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Comment by bellerose | Hacker News Reader

Same can be said about people students hate. If a child hates his or her parents, the child will learn everything to be nothing like their parents. I think the article is a fluff piece. School was a complete waste of time for myself. The only benefit was for social connections. Everything useful I learned "career wise" was from online and where I found good C++ videos that got me into programming. I doubt much has changed and even expect it's becoming even more dominate where you have a better chance of succeeding if you're a self learner who can navigate online to whatever is needed to be learned.

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>School was a complete waste of time for myself. The only benefit was for social connections.

With all respect, I’m calling bullshit on this. Social connections were thee only thing you learned? Where did you learn how to read so you could understand the C++ texts you were reading? Who gave you lessons to help with critical thinking so you could understand programming is not a linear process? Hell, who taught you how to count? If you had done none of this, you’d be claiming you self taught since an infant.

Simply casting your entire education to the side is extreme. There may be parts of the system that you disagreed with, perhaps the structure of the school day, but saying it had no benefit makes it sound like a pendejo argument.

I agree with this sentiment.

However, if it's true that people learn from people they love, then it might be hard to learn from a comment that is calling what someone says "bullshit" and calling them a "pendejo".

My experience of formal education was that it was a net negative. In my case my mum taught me to read before I started school and I was an avid reader as a kid. All my positive educational memories involved books, my parents or other adults outside of school and later the Internet.

The teacher I have the most positive memories of is the math teacher who told me I wasn't going to learn anything more in his classes and gave me permission to spend them in the library practicing for the exams instead.

Obviously I learned some things in school simply by virtue of having to spend so much time there as a kid. That doesn't mean I couldn't have had a better educational and life experience not going. The fact that I attended an elite university probably helped me getting some jobs early in my career but it wasn't a positive educational experience for me either.

Was there nothing from school that was useful? Did you learn to read and write, how to work as a group, or anything indirectly related to your current career?

EDIT: fixed typo

I learned outside of school to read and write. Even how to work as a group from active social activities outside of school. Group activities in school didn't promote real strengths because the activities could have been done alone. Yet, I succeeded as a person who could work as a group by the strengths learned outside of school in social activities.

I'm a software developer who was self taught online. All social skills with others at work were as stated developed from social experiences outside school. Forums or even reddit helped me progress in writing. I think school isn't necessary if motivated and the field of interest doesn't require legal obligations to meet by some degree or specialist program. The education system is arguably similar to any other capitalist entity and desiring society to feel it's needed or required. It's a real shame because it's a debt machine in a poor economy where the previous generation didn't need a degree and could get a home in their name young.

I am also a self taught and disagree with this. Everyone’s approach is different. I believe the key is passion and motivation. For us self taughts, we have enough motivation to carry us through. For others, they’ll need to absorb by osmosis. Especially from teachers that share your same passion.

Great teachers can ignite your passion or give you new directions that are hard or impossible to find by yourself.

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