetleB]

Are you suggesting that in that culture boys/girls did not value the other party unless they were academically similar...?

I can believe it, but I don't know if it's true. Obviously not true in the US.

[thaumasiotes]

I'm suggesting that in Chinese culture, academic success is an effective way to impress girls.

[BeetleB]

Or ... for them to impress guys?

[cyberax]

Here's my take: school math past the basic arithmetic will be useless in life for the majority of people. Any non-trivial school-level-related math question can be easily solved within 10-20 seconds by a Google search.

That's also why all the examples of math's usefulness become ridiculous stories like: "imagine yourself getting stuck on an uninhabited island and having to calculate the triple integral to find the volume of a barrel of water".

No. The real use of school-level math/physics/chemistry/language is in laying the _foundation_ and training the brain.

And it doesn't really matter what exactly you want to use for mental training. Every structured activity is fine, as long as it engages the brain.

Even pointless tasks like memorizing scriptures help. There are studies that show that religious students who spent a lot of time on rote memorization, and later switch to other disciplines, in the end do quite well with their studies.

[cyberax]

Here's the thing. Learning is hard. There's no going around it. You'll need to grind through practice problems, write essays, memorize facts, etc.

And you need to do that. It trains your brain. If you simply rely on calculators, LLMs, and Google Search, then you likely can forget about doing advanced science.

It doesn't mean that you have to _master_ everything. Far from it. But you need to apply real effort to various subjects to train yourself.

[bigthymer]

Having multiple parallel tracks for different types of students is controversial. Schooling tends to be cyclical with periods with more tracking is popular shifting to periods of less tracking and more classroom mixing. It really depends on what you want to optimize for. More tracking benefits the highest achievers. Less tracking raises the bottom and the average but at the cost of not maximizing the outcome of the top.

[liveoneggs]

I find these arguments ignore one of the most obvious and important parts of school: discipline/behavior.

A really small number of disruptive kids will destroy the learning of the entire middle. The top kids will figure it out at home and survive, or their parents will separate them through brute-force - a few borderline high achievers will probably be brought down too.

In the poorer neighborhoods around me the school performance is actually shameful and the kids are being subjected to the worst of their peers constantly, destroying their ability to succeed. Many will (hopefully) drop out/get arrested by late middle/early high school but the damage they do to their entire neighborhood along the way is massive.

Cohorting the highs and the well-behaved middle would probably work out just fine but unless you can eliminate the disruptive and the very-behind it's just the worst of all worlds.

[freeopinion]

Do you find it controversial to have different tracks for Geometry, Swim, and Orchestra students? These are different types of students.

Arithmetic, Algebra, and Statistics are different classes should be taught separately.

"Please wake up and take your headphones off and answer my question even though you don't plan on passing any of your classes" and History are different classes with different types of students. Trying to conduct both classes at the same time using the same teacher is folly. You will be forced to abandon one or both of the students. You might argue that you should abandon them it turns every other day so they both get something out of the class. But that means they will each get half or less out of the class than they would have if you separated the classes. It is highly likely that you will frustrate both students to the point of impediment.

[hunterpayne]

"Having multiple parallel tracks for different types of students is controversial."

It shouldn't be. The research overwhelming says its a good practice. The type of people who say this type of thing are the exact type of ideologically motivated people who are destroying school systems in blue districts. Ironically this group both hates private schools and creates the environment that pushes parents to pay for private schools. I've personally seen the bad consequences of schools that do this and I know people who aren't here anymore because of it. So please, for the love of god, stop talking about topics you know nothing about.

[zozbot234]

It's not that easy. The status quo is that having multiple tracks creates terrible incentives among teachers: no teacher wants to teach the "bad" track, so they get stuck with the worst teachers and the worst educational outcomes over time. (This occurs not just because many remedial students have very real behavioral issues that deter the best teachers from engaging with them, but also notably because the progressive education establishment is dismissive of teaching methods that actually help those students learn effectively, and doesn't train general-ed educators in the use of such methods.)

[bigthymer]

> The research overwhelming says its a good practice.

I disagree. From what I've read, the data is more mixed. More tracking optimizes for the top achievers. Less tracking optimizes for the lower and middle. Less tracking probably maximizes average metrics.

> The type of people who say this type of thing are the exact type of ideologically motivated people who are destroying school systems in blue districts. Ironically this group both hates private schools and creates the environment that pushes parents to pay for private schools. I've personally seen the bad consequences of schools that do this and I know people who aren't here anymore because of it.

