Re:Teens' anxiety levels dropped during pandemic, study finds
by TheOtherHobbes on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @11:57AM
(#24354454)
There are huge problems with locking an age cohort with wildly different interests, talents, abilities, and personalities into a room and expecting them to go through puberty together while also learning... something.
Even if you select for ability along some axis, you still get different interests and learning styles - and personalities.
Learning is basically industrial, uselessly abstracted [1] and commodified, when it could be individualised. A lot of talent is wasted because high school stunts the really bright kids. And given how brutal it is, it seems to damage everyone emotionally.
[1] Virtually none of the math you learn at school really makes any sense unless you're one of the small number of people who go into STEM - which is where you finally discover what it's for. Things are a bit better than they used to be, but basic financial math as a specific competence is far more useful to most of the population than even the most basic algebra and trig.
Even if you select for ability along some axis, you still get different interests and learning styles - and personalities.
Learning is basically industrial, uselessly abstracted [1] and commodified, when it could be individualised. A lot of talent is wasted because high school stunts the really bright kids. And given how brutal it is, it seems to damage everyone emotionally.
[1] Virtually none of the math you learn at school really makes any sense unless you're one of the small number of people who go into STEM - which is where you finally discover what it's for. Things are a bit better than they used to be, but basic financial math as a specific competence is far more useful to most of the population than even the most basic algebra and trig.