[samirmenon]

Is the elementary educational system truly "damaging" to young minds?

I think of my elementary education (which, mind you, was only 6 years ago) as perhaps boring or tedious in some areas (like math, for me), while also exciting and rewarding in others (science, learning to make friends, deal with gossip, etc). I certainly don't think I have a very 'damaged' method of thought now because of my elementary education.

I think that, on the whole, it was not at all damaging; in fact, it was important to my development as a child.

[baddox]

> Is the elementary educational system truly "damaging" to young minds?

I think so, and not just because some schools fail to provide a decent core education on the primary subjects. Obviously, many public schools do provide a reasonable core education (I got a pretty decent one, although Wikipedia sure helped). I'm more worried about the culture of schools and how kids are taught to think about creativity, authority, society, etc.

[glenra]

Have you read The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher? I recommend it to you and would be curious what you think of it. Here's a Cliffs Notes abbreviated version, just listing what the seven lessons are:

http://www.athenstalks.com/node/179729

And here's the whole essay (which is still pretty short):

http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt

Of the "seven lessons", I think the lesson of the bells was the one I found most damaging. When I get interested in a subject, I would want to study that subject deeply, intensely, to the exclusion of everything else. Having to learn a subject like math divided into TINY LITTLE CHUNKS, mere drips and drabs spread out over an entire YEAR, takes something that could have interesting and makes it infuriating. Being expected to turn your interest on and off like a light switch when bells ring at arbitrary intervals...just didn't work for me.

I'm sure it depends on the student. Kids are resilient; I think most manage to learn a fair bit despite their schooling and some learn a bit due to it. For myself, I'm pretty sure school damaged my intrinsic motivation and wasted my time; I feel like I learned much more despite school than due to it.

[OmarIsmail]

Not sure how accurate your profile is, but if you're still 16 and thus in high-school you may not appreciate just how different the real world is. And that exactly is why it is so damaging.

In school there are a small number of people that are given authority over a huge swath of your life completely arbitrarily. This affects how you act and spend your time. This is completely opposite to how things work in the real world.

Another issue is that you're surrounded primarily with people of the same age. That is children/teenagers that similarly have little to no external life experience. In the real world you are surrounded by people of many demographics (age, ethnicity, background, etc).

Physical violence in white-collar workplaces (which is what I imagine most readers here would be working at) is near non-existent vs being at school where it's a very real threat for many people.

The concept of responsibility and bills. This is not directly about school, but often a result of school. Because you're in school you don't really have any bills of your own. You're placed in an artificial construct where your parents take care of most of your major bills (housing, food) and you are not forced to make your own income - and in fact many people are discouraged from finding employment during their school years because it may "impact their studies". So the essential life skills of managing a budget, balancing income and bills, etc don't get learned at all.

You don't see yourself as "damaged" because you don't understand or imagine what is possible outside of the school environment. While you can communicate with your peers, how well can you communicate to managers in a company? Can you sell a service or product to someone? Can you ask the right questions to find out what someone's true pain point is and not get distracted by their proposed solution?

If you left school right now (or 5 years ago) and had to make it on your own, you'd obviously be a very very different person today. Is that person better than you are now? Obviously that's impossible to say. But if that person is/would be better, then you can argue that your current self is damaged relatively speaking.

[samirmenon]

I'm actually quite hurt by this comment.

Firstly, I have worked for the past three years as a software developer. I've had to deliver things to a manager, figure out exactly what a client wants, and work collaboratively. I think that I've at least had a taste of the "real world".

Secondly, the idea that I lack some kind of mental capability to "understand or imagine what is possible outside of the school" is deeply flawed, and frankly unfounded. In fact, the condescension that arises from this statement is exactly the kind of attitude towards children that discourages them from taking risks and exploring independently.

I hope the next time you talk to or meet a 16 year old, you don't assume that they lack any ability to understand the "real world".

[learc83]

>I hope the next time you talk to or meet a 16 year old, you don't assume that they lack any ability to understand the "real world".

Most 16 year olds in the developed world do lack an ability to understand the "real world" (by that I mean the adult experience) because 16 year olds lack adult responsibility by default. Having a part time job is not the same as working to provide food and shelter for you and your family. At 16 your parents shield you from the freedoms and consequences that come with being an adult, and with no experience of those freedoms and consequences, you can't really internalize what it means to be an adult.

In addition, the human brain doesn't fully develop until around 25, so your judgment at 16 is fundamentally flawed.

There's nothing wrong with being 16, but in 10 years you'll look back and laugh at 90% of what you know right now.

[glenra]

> In addition, the human brain doesn't fully develop until around 25, so your judgment at 16 is fundamentally flawed.

Even if the premise is true, that seems an unreasonable conclusion. On what possible basis could one describe the judgement of a pre-25 brain as "fundamentally flawed"? What makes you consider an old, decrepit, no-longer-developing brain optimal? "Finished growing" doesn't mean "best", it just means "finished growing".

Jewish law considers a man "an adult" at 13, a woman "an adult" at 12. 16-year-olds are perfectly capable of adult behavior, regardless of the degree to which we choose to coddle them in the modern era.

When we treat kids as rational beings capable of mature reasoning, they are more likely to act as such.

[learc83]

Specifically the undeveloped part of the brain, is believed to be the part that evaluates risk. Meaning that 16 year olds are less likely to account accurately for the consequences of their behavior.

