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Comment by shermantanktop | Hacker News Reader

I've long held the belief that well-meaning adults who complain about "school these days" are mostly just talking about their own educational experience - either to complain about how they felt about it as a child (20+ years ago) or to elevate their nostalgia over whatever they imagine happens in classrooms now.

Educational professionals appear terminally prone to fads and magical thinking, but it's the people outside the school - parents and other adults - who seem to have the clearest conviction about things they know little about. Appeasing ignorant people makes bad public policy.

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If you spend any amount of time listening to people complain about what is or isn't taught, you'll quickly discover that most things they hate aren't taught and the things they wish were taught are, at least in some form. Much of the rest is based on either outdated or misunderstood knowledge/beliefs.

My kid was given a hacky political axis test in school. Then all the kids were lined up in a row based upon the test results and the teacher then grilled the kids on the right side as to why. This is happening in a public school funded by taxes. Gaslighting parents about their own children's experiences isn't a great idea.

PS I know this is one event, it was also part of a consistent pattern of similar events. The school administrators had no problem admitting this in public and were proud of it.

If it's not clear, my post was about school curricula.

Yes of course I don't actually hate what school is now. Not directly. How could I, I'm not even allowed to observe it! But I definitely hated what I had to do and it did not work for me. And that is useful information when I'm helping my kids.

"I'm not even allowed to observe it!"

Was this true when you were a kid? Why do you think it changed? Because when I was a kid and a kid was bad, the teacher would make the parent come to class until the kid started behaving. Do you think this would work today? And why would some teachers be opposed to it?

You say you can’t know something, and then assert that the dated knowledge you do have is still relevant.

If it wasn’t actually useful information, how would you know? How would you discover that?

As you say, it’s a bit of a black box unless you volunteer in the classroom (as my spouse did).

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