I agree. However, I think the counter solution these people imagine is a similar scenario as described here <https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/sd3in2/...>.

> So please, for the love of god, stop talking about topics you know nothing about.

Let's be civil. There is no need to attack me personally. You're welcome to disagree with my ideas, share your opinion, and present support. I think a reasonable person can find support for both opinions.

[fuzzfactor]

>figuring out how to move a student from an unwilling participant to a willing participant.

I've been giving chemistry lessons since I was a teenager, and quite early this became my first order of business after that alone was responsible for turning a D student into a B student in one session.

For that first non-mathematically inclined student who was having so much trouble, this had to be accomplished before any of the specific concepts and problems could be properly addressed in the course they were enrolled in.

All that was accomplished in two hours was gradual but progressive reversal of attitude, not unlike what I was accustomed to in ramping up to more advanced subject matter, but we never got around to that during the first session.

The next week they had a very positive attitude and were going to call me later with some challenging equations for some help.

Wasn't necessary, the very next week they got a B on their own initiative, were so excited and passed everything after that with no further problems. It was probably the most thankful student I ever tutored.

[psadri]

If you had the budget for two teachers, I’d utilize them as one teaching in the traditional way, and the other spending 1:1 times with each student (20 students in a class → 1-1:30 hr / student).

[Vinnl]

If we had budgets that allowed for one teacher per ten students, I imagine many problems in education would already be solved.

[hunterpayne]

There is no correlation between better educational outcomes and higher teacher pay. Washington has the highest teacher pay and the smallest classrooms yet is below average in educational outcomes. Stop this canard, it just isn't true. US Schools have plenty of money, they just don't spend it wisely. In fact, both Mississippi and Louisiana have better outcomes than Washington state despite the fact they have half the spend per student.

[WalterBright]

The Washington schools constantly ask for more money so they can teach. I don't see what monetary resources are needed to teach arithmetic beyond a blackboard and chalk.

Projectors, videos, computers, tablets, calculators, are all completely useless in teaching math.

[freeopinion]

Walter,

I have a great deal of respect for you. Your math skills are much greater than my own. But you have stretched your statement too far. Flash cards can be very helpful in teaching math. Timed tests for math facts can be very helpful. Both of these can be facilitated with computers or tablets. Animations can be a very useful instructional tool. Even taking a picture of the chalk on the blackboard and putting it online can help students (and possibly helpful parents) review the in-class lecture from home while they do their homework.

I don't dismiss your overall point, but don't be too flippant. A video of the lecture can be very helpful.

[WalterBright]

I tried various methods on myself.

What works:

1. having a lecture on a chalkboard

2. taking notes by hand. Yes, by hand. Something about the act of writing it by hand fixes it in my brain

3. using pencil and paper to do the problems.

4. and what really works is giving an in-person lecture on how to do it

What doesn't work:

1. everything else

I've watched many instructional videos. Poof, none of it sticks. I've audited classes. Poof, none of it sticks, because I didn't do the homework.

I've never known anyone who learned arithmetic from a calculator.

It's like wanting to be strong. You have to do the work to get strong. There is no substitute.

[cheesecakegood]

All good examples but all relatively low cost as well (and don’t require 1:1 student-laptops). However I’m pretty darn sure that videos do more harm than good - too easy to zone out during them, and providing them to students only allows them to slack in class with the attitude “I can just watch the video again later.” Despite being horribly inefficient this is true for students of virtually all ages. Providing videos to those who ask only might help.

The real problem beyond all this is that the educational spending goes to the wrong spots. If you ask me, teachers should be empowered to select their own curriculum using a budget and most of the rest of the money should go towards paid tutors, better teacher-student ratios, etc (and probably way fewer administrators). I am firmly convinced that a lot of kids act out because they can’t grasp the material, not in spite of it.

[freeopinion]

Budgets are a region-specific thing.

In the USA there are approximately 50 million students aged 5-18. If you paid for each student to get 1:1 attention one day a week, you would need one teacher per five students in schools that meet five days a week. Let's use that number because it reduces 50 million students nicely to 10 million teachers. Let's pay each teacher $70K/year. That would cost $700 billion per year.

The USA military spent $100 billion per year in Afghanistan.

