Anyone who spends time with small children knows that before they reach school age, they are all absurdly curious about the world, and they absorb information like a sponge. I suppose you think it's just a coincidence that they lose that curiosity right around the time they start being stuffed into classrooms.
Writers like John Taylor Gatto have written hundreds of pages going through historical and psychological research to show that "genius is as common as dirt."
Your contrary opinion is actually one of the most insidious false lessons we learn in school, and it's a very useful form a social control. "See, most people are too stupid to manage themselves, you'd better let us elites make all the hard decisions for you."
And even if I grant your premise, it still doesn't support maintaining the schools we have, because they demonstrably don't work at conveying a "base level of education". They're elaborate kabuki, where everybody pretends the work matters and everybody knows it doesn't, and the average student retains almost nothing.
I mean come on. Yeah, little kids are curious, but do you really think that curiosity will translate to the amount of sustained concentration it takes to learn a complex subject like algebra.
I'm currently taking a computer science class and any time I don't feel like studying but do it anyway, I make a mental note that I would not have done that work if it weren't for the class. And it's one good reason why formal education beats autodidacticism, at least for me.
There is something to be said about being able to sustain effort over long periods of time (months, years) to master something, whose training includes things that are not pleasant. However, this is not something that formal education does very well. Ultimately, the person learning is the one who has to concentrate. Sticks and carrots do not necessarily goad someone into concentrating.
2. I also find being able to focus on subjects that are not innately interesting is a useful skill, as are conforming to simple rules. There can be other reasons for following rules than oppressive social control. Maybe preschool teachers have to show up on time so the children in their care can be supervised appropriately, or drivers have to stay in their lanes to avoid accidents.
3. 'because they demonstrably don't work at conveying a "base level of education"' - 99% of people in the USA are literate. I don't know of comparable data, but nearly everybody can preform arithmetic too.
[0] - http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-... [1] - http://skills.oecd.org/documents/SkillsOutlook_2013_Chapter2..., p75
The language scores were very high. Even the lowest was well above the national average. Then he noticed the math scores. The top score in Juárez Correa’s class was 921. Zavala Hernandez looked over at the top score in the state: It was 921. When he saw the next box over, the hairs on his arms stood up. The top score in the entire country was also 921."
Granted, it's a fairly limited sample, but it's a sample that shows incredible results as well. Based on this classroom of children, that came from circumstances as far away from privilege as possible, the scores shifted from: 45% Math failure -> 7% Math Failure 31% Spanish failure -> 3.5% Spanish Failure
I don't think you're giving the majority of children/humans enough credit for their potential.
To counter argue myself, there clearly wasn't a 0% failure rate. And while 7% is somewhat low, there is a high probability that some of the children in the class were close to failing with others a little better than that and so on.
Why can't we have an education system that does both? Why not have open ended classrooms that let kids learn at their own pace with personal tutor's to help kids that aren't thriving in that situation.
> Ten got math scores that placed them in the 99.99th percentile.
These facts are fishy. These standardized tests are usually pretty easy and have a high number of perfect scores.
We are great at figuring out systems. Hardware. Computers. Robots. Networks thereof.
But self-aware nature-made wetware... please, just step away from that stuff. You're only making a mess.
Ugh, these gross generalizations get tiring..
"Today, there have been 85 million users to date. Each month, there are 6 million unique users on the Khan Academy site. In total, there have been 260 million lessons delivered and over 1 billion problems answered on the related exercises." http://jpalfrey.andover.edu/2013/05/09/khan-academy-meets-ph...
My apologies.
It doesn't say something like, "How a Radical New Teaching Method Will Make All Children Geniuses".
Personally, I think that your dissenting opinion (and its bag of implications) fosters mediocrity in education that hurts the kids on the lower end of the learning curve almost as much as it hurts the kids on the upper end... maybe more so.
you're a genius? off to genius school. you're just not capable of keeping up with the progress of the class? off to special ed, where the pace is better for you.
different countries approach these things differently, but identifying high and low potentials is proving to be really hard as the symptoms sometimes overlap (boredom).
Attempting to maximize the area with a y value on the bell curve because we fail to utilize existing resources effectively [1] does not support a dissent with the forward progress—the increasing diversity of—education. You're right, not all kids are equal—and that's exactly why we need to open-source education.
[1]: http://coursefork.org/martindale/open-freedom-and-education/...
Things may happen later on that co-opt or subvert whatever gets the child going, and by the time you come along the child doesn't want to learn, not on your terms at least, not in the ways that you recognize.
It's also closely connected to an odd but harmless religious sect, which is a tangent on a tangent.
Few weeks pass, and you became bored and un-stimulated. You start to crave novelty, and curiosity. You pick up a book, you watch educational videos and so forth. Except its self directed. You become addicted, to some activities because your doing it for internal values, not external pressures. This is how I mastered subjects. This is also the point when a teacher becomes truly useful, because they will working with you to feed YOUR curiosity rather than following a set standard.
Most people do this.
not all kids are equal. not all kids want to learn. in each and every discussion over this topic people bring up quotes by very smart people, like kubrick, sagan, etc. on how organised learning is not needed, a young mind wants to learn, grows like a flower, all by itself, even better without the shackles of structured education.
i call bullshit. this is biased through the people stating these arguments. if you're a genius or borderline genious then of course the standardized school system is not for you. if you're smarter and faster than your teachers the whole thing can't work.
but the vast majority of kids is not like that. yes, some people are plain dumb. nothing to do, not a bad thing, pure nature. might be great at something, sports, fine manual labor, but simply not good with high mental tasks. some kids don't like reading, it's too hard and does not bring any value to them, nothing sticks, no mental images are formed. just letters stuck together.
this romantic view of humans is the root of a lot of failed social experiments. from open school systems (montessori, waldorf,...) to the new humans that communism wanted to create.
the modern school system is built to provide a base level of education, targeted for the medium range intellect. learn basic skills, through repetition - tried and tested method, from sports to art to education. reading, writing, counting, calculating. if you're one of those kids that taught yourself how to read at age 4, well, guess what, your experience in school will be subpar. but just don't go around and push for school reform to have schools fitted for your style of self learning. the vast majority is not like you.