I am a certified flight instructor, I have studied the fundamentals of instruction and can speak with authority on the subject.
it seems that some people think learning is a net negative or neutral for whoever is doing the learning and that one should learn as little as possible.
Learning is an active process. There’s a reason for turn of phrases like “spend time” and “pay attention,” these actions aren’t free. Any act of learning comes with a real cost in time, energy and likely money. It also comes with an opportunity cost. The time and effort a student spends learning could always be spent doing something else; resting, playing, working, caring for family, or learning something else. It is possible for those costs to be so great as to be a genuine net negative for the student. Especially when the reality of formalized school comes into play.
One of Edward Thorndike’s six fundamental principles of learning is the Principle of Readiness. This ties into Maslowe’s hierarchy of needs. As a teacher, you have to always ask yourself “Where on their pyramid does my lesson fit? Is everything below that on their pyramid of needs well taken care of?” Your students will not be willing to pay attention in algebra class if they’re hungry, thirsty, sleepy, freezing or scared, because their needs for homeostasis and security aren’t being met well enough for an intellectual lesson such as higher math.
Okay, we got the kids fed, rested and secured. Now they should pay attention right? Nope. That isn’t good enough. Where on their pyramid does this lesson fit? What need of theirs will learning this satisfy? Genuine curiosity about the universe and its workings are always always always at the stabby point of the very tippy top of the pyramid, you want to satisfy that need you’ve got to categorically solve every other need these kids can have from romance to personal prestige. Schools and universities love the image of the career scholar, the men with SI units named after them who conducted experiments for the good of humanity…the reality is the very few extremely privileged people who got to play that game were old money wealthy, they owned land and had servants if not slaves to take care of all their material needs.
When a child asks why they have to go to school, they’re told that school is where they learn the skills they need to survive as adults. though Elementary school, you can take this argument seriously. Learning how to add and subtract is necessary for the basic act of paying for things, reading is the most OP skill you can have, reading clocks and calendars is demonstrably important, etc. That argument starts falling apart when you’re preventing people from going out and earning money to live so they can generate standardized test scores in pre-calculus algebra, or being told not asked what the symbology of the blue curtains in some novel is.
Because here’s another thing about the principle of readiness: It is the teacher’s responsibility to inform the students of the value of the lesson to them in their lives. “Someday algebra will save your life” is meaningless; we live in a world with quiz game shows, literally any trivia knowledge can be life changing. You have to be specific and realistic. Otherwise your students aren’t going to spend the effort, they’ll merely go through the motions, like pretending to be sad at a great aunt’s husband’s funeral.
Especially on Lemmy I’ve seen the argument that education shouldn’t be mere job training, it should be about ultimate enlightenment. Except we need to achieve a world where everyone can afford rent before we can play that game, Tiffany. And we haven’t. Survival skills come before abstract beautiful truths and if we’re honest we’re doing a piss poor job of both.
I agree with just about everything you said. Well put and reasoned. But it doesn’t really wrap back around to what should be taught to the children. Do we let them decide everything for themselves or regiment what is necessary to live in our hellscape society?
Then you can ask what is necessary to live in this society? Is it comp sci degrees? Everyone thought so. Now they’re basically useless. That has happened to every generation for the last 30 years or so.
Additionally, as a child I was driven to learn because I was genuinely curious despite crushing depression. It has left me grasping to understand how others approach the world, because let me tell you, it is not how I do so. I would need to look at some good data about how students/adults learn generally, which I have not done much of admittedly.
Specifically what should be in the curriculum? Well, the way I see it, school gets more and more useless the older students get. Elementary school is mostly on the money because reading, writing and arithmetic. We probably need to shake out some of the whitewashing that’s done in social studies class; all the “And then the Indians showed the pilgrims how to plant a fish with the corn seeds to act as fertilizer” shit but I think you get it.
Throughout middle school, they started letting kids choose the electives they wanted to take. For me this started out as “do you want to take Spanish, Band, Orchestra, Chorus or ‘Career Studies’?” There was one period a day that we didn’t ALL share in common. We need to do more of that, cater to students’ interests better. I think high school should have majors like college does.
The best education I find is when the environment simulates or actually is real work. Auto shop class in which real maintenance and repair is done to real roadworthy vehicles, conducted in an environment that simulates a service station is vastly superior to “Here are five random cars the owners abandoned with the school as a tax write off. They were broken when they got here and nine classes before you broke them worse. Take the wheels off and put them back on I guess.” My high school carpentry shop teacher treated us like employees of a general contractor, and we built a house. We would go to the job site, divide into work teams and work on a section of the building, from girder beam to shingles. I came out of high school not only with a head full of theory, but I was ready to walk onto a job site and work because I knew the job.
Shop classes have been disappearing. Students who didn’t take those, who took AP classes and such…what did they emerge from high school ready to go do as an adult?
I’m also of a mind to reject the notion that, you spend the entirety of your childhood and adolescence on school, and maybe even early adulthood if you go to college, and then once you’re done that’s it, no more learning now you work. That’s insane. “I’m in school.” “I’m out of school.” “I’m going back to school.” This notion of everything having to be multi-year curricula that must be entirely completed to earn a certificate and those four semesters of chemistry and physics don’t count because you failed persuasive writing so no future for you…it’s psychotic.