There are advantages to this for society and for the individual teenager. But there are disadvantages as well--they are more likely to commit crime, are easier to convince to go off to a foreign land and fight in a war, and take unnecessary risks when driving.

The inability of teenagers to fully comprehend the risks and consequences of their actions leads me to label their judgment "fundamentally flawed."

>When we treat kids as rational beings capable of mature reasoning, they are more likely to act as such.

I agree to an extent. But there are many circumstances where this isn't the case.

In a situation where the consequences of failure won't destroy the life of a teenager and those around him, sure treat him (or her) like an adult. But there are times when parents have to step in, exercise their authority, and protect them (and those around them) from themselves.

[glenra]

> Specifically the undeveloped part of the brain, is believed to be the part that evaluates risk. Meaning that 16 year olds are less likely to account accurately for the consequences of their behavior.

Again, you seem to be assuming that when the brain STOPS developing, it does so because it has achieved perfection. It is pretty easy to support the view that adults are far TOO risk-averse, too unwilling to let teens take chances that would benefit them. To claim adults account "accurately" is going a bridge too far. Adults account for risk "differently" and do so in a way that other adults are likely to agree with, but that doesn't make it more "accurate".

[samirmenon]

Absolutely. I hope that every year of my life, I look back, and laugh at the things I 'knew' 10 years ago. Is it the same for you?

The oft-repeated idea of an "underdeveloped" teenage brain is a bit old. Scientific American did a piece on it in 2007. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-myth-of-the-te...)

[learc83]

>Absolutely. I hope that every year of my life, I look back, and laugh at the things I 'knew' 10 years ago. Is it the same for you?

To an extent yes, but that slows down the older you get.

>The oft-repeated idea of an "underdeveloped" teenage brain is a bit old. Scientific American did a piece on it in 2007.

That article itself is outdated. There are numerous studies done since then that support my assertion.

Here's a few articles.

2011 http://www.edinformatics.com/news/teenage_brains.htm

2011 http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/10/teenage-brains/dob...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1411647...

http://phys.org/news/2010-12-brain-fully-mature-30s-40s.html

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000087239639044371370...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1241194...

[xorcist]

> I hope that every year of my life, I look back, and laugh at the things I 'knew' 10 years ago.

You know what? I never did do that, and I'm starting to think I never will.

There may be many 20-year-olds that "knows" many things (in the same scare quotes you indended), but there are a lot of 30- and 40-year-olds who do that as well. I have a growing suspicion these may all be the same people...

[OmarIsmail]

Doing all of this at 16 how do you compare to your peers? Are you atypical or ordinary? If ordinary then maybe things have changed in the 15 years since I was in high school.

And if you're responsible for your own major bills and expenses like housing, food, clothes and transportation then even more kudos to you. I'd be extremely surprised if that was the typical situation of an average 16 yo American.

[DanBC]

> But if that person is/would be better, then you can argue that your current self is damaged relatively speaking.

That's a weird interpretation of personal development.

[DanBC]

The fact that you use anecdote to support a position might be evidence that your schooling did damage you. Your position would be more convincing if it had taught you about bias and about using reputable sources to support your argument. :-)

[kevinmchugh]

I'd guess that HN users are typically people who performed well academically. I certainly did. Think about the kids in class who couldn't sit still, couldn't stop talking. Oftentimes they ended up with an ADD or ADHD diagnosis and a prescription. Being told that you act abnormally and need medicine to stop you from being you is understandably damaging.

[bayesianhorse]

Except if you consider that ADHD is a consistent syndrome with extremely predictable negative consequences.

I believe this attitude about ADHD being some kind of "conformity issue" is almost as dangerous as "vaccines cause autism". It certainly is about as wrong...

[TeMPOraL]

I don't know. ADHD looks to me like a normal consequence of putting a small kid in a jail and telling to listen to boring stuff for half a day without moving or talking, or else. Think of how you'd behave in such situation as an adult.

[bayesianhorse]

First of all ADHD is not a "normal consequence" in the sense of being the majority.

Second, ADHD is so much worse than not being able to sit still and quiet for hours...

[walterbell]

Do you know how the DSM ("diagnostic manual") is edited, http://www.dsm4tr.com ?

[bayesianhorse]

I know about the problems around the DSM. That doesn't make ADHD less of a "thing" though. Turns out that a questionnaire can diagnose ADHD. This diagnosis predicts anatomical, physiological and psychological differences, and on top of that certain negative consequences and suffering on the part of the patient. Treatment reduces that suffering. What more do you need?

[walterbell]

Questionnaires are cheap but less reliable than brain (PET, fMRI) scanning or quantitative attentional testing. What is the impact of a false positive diagnosis on a still-developing young brain?

Adults are a different story - they can make their own decisions.

[bayesianhorse]

I mentioned questionnaires as a means of reaching a diagnosis which is not dependent on instrumental testing, to make a point about the consistency of subjective evaluation, objective findings, suffering and treatment.

But in General, ADHD diagnosis is not based on PET, fMRI or EEG.

[indlebe]

Private school, well off neighbourhood?

[samirmenon]

Public school, but fairly wealthy.

What's your point?

[learc83]

Since schools are primarily funded locally, your experience is likely vastly different from someone who went to school in a less affluent area.