I thought homeschooled kids were usually taught by parents?
I use the phrase unschooling and not homeschooling but even if a child gets taught by their parents that still suggests that the average teacher is not skilled enough to provide value to his student that allows them to outperform students taught by lay-people.
The problem is learning a broad range of ideas in a manageable time, not just picking a narrow path through topics that catch your interest, and for that many adults find universities useful. Not to mention you meet many smart people and pick up good memes without realizing it.
The same arguments could be made for why the Dragon Army is a good idea.
Let’s take a random skill from the proposed curriculum, like welding. You could try externally motivated self-study at OP’s group house, or you could go to a community college and ask how long they’ll take to make you a certified welder. It seems to me that even without the authoritarian LARPing, the first option is a weird hybrid, like a flying submarine. It’s more costly than either full self-study (if you can do it) or fully spoon-fed learning at a traditional place for a set term.
The OP’s proposal is to dial motivation to 11 and hope that it leads to effective learning. Even if that doesn’t backfire, at most it lets you see the next bottleneck, and you don’t know how many there are. Traditional schools have solved all of them, and can teach people predictably without requiring much motivation (except for showing up). For well understood skills, I think they are better than rationalist groups in every way.
Traditional schools have solved all of them, and can teach people predictably without requiring much motivation
Traditional schools know how to teach welding but when it comes to teaching introspection or teaching teaching and tutoring skill it’s less clear.
Teachers who have a master degree aren’t better than their colleges. As far as we know those two years of being in the university to learn to teach better is worthless for teaching skills.
I would also doubt that it’s easier to learn programming via a community college course than by living together with people who can program well and who are willing to tutor you a bit.
I’m sorry to say but teaching introspection, rationality or other skills we don’t have reliable tests for is a scam. The fact that more than half of the OP’s curriculum consists of such skills is a big red flag. And learning programming doesn’t require any measures described in the OP, I know it, you know it.
And learning programming doesn’t require any measures described in the OP, I know it, you know it.
Yes, but you make the argument that traditional institutions of learning are superior. For programming, I don’t think that’s the case.
I’m sorry to say but teaching introspection, rationality or other skills we don’t have reliable tests for is a scam.
Do you believe that liberal arts college who claim to teach critical thinking are also scams? From my perspective, they are a lot more scammy because they actually have the money and time to research whether their claims are true.
I think a person who tries a new project where they have a goal that they can’t measure well is a lot scammy than big institutions like a liberal art college.
I don’t think the goal of OPs proposal is to learn any particular skill. To me it mostly looks like trying to build a tightly-knit group so that each member can use the others as external motivators and close friends to discuss life plans and ideas in detail not really possible between modern colleagues and friends. I.e. the goal is not learning a skill, it’s building a mutual support group that actually works.
I use the phrase unschooling and not homeschooling but even if a child gets taught by their parents that still suggests that the average teacher is not skilled enough to provide value to his student that allows them to outperform students taught by lay-people.
The same arguments could be made for why the Dragon Army is a good idea.
Let’s take a random skill from the proposed curriculum, like welding. You could try externally motivated self-study at OP’s group house, or you could go to a community college and ask how long they’ll take to make you a certified welder. It seems to me that even without the authoritarian LARPing, the first option is a weird hybrid, like a flying submarine. It’s more costly than either full self-study (if you can do it) or fully spoon-fed learning at a traditional place for a set term.
The OP’s proposal is to dial motivation to 11 and hope that it leads to effective learning. Even if that doesn’t backfire, at most it lets you see the next bottleneck, and you don’t know how many there are. Traditional schools have solved all of them, and can teach people predictably without requiring much motivation (except for showing up). For well understood skills, I think they are better than rationalist groups in every way.
Traditional schools know how to teach welding but when it comes to teaching introspection or teaching teaching and tutoring skill it’s less clear.
Teachers who have a master degree aren’t better than their colleges. As far as we know those two years of being in the university to learn to teach better is worthless for teaching skills.
I would also doubt that it’s easier to learn programming via a community college course than by living together with people who can program well and who are willing to tutor you a bit.
I’m sorry to say but teaching introspection, rationality or other skills we don’t have reliable tests for is a scam. The fact that more than half of the OP’s curriculum consists of such skills is a big red flag. And learning programming doesn’t require any measures described in the OP, I know it, you know it.
Yes, but you make the argument that traditional institutions of learning are superior. For programming, I don’t think that’s the case.
Do you believe that liberal arts college who claim to teach critical thinking are also scams? From my perspective, they are a lot more scammy because they actually have the money and time to research whether their claims are true.
I think a person who tries a new project where they have a goal that they can’t measure well is a lot scammy than big institutions like a liberal art college.
100% agree that formal education for programming sucks today.
Yeah, pretty much. They take your money and then you can get a job doing something else if you’re good at that thing.
I think we’re mostly in agreement?
I don’t think the goal of OPs proposal is to learn any particular skill. To me it mostly looks like trying to build a tightly-knit group so that each member can use the others as external motivators and close friends to discuss life plans and ideas in detail not really possible between modern colleagues and friends. I.e. the goal is not learning a skill, it’s building a mutual support group that actually works.