I’d argue that every person is a self-directed learner
Beware the typical mind fallacy. There are quite a few people who have a hard time knowing their own preferences. If nothing else, school is a good way to get exposure to subjects that you might not have thought that you’d like. I’m a programmer by profession, but on my own time, I read quite a lot of history. That’s entirely due to school. If I’d been “self-directed”, in the sense of being able to choose my own curriculum at school, I’d have spent all my time learning programming, and I wouldn’t have realized that I had other preferences.
A toddler learns to walk, to speak by imitating his environment—the motivation for this comes from him. So why should it be any different for a 12 year old?
Because Algebra and Trigonometry are considerably more boring than learning to walk and use the bathroom.
I’m sorry, I just don’t buy your idea that we can make school as interesting or more interesting than video games. At some point you have to buckle down and do a bunch of drudge work in order to get to the interesting stuff. Video games, by making the reward loop so quick, actively train against that kind of persistence and perseverance. Yes, they may train creativity, but creativity is overrated. Being able to buckle down and grind is underrated, especially in this community.
Beware the typical mind fallacy. There are quite a few people who have a hard time knowing their own preferences. If nothing else, school is a good way to get exposure to subjects that you might not have thought that you’d like. I’m a programmer by profession, but on my own time, I read quite a lot of history. That’s entirely due to school. If I’d been “self-directed”, in the sense of being able to choose my own curriculum at school, I’d have spent all my time learning programming, and I wouldn’t have realized that I had other preferences.
Because Algebra and Trigonometry are considerably more boring than learning to walk and use the bathroom.
I’m sorry, I just don’t buy your idea that we can make school as interesting or more interesting than video games. At some point you have to buckle down and do a bunch of drudge work in order to get to the interesting stuff. Video games, by making the reward loop so quick, actively train against that kind of persistence and perseverance. Yes, they may train creativity, but creativity is overrated. Being able to buckle down and grind is underrated, especially in this community.