If the USA provided the 1:1 attention only in 1st Grade and 3rd Grade, they could fund it with the same commitment they made in Afghanistan with a lot fewer deaths. The USA persisted in Afghanistan for 20 years. Shall we experiment with education for 10 years and see if we get a better result than we did in Afghanistan?

[nick486]

Even if the money had been available. you can't just spawn millions of teachers out of nothing. there aren't that many people who can and want to do the job.

[marcus_holmes]

Show me the lobbyist who will push for giving 700 billion a year to teachers.

That 100 billion goes to a bunch of extremely well-connected businesses who fund lobbyists to make sure the USA continues expending munitions in a series of utterly pointless, futile, wars.

[psadri]

I believe 1:1 is fundamentally different than ever 1:2 ratio. So, even if you can have 3 person classrooms, I don't think it would be the same as 1:1 time.

As soon as you are working with more than one student, you have to teach the common denominator, which may or may not (more often not) be the thing that will most help any of the students.

In 1:1, you can identify were the specific gaps in skill, knowledge are and tailor the session to close them. Personalized.

[gampleman]

Plenty of places have relatively high teacher pay, relative high staffing (for instance 1 teacher + 1 assistant per 25 children is standard here - not quite 1/10 but pretty close). The educational outcomes are bad and getting worse.

[Vinnl]

Hmm that's fair, I forgot about the assistant; they're probably not that much cheaper than a teacher to be a significant budgetary difference.

[nicwilson]

If you use other students for that problem instead of other teachers, you'd swap a budgetary problem for a bootstrap problem.

The upshot for this is that the benefit is as much for the student doing the teaching as the one doing the learning. Teaching has a much greater effect on _retention_ than listening reading or even doing, which is the majority determinant underlying the primary school curriculum.

There are a whole host of secondary benefits to this (as well as lots of logistical challenges): the students are doing something useful, teaching, and we pay teachers if you wanted to expend budget there I suspect it would have great effect, as would any other form of ~~bribery~~, I mean, incentivisation; socialising, especially if you have the teaching being done across different classes (which you would want to do because you want the teacher to know more than the student).

[psadri]

This is even a more interesting idea! I guess similar to the teacher assistant system in higher education. One version of this could be students a year ahead teaching the previous year's students. In elementary school it might be tricky, because besides interest, there are issues are classroom discipline and behavior which might be beyond the capabilities of an 8th year old.

[viccis]

The answer is, as it's always been, aggressive tracking. Easier said than done because most school administrators and education policymakers base a lot of their self worth out of being "good people" and being liked by everyone. Having to give up on some kids is unthinkable to them. Simply giving up on all of the kids in a way that decouples the outcomes from their direct actions is much preferable and lets them sleep easy.

[tshaddox]

Why is it obvious to you that children should be coerced into learning something?

Let's say that you have some curriculum C that you think is vital for children to learn, and you want as many children as possible to learn C.

Even ignoring ethics, it's not obvious to me that attempting to coerce all children into learning C is the best way to accomplish your goal!

[FloorEgg]

I'm not the parent comment author, but my guess is that they probably meant persuade or inspire as much if not more than coerce. Most respectful interpretation and all...

Why is it obvious that an educator should do their best to teach a student something even when they don't want to learn? Well for one, it's their job, and two... Children especially are not good judges of which knowledge and skills will benefit them later in life.

[WalterBright]

> Children especially are not good judges of which knowledge and skills will benefit them later in life.

This. If children knew what was best for them, they wouldn't need teachers or parents.

When I was in college, the courses were laid out for particular majors. Electives were few. I trusted the college that they knew what they were doing in deciding the curricula, because I sure didn't.

[tshaddox]

I'm sorry if I was uncharitable. That certainly was not my intention. The only usage of "coerce" I'm aware of is in direct opposition to "persuade" or "inspire," and I'm not aware of any serious debate about whether children should be persuaded/inspired/encouraged to learn things.

[FloorEgg]

> I'm not aware of any serious debate about whether children should be persuaded/inspired/encouraged to learn things.

Kind of an odd thing to say given decades of pedagogy research in this debate exactly. Maybe you are just entirely uninformed about this topic?

E.g. self-directed education, self-determination theory, zone of proximal development, cognitive load theory...

Are you saying that you don't think educators should try and teach students when they don't want to learn?

Or that educators shouldn't try to get students to want to learn when they don't?

