Are you kidding? Did you go to school? Teaching material to a class of 10 (let alone 20 or 50) K-12 kids, selected only by location and socio-economic class, is a ridiculously overconstrained problem. To give one of the main problems: for each concept you teach, you have to choose how long to explain it and give examples. If you move on, then any kid who didn’t really get it will become very lost for the rest of the year (I’m thinking of technical subjects, where you have long dependent chains of concepts). If you keep dropping kids, then everyone gets lost. If you wait until everyone gets it, then you go absurdly slow. My little brother has been “learning” basic arithmetic in his (small, private) school for six years.
Not sure what exactly in my comment you are objecting to so vehemently. The issues you describe are exactly the same as with any mass production, including food.
If we are talking about babysitting, then of course I agree—much more efficient to have one person babysit 15 kids.
If we are talking about learning, then I am vehemently objecting to “a normal education is just/almost as good as homeschooling”.
The point of the example I gave (mastery learning vs. speed in the classroom) was that you can’t mass produce education in the naive way. Taking advantage of division of labor in this context would mean hiring tutors.
Are you kidding? Did you go to school? Teaching material to a class of 10 (let alone 20 or 50) K-12 kids, selected only by location and socio-economic class, is a ridiculously overconstrained problem. To give one of the main problems: for each concept you teach, you have to choose how long to explain it and give examples. If you move on, then any kid who didn’t really get it will become very lost for the rest of the year (I’m thinking of technical subjects, where you have long dependent chains of concepts). If you keep dropping kids, then everyone gets lost. If you wait until everyone gets it, then you go absurdly slow. My little brother has been “learning” basic arithmetic in his (small, private) school for six years.
Not sure what exactly in my comment you are objecting to so vehemently. The issues you describe are exactly the same as with any mass production, including food.
If we are talking about babysitting, then of course I agree—much more efficient to have one person babysit 15 kids.
If we are talking about learning, then I am vehemently objecting to “a normal education is just/almost as good as homeschooling”.
The point of the example I gave (mastery learning vs. speed in the classroom) was that you can’t mass produce education in the naive way. Taking advantage of division of labor in this context would mean hiring tutors.