[the_watcher]

>> Much of our teaching processes focus on skills, rather than a more abstract notion of "education." There's been much said about why this is a bad thing; I'm rather ambivalent on it myself, seeing from casual observation how much benefit skill-focused education can offer to those who would otherwise simply learn nothing. Of course, this works better where self-motivated students are not stymied by too-strict adherence to curricula. IOW, perhaps we don't teach math, but we do teach the skills that are required to "experience" math at a later date.

Skill based education is better than not learning anything. No one argues this, it's a strawman. The point is, learning a method to do something without any kind of explanation or example of why you ever would do it is woefully suboptimal. In an attempt to come up with the most absurd example of this - it can feel like learning to scuba dive in a world with no water deeper than 8 feet, especially given that most teachers I had actually could not give me examples of how to apply the "math" I was learning (and I was a very immature handful back then, very unshy about demanding an explanation of why I was wasting my time learning something that I couldn't see a use for). The author isn't arguing for eliminating all the "skills-based" education he references, he's arguing that we move it closer to how music is taught - teach all the skills, but then immediately apply them to something the students can relate to, at that age (not in 7 years when they are working and run the risk of being like me, and not recognizing the importance of these concepts until then). Math is everywhere. Most people learn basic computation fairly easily, since it can be taught in the context of going to the grocery store or splitting a check. Get beyond this, and all of a sudden, schools quit even attempting to anchor math education in reality (by this I mean a situation that could conceivably occur in reality, not simply taking a number problem and putting words to it).

The argument in favor of mandatory musical education would actually probably benefit from stealing a bit of this piece: music is one of the best forms of education in terms of immediate application of the concepts and methods you are taught, perhaps only behind physical education.