[tshaddox]

I have only a surface level awareness of those topics. I would be very surprised if there are notable proponents of the idea that parents/adults should never attempt to encourage children to learn things.

I’ve seen some stuff bordering on this idea from the self-directed education folks, but even the most radical proponents I’ve seen are saying stuff like “try to leave interesting materials about topic X around the house, rather than always asking your child if they want to learn about topic X.” And even that is more about which methods to use to inspire a child to learn.

[Etheryte]

In broad strokes, learning leads to better life outcomes just like brushing your teeth leads to better health outcomes, or any other example you may prefer. Brushing teeth is a chore so a child won't generally pick it up all by themselves without some nudging. If you don't do the nudging you're essentially letting a child be free, yes, but also willingly letting them end up worse off when they're too young to know any better. Learning is the same.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> just like brushing your teeth leads to better health outcomes

This is very context dependent. If you grow up surrounded by a typical western/industrial/post-industrial diet, then yes, it almost certainly does.

But you could also change the food environment.

Hopefully the analogy/metaphor that connects this to schooling is reasonably obvious.

[Etheryte]

I don't think this argument is logically sound. Your eating habits are something that you personally have fairly high control over and can change with reasonable ease/effort. Society at large does not have the same characteristics and unless you have the means to live outside of society, you do have to deal with its realities.

[fooo1882992]

So... We need to go back to living in the jungle?

You go do that then. Enjoy your slow death from malaria.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Where did I say anything about living in the jungle?

The food choices having nothing to do with the jungle, but rather: regular, significant consumption of highly processed and most significantly sweetened foods. There were plenty of people in the world before the widespread adoption of sugar as cooking ingredient whose dental health would likely not have been improved by brushing, and they didn't live in "the jungle" but places like ... America, and Japan, and India and ... basically the entire planet.

[abdullahkhalids]

Forget children. I regularly coerce adults - junior members of my team - to learn properly things they don't care to learn too much. Both for the benefit of the organization (society in the case of children) and for their own benefit.

[singpolyma3]

I agree this is the fundamental question and disagreement. I certainly don't think coercion is ethical.

[Wowfunhappy]

We "coerce" children to do all sorts of things. We make them go to sleep. We make them learn to use the toilet.

[b112]

Indeed. Children and not "little adults". They are emotionally and intellectually immature, literally with the brain and body growing into to the capabilities of an adult.

And if good habits are not instilled, they will have a difficult life ahead of them. It's far easier to learn those habits when young, than to try to independently course correct as an adult.

Not coercing a child towards correct behaviours, is doing them a great disservice. In some circumstances, it's child abuse to not coerce those bahaviours.

[marcus_holmes]

I think "coerce" is doing a lot of work here.

There's a huge difference between a loving parent gently but firmly teaching their kid to clean their teeth every day even though they don't want to, and a brutal schoolteacher beating facts into a class full of miserable kids.

[b112]

There is a difference. Yet that's the point. Because "beating facts" and "miserable kids" is not necessarily inferred from 'coerced', as opposed to 'gently but firmly', and that's why people are clarifying so.

There is in fact little difference between "you have to learn these things" and "brushing your teeth".

[komali2]

I don't either - I'm am anarchist. But, ever hear the saying, "against all authority except mommy?" Kids need some level of coercion just to keep them alive. They have to be made to even eat sometimes.

[protonbob]

Why not?

[limagnolia]

Not the poster to whom you are questioning, but I would argue that inspiring and encouraging are much better than coercing, especially if the goal is to educate, as I am skeptical that coercion is ever going to work to get true learning.

[gamerDude]

In a way, I think coercion is a requirement to be ethical. Ethics is determined based on what current society believes to be the right thing to do. We see that there are a variety of different cultures and ethics around the world, which would indicate that humans wouldn't just automatically follow a universal set of rules.

Thus to be ethical in your society, usually means you must follow the rules determined by a collective group of your nations ancestors or you will be shunned/jailed/harmed/etc. Which is essentially coercion. "Act this way or be punished."

[limagnolia]

But there is a difference in behaving ethically and behaving legally. While there may be consequences for behaving unethically (IE "I won't do business with them because I do not feel they are ethical"), society generally only overtly punishes those who do things that are illegal.

[vkazanov]

It is the other way around.

White collar crime might be illegal but most societies would definitely punish a murderer either legally or illegaly. Social stigma is a MUCH more serious thing than legality of action.