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Comment by peter_l_downs | Hacker News Reader

Fun way to make this argument is to use College/University instead of highschool and then, if people more or less agree on that, also suggest Highschool. You can keep moving down the stack. At some point, people start to be concerned about socialization, which is a very fair concern. I did not learn anything in highschool (or college) but I made friends that I have to this day and learned how to be a human in a world of other humans. Hard to untangle things after the fact but I went straight into the working world after highschool and I am really, really glad that I ended up eventually going to college solely because of the people I met there and the ways they challenged me to grow and become a better person.

edit: there are obviously ways to get this socialization without being in a traditional, horrible, highschool environment. I do not know if I would homeschool my kids or not!

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Another way to drill down into the question is to start with smart kids and then, if people more or less agree with that, to talk about all kids.

Think about it: if smart kids benefit from a more personalized, stimulating, and nurturing approach to education, then this is even more true for the kids who are less intelligent. Why do we assume that the kids who are academically behind are well served by an apathetic, inflexible, impersonal system?

For example, consider very small classes taught by highly trained, highly motivated, highly paid teachers - but instead of having this be the solution for an elite cohort of "smart" kids, let this be the solution for all kids.

> Why do we assume that the kids who are academically behind are well served by an apathetic, inflexible, impersonal system?

We don't assume that, society just isn't willing to pay for more expensive more personalized education for the masses.

> then this is even more true for the kids who are less intelligent

Disagree. Kids who are smarter can take better advantage of improved education. I think diminishing returns would quickly kick in for most kids.

> I did not learn anything in highschool (or college)

Is this really the case or do you just not remember specific things you learned or even abstract concepts around learning itself that are hard to quantify?

I don't know, how would I?

Do you know math? Did you rediscover it, learn it from materials or individuals outside of school, or learn it in school?

Repeat that exercise with other areas of knowledge.

If you don't know whether you learned anything, you shouldn't state definitively "I did not learn anything in highschool (or college)"

Not the parent, but I really couldn’t say.

I personally spent most high school classes either sleeping or playing on my laptop, and often literally learning about what we had been seeing in class when reading the exam's title. Often doing things like completing the math exams based on recollections from middle school. And yet got by, year after year, as well as anyone else.

I then spent over a decade having a hard time figuring out how to actually take and keep any kind of notes, study and how to learn things that didn’t just "come to me" on their own.

Quite a weird experience.

Looking back, I can only wish it had been different. But that’s pointless.

I'd charitably interpret this as something like, "I did not learn anything useful or interesting in school that I did not learn elsewhere first or more effectively".

I'd endorse that claim, for the most part. I definitely learned all kinds of things that are not useful nor interesting, and then promptly discarded them. Maybe 2 or 3 isolated things in university passed the above criteria for me, and those were only possible because of the greater freedom offered in universities over K-12.

The times where I actually learned things, including abstract metalearning, were always when I was trying to do difficult things independently from school. School was just taking time away from that. It's important to keep in mind that the alternative to the current education system isn't 'child sits in a box devoid of all sensory input'- there are tons of possibilities.

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/519/

I’m wondering if there is a way to create some sort of less structured alternative to the government education system. I think socializing with people of different classes, beliefs and abilities is necessary, and I would probably not send my kind to some kind of system where he would only meet other high IQ peers, but the gov education is >95% wasted time. Perhaps a combination of homeschooling + mandatory sports team participation + some artsy stuff?

There's pros and cons to any style of teaching, but the Montessori method has some of what you're looking for. Specifically, it allows students to move as fast or slow as they want in any particular subject area.

I went to a Montessori school for a year in middle school, and I remember being in a class with 5th graders doing math at the 9th grade level. I also remember a few kids in 5th grade doing math at a 4th grade level. The key was that the teachers could teach their subject at all of those levels.

I feel like some of this could be implemented in a less structured educational system. Being able to move at varying different paces while still socializing with peers of the same age is a good combination. I would add a little more structure than Montessori schools though, to make sure that students are moving at least at a baseline pace. It also takes some scheduling work to make sure that teachers aren't teaching an hour lesson to one student at a time.

Interesting, I’m from Eastern Europe so never heard about this system. Sounds like a good alternative to public schools or boarding schools for sure.

Sudbury schools are even more unstructured, but unfortunately nowhere near as common as Montessori schools.

> I did not learn anything in highschool (or college)

That's on the student; in college, where you can pick your classes and course of study, it's on the student completely. But regardless, I was told: 'Don't blame the professor or the class or the book or the weather; it's your job to learn.' Good preparation for professional life too.

I think this can be true to an extent. However, as a current college student I have been required to take courses to advance in my degree program that have been scoped entirely within things I already knew.

For example there was a course that almost entirely covered collaborative development and some regex, when I already had enough regex knowledge and was actively working as a software engineer, doing collaborative development all day every day.

There are definitely some areas where you have to make an effort to learn- and I do. But so far in my computer science degree (I'm taking third-year courses right now), all I've really learned is C++, but that's really not much considering I taught most of it to myself before my first term since I tested out of the entry-level courses.

Then study different things, arrange something with the professors, arrange independent study or an independent degree program. It's up to the student.

It's worth to emphasize your edit: the alternative to high-school is not restricted to solitary confinement.

Though no alternative is friction-less. Having been the home-schooled kid in AYSO soccer, I remember being regarded as an oddity since no one had seen me before.

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