Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

I don't think there was ever a "thought" behind science fairs to be "rethought" now. They're from the "this is something, therefore, we must do it" school of science education.

Most education as delivered is uninterested in whether the recipients learn anything. I remember reading an essay by someone who gave a presentation at an education conference...

He wrote that a schoolteacher came up to him afterwards, excited about his talk. She wanted his opinion on her favorite part of the school year: each of her students gave an oral presentation on a theme that she assigned. She was proud of this assignment, because (a) she enjoyed watching the presentations, and (b) the students liked doing them.

And I was appalled to read this, because I consider those presentations a fancy form of abuse, and they're obviously worthless. But the essay author said:

"I am not going to tell you what I think. Instead, I want to ask you two questions:

First, can you imagine someone knowing the material of your class well, but doing poorly on the presentation?

Second, can you imagine someone doing well on the presentation, but not knowing the material?"

And the teacher grew very quiet.

> they're obviously worthless

Collecting information, organising it into a easy to understand format and then presenting that information to others is a very common task in real life. There are whole very well paid and respected professions where their job is mainly about doing that. (lawyers, teachers, tv presenters, etc.) It is also a crucial element in many other jobs where it is not thought as the main part of the job itself. Doesn't matter how good of an engineer you are if you can't convince others to give you the resources for your excellent plans. Doesn't matter how good of a scientist you are if you can't tell others your results. Doesn't matter how visionary a business leader you are if you can't convince others to give you money for your businesses.

I'm not saying it is the only useful skill. There are many others. But it is certainly part of the toolkit of a well rounded and skilled human. I'm curious how you concluded that it is "obviously worthless" practicing it.

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. Public speaking is itself a skill that the teacher presumably wanted to teach their students. These types of assignments are also quicker to grade (and on class time, no less) and harder to cheat at than written exams: - students copying on their neighbor - students using their smartphone in class or in the restroom - old-school cheats (cheat sheets hidden on their person)

Even disregarding cheating, why should ability at written exams be the only measure of a student? Some crumble under the pressure of the moment and perform poorly as their mind blanks. They don't trust their abilities and find themselves terrified in front of an exam sheet. Having time to research a subject and carefully rehearse it can be reassuring. Others (as was my case) have the opposite problem; they trust themselves fully to improvise their way to a good grade in front of a sheet of paper but freeze up if they have to speak in front of a crowd. But these students already get their way in the 99% of evaluations that are not in this format.

> Even disregarding cheating, why should ability at written exams be the only measure of a student?

The measure of a student should be something that measures them as a student. That was ruled out by the second question.

> And the teacher grew very quiet.

I'm sorry, but this is a yarn. The story is either about a very inexperienced teacher (of which there are many), so not representative of the profession as a whole; or it's invented by the author to make a rhetorical point, but not a real thing that happened.

What you say the speaker pointed out to the teacher is basic teaching praxis. The idea that this teacher was somehow stunned to silence by the hypotheticals says more about her personal abilities as a teacher than the teaching profession (you framed this as how "most" education is delivered).

The number one thing we do when designing classes is first we talk about outcomes: what do we want the student to know after the class? Then we talk about prereqs: what should they know coming in? From there, we design assessments to actually measure whether the outcomes were achieved. During the class we implement the assessments, and then after the class we analyze the results to determine if we were successful in attaining outcomes. Then we reassess the course and iterate. But at all stages, student outcomes are driving the design, so I must disagree with the idea most education is uninterested in whether the students learn anything.

Yeah. It has a very strong "and then everyone clapped" vibe to it.

But even if the teacher "grew very quiet" in actual fact there can be many reason behind that. The story as told tries to imply that they realised that they were wrong somehow for doing these presentations. It is also possible that they went quiet because they realised that there is no point in asking whatever they wanted to ask under such a hostile interrogation.

It is also lovely to note that the supposed interaction happened with "someone who gave a presentation at an education conference". I guess that someone must have been born with the skills to present, because they (according to the story) think very lowly about the idea of practicing it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com