Comment by bluGill | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bluGill | Hacker News Reader

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> in the US the education system still sucks

citation?

Education is a complex matter. There are many people with OPINIONS on what the best way to teach is. These ideas are in conflict and only rarely does anyone study what really works. (rarely compared to the number of opinions - there could be a lot of studies that nobody knows about when they state their opinion)

Humans have a limited lifetime: you cannot teach all possible useful knowledge/skills in a lifetime. I limited this to useful, there is a lot of useless things that are fun to know anyway, somehow those are are interested need time to learn it for fun. I didn't define useful either: is Music/French/Algebra/Sports... useful (I can make either argument for any subject)

Why is reading a classic American author important? Reading is important in an abstract sense, but if you can understand written instructions it doesn't matter what you happened to read to get that skill.

Likewise, what is wrong with using M&Ms for learning math? a concrete example helps to learn. (to be clear, this is an opinion that I was ranting against in the first paragraph - I don't know if I agree with the opinion but I understand it enough to repeat it)

One constant in the US in popular culture is our education system sucks compared to X. We have done well over the years despite that (or maybe because of it?)

> citation?

http://www.businessinsider.com/pisa-worldwide-ranking-of-mat...

> I didn't define useful either:

> but if you can understand written instructions it doesn't matter what you happened to read to get that skill.

Of course you are free to define useful in a way that makes it impossible to argue or to have a discussion. So let's stick to the way it is defined for the purpose of say University admission.

> Why is reading a classic American author important?

Reading difficult work earlier develops higher reading comprehension faster.

> Likewise, what is wrong with using M&Ms for learning math?

I think if by 4th grade you still need concrete pieces to understand integers or denominators of a fraction or whatever they were supposed to represent, that is a sign of a weak math education. In general concrete examples are antithetical to learning advanced math, this leads do the monkey-style ability to solve problems that are similar ones presented in textbooks, but not the ability to reason effectively about an unfamiliar problems.

> Reading difficult work earlier develops higher reading comprehension faster.

What makes a classic American author better than a modern author who writes at a high level? (Note that most popular authors don't write at a difficult enough level, but out of the thousands of books published each year some will be high enough - many authors of old did not write at a high enough level either)

Classics are classics for a reason, they've stood the stand of time and scrutiny as literature of value.

Reading level of the material aside, I think it's more valuable to read The Catcher in the Rye than The Hunger Games because of the subject matter and impact on popular culture.

Classic literature is genre defining and gives you appreciation for the art of novelization.

It's hard to gain an initial appreciation for reading if you don't enjoy the reading you do, which is a good argument for the bestseller list, but it's hard to gain any depth of appreciation without understanding it's roots.

You might say you like hip-hop because lil-yachty made your head bounce on the radio, but without listening to N.W.A. you can't really say you understand it.

I dont think PISA ratings are that useful, but it does show USA ahead of Russia and China for Reading and ahead of Russia for Science so hardly evidence that USA is worse.

> We have done well over the years despite that (or maybe because of it?)

It helps that your graduate schools and corporations are full of people educated in other countries. Immigration is great.

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