Comment by prepend | Hacker News Reader

Comment by prepend | Hacker News Reader

School sucks, but there’s not much better alternatives that are cost effective.

It’s cool that unschooling works for some. I, and many kids I knew, had a problem with motivation. If left to our own devices we would play Nintendo forever. School was horrible and probably 75% of it was pointless, but it at least got us out of the home, exposed us to ideas and taught us some basic pieces.

I think it would be better to have tutors teach. It would probably take an hour a day. My family couldn’t afford that and I can’t afford that now.

School is basically daycare, but there’s not really a better solution I’m aware of. For every one super smart 15 year old who would productively better themselves, there’s far more who would be worse off without daycare.

Also, having been a 15 year old wanting to understand the universe and discovering new things every day, I understand that most 15 year olds are now aware of their capabilities and limitations. So for all who think they are smart and mature, it’s rare that reality matches perception.

Dream big is really important and a good motivator, but that doesn’t mean that those dreams should all be fulfilled without protections. I’m trying to not sound paternal and protective as I don’t want to squelch ideas and dreams, but want to divert the frustration I felt of “why won’t they just listen to me and let me stay home and play Nintendo, they just don’t understand.”

“They” understand, but just don’t know a good course of action.

I think your first line nails it - there is no alternative, so we just keep on with the same terrible idea.

The alternative _should_ be that we put you to work doing something you are interested in. I have 3 children and all of them were capable of working in their field of interest at around 13. But they will spend another 5 years in school waiting, and then maybe another 4 in university buying access.

It's just....really, really broken and that's obvious to children. The adults know it too, but it's easier to look away.

There is an alternative and you gave it in the second half of your comment! Let the kids escape the zoo: let them create value in the real world for real people facing real economic constraints. Instead of grinding menial tasks in an artificial bubble where homework, tests, papers get swept into the bin right after they get rubber stamped, have kids create things that actually have value in reality.

When I was a kid, I worked quite a bit. Some of it manual labor, like elementary school hauling stuff around someone else’s farm. My employer was nice, my parents took care of me and I worked maybe 10-15 hours a week, tops.

I think the issue is how to systematically scale this for a nation or world. Not everyone is as lucky as I was and I’ve seen and worked against many situations where kids are exploited. Either by loved ones or by a system that is just really hard and every dollar counts.

I think rich kids would be ok, but poor kids would be worse off. Labor can be exploited when labor are all adults, imagine the power imbalance between a 12 year old and a line manager.

Of course, we could try to have checks and balances, but I don’t expect that’s possible.

> If left to our own devices we would play Nintendo forever

Video games can be pretty educational. I'm pretty sure I learned as much from video games as from multiple years of K-12 education. Games can also inspire and reinforce interest in computing (they certainly did for me.)

That being said, it does seem like there are some basic subjects (civics, writing, math, basic science, health/nutrition/fitness) whose universal mastery among citizens could provide major societal benefits, and which not all students would easily learn on their own if left to their own (Nintendo etc.) devices.

Definitely. I learned so much from playing Nintendo and computers. But I think spending 80 hours instead of 40 would have been negative.

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