I agree that conformity and keeping children off the street are valuable in-and-of themselves, but I think it is worth distinguishing an increase from loss-prevention. It is also worth distinguishing things which are working on accident from those which are working on purpose; schools don’t try to achieve conformity in the same way they try to achieve reading standards. To me conformity looks mostly like a side-effect of striving for order and safety in the name of the childcare function. So even if we accept the original intention as good, I think we could do it better by being explicit about it.
I am comfortable with considering human capital in the literal economic sense. It seems to me the ‘creativity and love of knowledge’ interpretation is converging with the economic productivity interpretation as a consequence of the proportional decline in unskilled labor and proportional increase in knowledge work. If we asked the question ‘what kind of institution would maximize human capital’ anew, it seems like a natural problem to solve would be hammering out things like what does productivity even look like.
Clearly we can’t expect everyone to go into media, or research, or software, but I put it to you that the weaker case of semi-skilled and skilled labor (like advanced manufacturing) still supports the creativity and love of knowledge interpretation because of the timescales involved. My current intuitions look like this:
The population of people who can expect stable careers with one skillset are low
This is because the demand for a given skillset is not stable
I expect this instability to get worse, in the form of shorter average periods of demand, before it gets better
As a consequence, I expect people will need to learn multiple skillsets over their productive lives
It seems to me that in an environment where we expect people to need to learn multiple skillsets, a population of people who get hedonic or moral satisfaction out of learning new things is likely to be more productive overall. In such a case, designing an institution to maximize learning and love of knowledge would be the human capital maximizing strategy.
It seems to me the ‘creativity and love of knowledge’ interpretation is converging with the economic productivity interpretation
Creativity and love of knowledge are good things, but they are insufficient. There are also things like the patience to do boring things that need to be done. I think that’s one thing school teaches well.
My most negative image of someone who has love of knowledge and not much patience is someone who spends all day reading philosophy or other highly theoretical subjects, but quickly gives up on most practical endeavors, because it’s too boring. The economic productivity of this person is 0.
By the way, I’m not sure what assumptions you’re working from. Do you believe that school actively harms love of knowledge, or that it merely doesn’t teach it? I myself believe that the effect is positive (but tiny) for all but a small fraction of students, and the there isn’t a known better way to teach it. Therefore I ask myself what other factors contribute to human capital and whether school improves any of those (and I believe that it does).
To me conformity looks mostly like a side-effect of striving for order and safety
You initially cited a source saying that schools were created to homogenize immigrants. Sure, the goal isn’t quite as explicit as reading standards, but I’m sure you could find some statements about schools creating shared identity, shared values, etc.
You initially cited a source saying that schools were created to homogenize immigrants. Sure, the goal isn’t quite as explicit as reading standards, but I’m sure you could find some statements about schools creating shared identity, shared values, etc
The political movement that started a thing and the daily administration of a thing have no intrinsic relationship. I think we need to look at the subject with fine-enough granularity to be able to distinguish them. Mission statements, pledges, etc. are effectively meaningless and are where these shared values statements live; they are not common knowledge except insofar as being a signal of membership, and even that is weak. I could not tell you a single mission statement from any school or employer of mine. By contrast, literacy and numeracy are things people do, that enable them to be productive directly. Even from the purely practical standpoint of ‘what do schools do that work’ we notice immediately that conformity and curriculum are approached very differently.
Interestingly, I note that every high school develops a group of students who are explicit in their opposition to conformity as a principle. There was not much engagement with any principle associated with the curriculum where I went to school. This has no particular implications for whether either is good, it just reinforces that they are different.
I believe school actively harms love of knowledge. I don’t know anyone who liked school that is also a curious person; the people I know who liked school liked to be successful, and knowing what was expected of them. There is one lesson plan, taught at one pace, and deviation in any direction is discouraged unless there’s a particularly capable teacher. In my language arts classes I was told to stop reading; in social studies to ask fewer questions and participate less; they successfully managed to hide any reason math was interesting or useful.
I assert people are curious by default; they have to be to learn to walk or speak or socialize. Sufficient love of knowledge is inborn in my view—it takes quite a bit to batter it out of them.
I don’t know anyone who liked school that is also a curious person
That’s not a very strong argument.
In my language arts classes I was told to stop reading; in social studies to ask fewer questions and participate less;
Presumably that had no effect, and you grew up to be quite curious anyway.
I assert people are curious by default; they have to be to learn to walk or speak or socialize.
