[btilly]

Few people are like you. Most people aren't tinkerers. Lots of people aren't curious, and many people respond to freeform environments with indecision and frustration that's self-defeating.

Ever seen a group of 3 year olds in a sandbox?

Most people may not be tinkerers, but it seems to me that most people have the potential to be. It is also a matter of historical fact that our school system was explicitly designed to train a population that would endure working in a factories.

I remember one class I was a tutor for while I was in grad school. I wrote up sample answers for the final, and I took a step that is seldom taken - for each question I wrote down 3 different answers using 3 different techniques. (Normally, of course, the person writing sample answers just tries the approach that is probably going to be easiest.)

It was a shock for the students. In a second year college course at an Ivy League college (Dartmouth College in this case) it was a revelation that there wouldn't be just one way to answer a math question. They had thought that if they tried one approach and the math prof another, that was proof that they had failed to understand the subject. It isn't. But far too many adults are walking around without understanding that.

[yareally]

I just thought I would share the origins of the US public education system for anyone who wanted to know more or was not aware of how it came to be. Much of it was derived from the German (Prussian) public education system by Horace Mann. I'm not sure if it was tailored towards factory work in the beginning, due to the time period (first half of the 1800s for the US), so that must have come later in the second half of 19th century America. However, I'm guessing it never thought overly high of creativity and free thinking when at the time, many who were going through the education system were still working on farms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Mann

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system

[LDale]

The book you really want for this information is "America's Public Schools: From the Common School to "No Child Left Behind" by education historian William Reese.

[yareally]

Best part of HN is always getting replies with ever more details on a subject, thank you. I'll have to check it out and read it. Having gone through the American Public School System for part of my education, I am always fascinated to learn more about its origins.