I strongly agree w/ Zvi’s post, but also think there is some good pushback in the comments so far. Particularly from Said about his experience at the same school Zvi went to. I know a few people who recently graduated from that school, and what I hear from them suggests it is better in several important ways than even the very good high school I went to.
I’m interested in a discussion about what to do. What are better designs for institutions of primary education? How do we instill an essential curiosity early on?
I think this discussion can go in two directions. The first is just an ideal model of education. Without political constraints, how do you teach someone about the world and get them to care? The second is what can be done, starting at the current system. There are so many rules and regulations in place, from state to federal level (specifically in the US). What are some possible approaches to nudge us in one of the right directions?
The US does have schools like the Sudbury Valley School in the current political constraints. There’s a lot of room for alternative schools inside the US provided the school can fund itself and doesn’t rely on government grants.
If you have a billionaire who wants a great school for his kids and there’s a clear proposal about how to build such a school the school could be build without much political problems.
Yes, some people have wonderfully enjoyable experiences at school and some of them even learn things. Caplan doesn’t dispute that.
There’s nothing wrong with, e.g. lectures, for teaching people. The main problem with education, as a ‘system’, is that *most* of its function is signalling, e.g. providing credentials, by which people can be sorted and ranked by employers.
How do we instill an essential curiosity early on?
This seems kinda perverse. Are you trying to brainstorms ways to instill curiosity in people that don’t have any real control over what they get to learn? How would that work? There are forms of ‘schooling’ that aren’t structured in really any similar ways to the common versions of the U.S. education system, e.g. unschooling, but they’re fundamentally opposed to the idea of *instilling* curiosity. Why instill something in someone when you can just *protect* what already exists?
I think this discussion can go in two directions. The first is just an ideal model of education. Without political constraints, how do you teach someone about the world and get them to care?
Caplan, and myself, and I suspect Zvi too, would claim that the idea of teaching anyone that doesn’t want to learn is (almost always) just bad. The worst part of our current system is that it’s compulsory. People already care, tho maybe not about the same things you’d choose for them. Why shouldn’t they learn about whatever it is they already care about?
You should read Caplan’s book. He’s *very* thorough and considers every point mentioned here in the comments.
I strongly agree w/ Zvi’s post, but also think there is some good pushback in the comments so far. Particularly from Said about his experience at the same school Zvi went to. I know a few people who recently graduated from that school, and what I hear from them suggests it is better in several important ways than even the very good high school I went to.
I’m interested in a discussion about what to do. What are better designs for institutions of primary education? How do we instill an essential curiosity early on?
I think this discussion can go in two directions. The first is just an ideal model of education. Without political constraints, how do you teach someone about the world and get them to care? The second is what can be done, starting at the current system. There are so many rules and regulations in place, from state to federal level (specifically in the US). What are some possible approaches to nudge us in one of the right directions?
The US does have schools like the Sudbury Valley School in the current political constraints. There’s a lot of room for alternative schools inside the US provided the school can fund itself and doesn’t rely on government grants.
If you have a billionaire who wants a great school for his kids and there’s a clear proposal about how to build such a school the school could be build without much political problems.
Yes, some people have wonderfully enjoyable experiences at school and some of them even learn things. Caplan doesn’t dispute that.
There’s nothing wrong with, e.g. lectures, for teaching people. The main problem with education, as a ‘system’, is that *most* of its function is signalling, e.g. providing credentials, by which people can be sorted and ranked by employers.
This seems kinda perverse. Are you trying to brainstorms ways to instill curiosity in people that don’t have any real control over what they get to learn? How would that work? There are forms of ‘schooling’ that aren’t structured in really any similar ways to the common versions of the U.S. education system, e.g. unschooling, but they’re fundamentally opposed to the idea of *instilling* curiosity. Why instill something in someone when you can just *protect* what already exists?
Caplan, and myself, and I suspect Zvi too, would claim that the idea of teaching anyone that doesn’t want to learn is (almost always) just bad. The worst part of our current system is that it’s compulsory. People already care, tho maybe not about the same things you’d choose for them. Why shouldn’t they learn about whatever it is they already care about?
You should read Caplan’s book. He’s *very* thorough and considers every point mentioned here in the comments.