Have you worked in education?

By self-directed, I don't mean let the kids roam the streets. For example the teacher and student would decide on a project individually or in a small group, then pick any resources the student might need ahead of time and limit them to those resources in a quiet room. This should include access to a Linux laptop with educational websites and online apps whitelisted. Being self-directed is an important skill to have in life, and I'm surprised that so many people here are mystified as to why kids and adults alike don't have it -- because most school systems don't teach it!

Agreed.

Kids are not very good at 'self direction'.

It takes a lot to get them enthused.

I'm only now realizing my interest in some things I could have spent more time learning when younger, yet even if I knew then what I do now, I still think it wouldn't've been something I spent 'my time' doing - not a lot of it, anyway. (Conversely, there are things I was interested in then that I have the resources to learn far mor effectively now, that I absolutely would've loved to have been tinkering with sooner.)

It's absolutely highly interest-driven, and while the information can sometimes be neatly standardized and labelled, that interest can't be.

It can be cultivated, but figuring out how best to do that takes tweaking and experimentation. As such I'll keep an eye out for Finland's progress on this and look forward to seeing what their findings are.

"I'm only now realizing my interest in some things I could have spent more time learning when younger"

Same here.

When you're young, nothing has consequence - so I don't think you can put together A + B = some outcome that matters!

Also - I think that every time you learn something, you get a new 'lego block' that you can use. When you're young, you don't have many blocks, so you can't do much.

But as you get older, you have so many blocks (+ money to spend) and you can do so many more things ... it's kind of incentive to learn.

The ability to see a larger project through I think would be a great thing to learn.

I wish that in school - some projects were worked on that took months to complete, and that the kids had to be involved in the planning. I think that would start teaching kids about 'time horizons' and how complex things get done over time.

> When you're young, nothing has consequence - so I don't think you can put together A + B = some outcome that matters.

But that's where these multidisciplinary approaches would shine, because the theory is intimately tied up in a broader application kids can see in their own lives. Education starts to take on real, personal meaning.

I said already that I've worked for a year in a school! I worked full-time as a reading tutor in an elementary school, and taught summer school. I've also taught abroad, classrooms with 30+ students. I taught tennis to groups of teenagers for like 6 summers!