Comment by marcus_holmes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by marcus_holmes | Hacker News Reader

I was a troubled kid. Expelled from 2 kindergartens for disruptive behaviour. My parents tried Montessori, and it worked. They found out I was interested in mythology, so I apparently learned to read from the Greek myths. One of my friends was into cars, so they got him a pile of car showroom brochures and he learned to read from that.

There was a non-verbal autistic kid there, too. I played "clap-hands" with them every day, apparently the only human interaction (apart from their parents) that they had.

We moved when I was 5, and I went to a normal school after that. I don't remember much about it (all the above is stories my parents told me later). Luckily we moved to a small village where the teacher had enough time to continue giving me the personalised attention I clearly needed. Then I got shipped off to boarding school and the rest of my schooling is a dark, terrible mess of anger and violence.

It totally worked for me. I hated school, except that one.

I sometimes wonder about whether personalised teaching as a young student is overall good or bad, for students who then move on to a university with very large, impersonal classes (e.g. with more than 1000 students per class).

On the one hand, I think students in small classes can really become more confident and enthusiastic about learning in the long-term. But on the other, a shift to larger classes can be alienating (e.g. feedback from educators is less frequent). This could be mitigated by going to office hours, but there are plenty of minority experiences that stick where teaching assistants and professors are unwelcoming. The change could be less of a shock for students who went to large high schools, as they're more used to large classes.

Perhaps students who have the chance to grow up with individualized learning can opt for universities that have smaller classes, though it's not always possible when large public universities can often be much more affordable. I wonder if there is a way to prepare students from smaller schools with personalized education to do well at much larger educational institutions.

The graduates from my kids’s school which does a lot of personalized stuff, do disproportionately well at high school (not sure about college as there’s less data there). I think some of it is inculcating a sense of joy about learning so that even when there are obstacles (like institutional schooling), the kids will be motivated to learn anyway. (I’ve seen the Premack principle at work with my son where reading went from something that would be rewarded to something that served as a reward.)

I think it is also a greater level of self-confidence and trust through knowing what they are all about (and hence enjoy what they learn more).

So many kids (myself included) hit university not knowing what they should be doing (or what they've been learning actually requires at the 'next leve') because you're guided to broad and narrow learning curriculum and not following their specific interests intensely.

We see the chaotic, political, competitive and ranked corporate world as 'normal' instead of a terrible, poorly organised and dysfunctional system. It's not 'the real world,' it's a bubble that reinforces itself because we train kids to fit into it throughout their education.

I needed tutors for my college Computer Science and Math classes because the classroom setting wasn't enough for me. Add then add in study groups. I needed all of it, from big class to individual.

What kind of kindergarten expels children? It sounds at best grossly incompetent. Are you sure there was no other bias that played a role in their decision? It sounds rather unlikely you were the cause.

Private schools tend to do it if the behavior severely affect other kids. E.g. repeated violent behavior.

Public schools just let the repeated violent behaviour happen :p

When they start having to spend 80% of their attention on one kid, it's a problem that needs to be addressed.

I say this as the parent of a kid who is right on the verge of being kicked out of preschool over that issue. I totally get it. I wish I knew how to help him. He has some great qualities, but he also requires constant attention and mentally draining correction from everyone that's involved in his life.

You aren’t alone. Have a great kid but it’s non stop boundary pushing, arguments, stubbornness, and lots of frustration. Teacher makes a huge difference. Kindergarten just barely worked. First grade with a more active and creative teacher is much better, though still maddening at times.

You got this!

When a system misbehaves consistently, you stop attempting to force the system to behave and instead sit back and examine why it is misbehaving. If your wheel doesn't like to roll downhill and keeps veering off to the side, no matter how even the wheel is.. sometimes it's the hill.

One of the Montessori practices I'm a big fan of is observation. Quiet almost secret observation of the child. Ideally the child isn't aware you're there and you merely observe them act freely (in a safe environment for the child).

This was me. I wish I could apologise to my parents for for what I put them through. Though, to be fair, I did spend a few years in therapy fixing what they put me through too. Families are difficult.

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