Comment by ptero | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ptero | Hacker News Reader

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My personal experience is that it wasn't just hours. Those who liked math spent a lot of time on it after classes. Those who didn't, avoided extras and still did OK (they would not go to top universities, but the base would be OK, with some practice, if they decide to go to a mid-level school).

The biggest difference for me in school was a consistent, well thought out program (one for the whole country) and books. A topic would be studied once, well, and there would be enough time to master the material. Consistency across subjects, too -- if physics covered a topic in, say, the second half of the grade 7, the math needed would be covered in the math classes before then.

What I now see in the US is horrible: teachers at grade N do not know for sure what the students already know, so they repeat a lot of the background, then jump around to cover a lot of material, much of which is never mastered. Which is considered OK -- it will likely be repeated in the same haphazard fashion next year. Or not, depending on what the next teacher decides.

You’re describing an idea adjacent to “mastery” schooling; it’s the natural method people tend to use when self-taught; it’s also how some online schools, like Khan Academy, use to teach. Both of my kids earn “allowance” (extra screen time; robux; etc.) by doing Khan Academy courses. Watching how unevenly they pick up topics — there’s no rhyme-or-reason to the speed they pick up even “close” skills — makes me think there’s malice aforethought in the steady pace learning I had as a child.

The only thing mastery schooling taught me was empathy for people whose learning style doesn't fit the style used in a classroom.

It's hard to understand the the connections between and motivations for concepts when you are learning everything about a topic before moving on. I prefer the style described above, of learning the basics then moving on and circling back when more advanced aspects are needed.

Clearly different styles work better for different people.

> Both of my kids earn “allowance” (extra screen time; robux; etc.) by doing Khan Academy courses

Highlighting this because I love the idea and can't wait to try it out :-)

That is indeed terrifying.

Not to take away from the importance of a well-thought-out program, learning materials, or competent teachers, I was drawing attention to the immense time and effort that some students would invest often with an institutionalized help.

In our case, the programs were standardized, the textbooks were virtually the same throughout the union. Barred special schools and eccentric teachers, all kids were studying the same things at the same time. What differentiated the bespoken Siberians from us was that order of magnitude difference in the time put in. It challenged my sense of normalcy in many ways: people being this good at math without being apparent geniuses, universities teaching math extra 4 hours a day, realization that there is enough undergrad calculus to last 3K hours.

>teachers at grade N do not know for sure what the students already know, so they repeat a lot of the background, then jump around to cover a lot of material, much of which is never mastered.

I spent my freshman year of high school in France, and went to a French school (this is 3ème, for my fellow Frenchmen).

I recall being stunned -- in the best way possible -- when our biology teacher started his class on the first day with: "So. You've seen X last year. Now we're going to talk about related-thing-Y".

That had never happened in my US curriculum. Never.

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