Most classroom practice is astrology | Hacker News Reader

Most classroom practice is astrology

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11 pointsesalman7 comments

Astrology is a psychological technology that cleverly relies on celestial mechanics as a source of effectively-random numbers. I.e., your sign matters only in that it differs from 92% of other people's signs; more if you bring in moon sign, rising sign, what-have-you. The randomizing keeps people from all getting the same advice at the same time.

How is classroom practice similar?

My interpertation is just that they meant they have no rational basis or foundation upon which they are built.

Castles in the sky so to say.

After reading it, I'd say a better title would be "Most classroom practices are folklore".

I thought it was a perfectly clear analogy:

Astronomy grows out of astrology. Astrology can be seen as the "primitive" form of astronomy. Astrology can be seen as the predecessor of astronomy.

I felt it was saying "We still have a long ways to go before this is some kind of science."

Was there ever expectation that classroom practice derived from any kind of science? It evolved as a practice that pretty reliably generates tuition and employment of educators. Any success in actually educating has always been secondary as an evolutionary measure of fitness.

I guess you could say that astrology developed by a similar process, optimized to produce people willing to pay for it, with little demand for other objective result. Objectivity is rejected pre-emptively.

> Students don't learn a thing from testing. Most teachers don't either (it's supposed to help them tweak instruction, but that rarely happens).

Testing isn't supposed to teach, it's supposed to motivate kids to learn stuff they aren't interested in. "Put in the time and effort or else". On one hand it's barbaric, on another I don't think making every kid interested in everything is realistic. If you want every child to learn math you have to force at least some of them.

> Education is all about capitalism.

Education was possibly even more soul-killing and bureaucratic in communist countries.

As for oppression angle - sure, everything society does is built on power hierarchy. It's not specific to capitalism. Got any alternatives?

Sure that's how much of it started, but that's not what most teachers are TRYING to achieve.

Mostly they've been indoctrinated into the mythology of how teaching/education is SUPPOSED to work.

This like policing have hypocrisy baked into so deeply no one has a clue what the reality is or how to even detangle the truth.

And because it somewhat works, along with a healthy dose of hazing because it builds character/I had to go through it so this is the right way to do it, there is no call to try and rebuild it from the ground up.

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