As per your instruction, I shall.
I am a certified flight instructor, I have studied the fundamentals of instruction and can speak with authority on the subject.
Learning is an active process. There’s a reason for turn of phrases like “spend time” and “pay attention,” these actions aren’t free. Any act of learning comes with a real cost in time, energy and likely money. It also comes with an opportunity cost. The time and effort a student spends learning could always be spent doing something else; resting, playing, working, caring for family, or learning something else. It is possible for those costs to be so great as to be a genuine net negative for the student. Especially when the reality of formalized school comes into play.
One of Edward Thorndike’s six fundamental principles of learning is the Principle of Readiness. This ties into Maslowe’s hierarchy of needs. As a teacher, you have to always ask yourself “Where on their pyramid does my lesson fit? Is everything below that on their pyramid of needs well taken care of?” Your students will not be willing to pay attention in algebra class if they’re hungry, thirsty, sleepy, freezing or scared, because their needs for homeostasis and security aren’t being met well enough for an intellectual lesson such as higher math.
Okay, we got the kids fed, rested and secured. Now they should pay attention right? Nope. That isn’t good enough. Where on their pyramid does this lesson fit? What need of theirs will learning this satisfy? Genuine curiosity about the universe and its workings are always always always at the stabby point of the very tippy top of the pyramid, you want to satisfy that need you’ve got to categorically solve every other need these kids can have from romance to personal prestige. Schools and universities love the image of the career scholar, the men with SI units named after them who conducted experiments for the good of humanity…the reality is the very few extremely privileged people who got to play that game were old money wealthy, they owned land and had servants if not slaves to take care of all their material needs.
When a child asks why they have to go to school, they’re told that school is where they learn the skills they need to survive as adults. though Elementary school, you can take this argument seriously. Learning how to add and subtract is necessary for the basic act of paying for things, reading is the most OP skill you can have, reading clocks and calendars is demonstrably important, etc. That argument starts falling apart when you’re preventing people from going out and earning money to live so they can generate standardized test scores in pre-calculus algebra, or being told not asked what the symbology of the blue curtains in some novel is.
Because here’s another thing about the principle of readiness: It is the teacher’s responsibility to inform the students of the value of the lesson to them in their lives. “Someday algebra will save your life” is meaningless; we live in a world with quiz game shows, literally any trivia knowledge can be life changing. You have to be specific and realistic. Otherwise your students aren’t going to spend the effort, they’ll merely go through the motions, like pretending to be sad at a great aunt’s husband’s funeral.
Especially on Lemmy I’ve seen the argument that education shouldn’t be mere job training, it should be about ultimate enlightenment. Except we need to achieve a world where everyone can afford rent before we can play that game, Tiffany. And we haven’t. Survival skills come before abstract beautiful truths and if we’re honest we’re doing a piss poor job of both.
I agree with just about everything you said. Well put and reasoned. But it doesn’t really wrap back around to what should be taught to the children. Do we let them decide everything for themselves or regiment what is necessary to live in our
hellscapesociety?Then you can ask what is necessary to live in this society? Is it comp sci degrees? Everyone thought so. Now they’re basically useless. That has happened to every generation for the last 30 years or so.
Additionally, as a child I was driven to learn because I was genuinely curious despite crushing depression. It has left me grasping to understand how others approach the world, because let me tell you, it is not how I do so. I would need to look at some good data about how students/adults learn generally, which I have not done much of admittedly.
Specifically what should be in the curriculum? Well, the way I see it, school gets more and more useless the older students get. Elementary school is mostly on the money because reading, writing and arithmetic. We probably need to shake out some of the whitewashing that’s done in social studies class; all the “And then the Indians showed the pilgrims how to plant a fish with the corn seeds to act as fertilizer” shit but I think you get it.
Throughout middle school, they started letting kids choose the electives they wanted to take. For me this started out as “do you want to take Spanish, Band, Orchestra, Chorus or ‘Career Studies’?” There was one period a day that we didn’t ALL share in common. We need to do more of that, cater to students’ interests better. I think high school should have majors like college does.
The best education I find is when the environment simulates or actually is real work. Auto shop class in which real maintenance and repair is done to real roadworthy vehicles, conducted in an environment that simulates a service station is vastly superior to “Here are five random cars the owners abandoned with the school as a tax write off. They were broken when they got here and nine classes before you broke them worse. Take the wheels off and put them back on I guess.” My high school carpentry shop teacher treated us like employees of a general contractor, and we built a house. We would go to the job site, divide into work teams and work on a section of the building, from girder beam to shingles. I came out of high school not only with a head full of theory, but I was ready to walk onto a job site and work because I knew the job.
Shop classes have been disappearing. Students who didn’t take those, who took AP classes and such…what did they emerge from high school ready to go do as an adult?
I’m also of a mind to reject the notion that, you spend the entirety of your childhood and adolescence on school, and maybe even early adulthood if you go to college, and then once you’re done that’s it, no more learning now you work. That’s insane. “I’m in school.” “I’m out of school.” “I’m going back to school.” This notion of everything having to be multi-year curricula that must be entirely completed to earn a certificate and those four semesters of chemistry and physics don’t count because you failed persuasive writing so no future for you…it’s psychotic.