That’s a very optimistic view. Sure, small children are naturally curious in some ways, but I suggest that most also naturally grow out of it (or you could say that parents are the ones who “batter it out of them”). I see no reason to believe that, e.g. children before compulsory education used to be more curious or had more love for knowledge, when they grew up (of course, it’s hard to love knowledge when you can’t read).
I agree that conformity and keeping children off the street are valuable in-and-of themselves, but I think it is worth distinguishing an increase from loss-prevention. It is also worth distinguishing things which are working on accident from those which are working on purpose; schools don’t try to achieve conformity in the same way they try to achieve reading standards. To me conformity looks mostly like a side-effect of striving for order and safety in the name of the childcare function. So even if we accept the original intention as good, I think we could do it better by being explicit about it.
I am comfortable with considering human capital in the literal economic sense. It seems to me the ‘creativity and love of knowledge’ interpretation is converging with the economic productivity interpretation as a consequence of the proportional decline in unskilled labor and proportional increase in knowledge work. If we asked the question ‘what kind of institution would maximize human capital’ anew, it seems like a natural problem to solve would be hammering out things like what does productivity even look like.
Clearly we can’t expect everyone to go into media, or research, or software, but I put it to you that the weaker case of semi-skilled and skilled labor (like advanced manufacturing) still supports the creativity and love of knowledge interpretation because of the timescales involved. My current intuitions look like this:
The population of people who can expect stable careers with one skillset are low
This is because the demand for a given skillset is not stable
I expect this instability to get worse, in the form of shorter average periods of demand, before it gets better
As a consequence, I expect people will need to learn multiple skillsets over their productive lives
It seems to me that in an environment where we expect people to need to learn multiple skillsets, a population of people who get hedonic or moral satisfaction out of learning new things is likely to be more productive overall. In such a case, designing an institution to maximize learning and love of knowledge would be the human capital maximizing strategy.
Creativity and love of knowledge are good things, but they are insufficient. There are also things like the patience to do boring things that need to be done. I think that’s one thing school teaches well.
My most negative image of someone who has love of knowledge and not much patience is someone who spends all day reading philosophy or other highly theoretical subjects, but quickly gives up on most practical endeavors, because it’s too boring. The economic productivity of this person is 0.
By the way, I’m not sure what assumptions you’re working from. Do you believe that school actively harms love of knowledge, or that it merely doesn’t teach it? I myself believe that the effect is positive (but tiny) for all but a small fraction of students, and the there isn’t a known better way to teach it. Therefore I ask myself what other factors contribute to human capital and whether school improves any of those (and I believe that it does).
You initially cited a source saying that schools were created to homogenize immigrants. Sure, the goal isn’t quite as explicit as reading standards, but I’m sure you could find some statements about schools creating shared identity, shared values, etc.
The political movement that started a thing and the daily administration of a thing have no intrinsic relationship. I think we need to look at the subject with fine-enough granularity to be able to distinguish them. Mission statements, pledges, etc. are effectively meaningless and are where these shared values statements live; they are not common knowledge except insofar as being a signal of membership, and even that is weak. I could not tell you a single mission statement from any school or employer of mine. By contrast, literacy and numeracy are things people do, that enable them to be productive directly. Even from the purely practical standpoint of ‘what do schools do that work’ we notice immediately that conformity and curriculum are approached very differently.
Interestingly, I note that every high school develops a group of students who are explicit in their opposition to conformity as a principle. There was not much engagement with any principle associated with the curriculum where I went to school. This has no particular implications for whether either is good, it just reinforces that they are different.
I believe school actively harms love of knowledge. I don’t know anyone who liked school that is also a curious person; the people I know who liked school liked to be successful, and knowing what was expected of them. There is one lesson plan, taught at one pace, and deviation in any direction is discouraged unless there’s a particularly capable teacher. In my language arts classes I was told to stop reading; in social studies to ask fewer questions and participate less; they successfully managed to hide any reason math was interesting or useful.
I assert people are curious by default; they have to be to learn to walk or speak or socialize. Sufficient love of knowledge is inborn in my view—it takes quite a bit to batter it out of them.
That’s not a very strong argument.
Presumably that had no effect, and you grew up to be quite curious anyway.
That’s a very optimistic view. Sure, small children are naturally curious in some ways, but I suggest that most also naturally grow out of it (or you could say that parents are the ones who “batter it out of them”). I see no reason to believe that, e.g. children before compulsory education used to be more curious or had more love for knowledge, when they grew up (of course, it’s hard to love knowledge when you can’t read).