Hacker News Reader

Comment by mistermann | Hacker News Reader

Agreed, but on the other hand, if the world is going to be a complete economic free trade zone where literally every possible task is outsourced to the lowest bidder, I worry greatly about what my child is going to do. Will she be able to compete against kids from other countries (and we shouldn't forget robots) if she isn't doing 2 hours of extra homework every night?

I'll be honest, I find some of Trump's protectionist promises very alluring, and they don't really seem all that unrealistic to me, at all. (Before you jump to your keyboard, yes, I'm well aware of the negative aspects of his personality.)

View on HN

> I worry greatly about what my child is going to do. Will she be able to compete against kids from other countries (and we shouldn't forget robots) if she isn't doing 2 hours of extra homework every night?

On the other hand, is that extra 2 hours actually valuable? Or at the very least, more valuable than 2 hours of physical activity and enjoyment that may lead your child to enjoy school more and get further later in life? The data presented in the article seem to agree with the latter.

Hours of homework is generally a ridiculously low value activity. The main problems is it's pre-focus. Memorizing history, trig identities, writing essays, memorizing names for bones, etc are all 'useful' things, but not everyone benefits from all of them.

PS: It's common for most states to have 'state' history as a subject. Sure, you can force kids to memorize such things, but it's generally a complete waste of time.

Is 2 hours of homework the only way to learn? Does learning have to be unenjoyable? Can making learning enjoyable be a competitive advantage in and of itself?

It doesn't say homeworks can't be joyful either. It is rather a mindset to teach kids love to learn and show the interesting and long-term benefits.

Except that the article just said in plain language, no, it doesn't. Having knowledge rammed down your proverbial throat doesn't make you intelligent any more than inheriting a ton of money and managing to not lose ALL of it doesn't make you a good businessman.

But in a global economy, who cares about being intelligent or being good at anything unless you already also inherit? Inheritance is the best way forward to economic success, and failing that companies are primarily interested in obedience. In a globalized hypercapitalist free-trade economy you compete with other potential workers for jobs based on how willing you are to be exploited and abused, not how intelligent/competent you are -- in this context I think soul-crushing busywork is exactly what students need to prepare them for what's to come.

If every company were Amazon sure, but they aren't. There are tons of companies out there looking for passionate people who actually give a fuck about what they're building, not just looking to earn a paycheck. Yes there are plenty of profit centers willing to sell you out to the lowest bidder but that's far from the entire professional landscape.

Either that or you live/work in a really awful area.

Sure there are. For now. Amazon et al are acquiring them one by one.

A market economy is a massive optimization process; an extraordinarily useful tool that we, the people, can deploy to achieve our goals. Forget this for too long, convince yourself that the market is inherently superior to human ethics, and it starts optimizing us for things we don't care about, or things that actively hurt us, expanding to fill the regulatory container we built for it. Then it starts to try and exert force to reshape that container.

Market fundamentalists that came into vogue in the US around 40-50 years ago have thoroughly destroyed progress in many areas of human development for the people of this country. "But they're not all like that" actively serves their interests by asserting that it's not quirks of the system we've crafted creating these incentives, it's simply a chance occurrence at a single company.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com