I think that the distribution is mostly irrelevant to the problems and purpose of education systems. Public, large-scale, youth education is mostly about child-care and socialization, and only incidentally about skill or knowledge development. Outliers, regardless of the distribution or percentage, aren’t particularly well-served.
They have no formal lessons on prosocial behaviours
Um?
How and when to say “please” and “thank you”
How to address and talk to police, firemen, and other public officials
The importance of “sharing”, etc.
The bad of “bullying”, etc.
How and when to write thank-you letters and other social niceties
Appropriate ways to talk to someone who lost a family member
These and others were all things that I recall from my grade school years. One could critique the means and content of these lessons all day, but it seems unsupportable to claim that there are no lessons on such behaviours.
(If you’re autistic, your problem may be that you were taught the explicit, formal, and decontextualised rules that schools include, but failed to pick up the implicit, informal, and contextually-dependent behaviours that schools don’t include.)
Schools do many useful and harmful things, also from social perspective. They teach you that bullying is wrong, but they also create convenient opportunities for bullying and make avoiding the bullies difficult. They teach you social skills, after they separated you from older kids whom you could instinctively emulate. Probably they are a net benefit, but some of the problems they solve are problems they have created.
I’m not sure that I agree with the notion that one needs to teach reasons before behaviours. When it comes to socialisation, one needs to teach the desired behaviours first, and the complicated rationale later, if at all. And we do this precisely because we DO care about outcomes: people (including highly intelligent, nerdy people; let’s not flatter ourselves) are much better at applying heuristics and rules learned in early childhood than they are deriving proper action from first principles. I think that the general shape of childhood education in this matter is actually correct: first you teach people to do things because It’s The Right Thing To Do; later, in an advanced course, you can break out the game theory to show how the prescription is derived.
Public, large-scale, youth education is mostly about child-care and socialization, and only incidentally about skill or knowledge development.
I agree that child-care and socialization are big parts of it, but I also think skill and knowledge development play a big role. For example, I care about my doctor’s education due to the skill and knowledge development (as well as certification) that happened during their formal education.
People such as voters and parents also care at least to some degree what people learn in school. They might be mistaken a lot of the time, but they do care.
I think that the distribution is mostly irrelevant to the problems and purpose of education systems. Public, large-scale, youth education is mostly about child-care and socialization, and only incidentally about skill or knowledge development. Outliers, regardless of the distribution or percentage, aren’t particularly well-served.
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Um?
How and when to say “please” and “thank you”
How to address and talk to police, firemen, and other public officials
The importance of “sharing”, etc.
The bad of “bullying”, etc.
How and when to write thank-you letters and other social niceties
Appropriate ways to talk to someone who lost a family member
These and others were all things that I recall from my grade school years. One could critique the means and content of these lessons all day, but it seems unsupportable to claim that there are no lessons on such behaviours.
(If you’re autistic, your problem may be that you were taught the explicit, formal, and decontextualised rules that schools include, but failed to pick up the implicit, informal, and contextually-dependent behaviours that schools don’t include.)
Schools do many useful and harmful things, also from social perspective. They teach you that bullying is wrong, but they also create convenient opportunities for bullying and make avoiding the bullies difficult. They teach you social skills, after they separated you from older kids whom you could instinctively emulate. Probably they are a net benefit, but some of the problems they solve are problems they have created.
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I’m not sure that I agree with the notion that one needs to teach reasons before behaviours. When it comes to socialisation, one needs to teach the desired behaviours first, and the complicated rationale later, if at all. And we do this precisely because we DO care about outcomes: people (including highly intelligent, nerdy people; let’s not flatter ourselves) are much better at applying heuristics and rules learned in early childhood than they are deriving proper action from first principles. I think that the general shape of childhood education in this matter is actually correct: first you teach people to do things because It’s The Right Thing To Do; later, in an advanced course, you can break out the game theory to show how the prescription is derived.
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I agree that child-care and socialization are big parts of it, but I also think skill and knowledge development play a big role. For example, I care about my doctor’s education due to the skill and knowledge development (as well as certification) that happened during their formal education.
People such as voters and parents also care at least to some degree what people learn in school. They might be mistaken a lot of the time, but they do care.