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Comment by RealityVoid | Hacker News Reader

Oh, such a day, a talk about Ion on HN.

I get your point, and the book does say that. It's just... For a teenager, it rarely lands. And connecting context is super important. I mean, sure Ion wanted land, but you really can't contextualize that kind of desire when your needs and desires are completely different.

Maybe you were more capable of empathy or better at contextualizing what you were reading. I sure as hell was not. And only now later in like I think I am able to read and understand books. And really get them at a much deeper level. I do wonder though if without going through the motions of reading stuff you contextualize poorly if you ever gain the capability to understand. Or if it just makes no sens to engage with certain material until mature enough, in the right frame of mind and, importantly, _interested in it_.

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> I get your point, and the book does say that. It's just... For a teenager, it rarely lands.

Basic education is weird because it has two conflicting goals. One is to get everyone to the same basic level needed to function in a society. And that's where all the incentives are - that's what you and the teachers are graded on. But another goal is to give you a taste of what's out there, so that some of the more talented kids can decide they like literature or math or physics or whatever.

That second part really requires the teacher and the student to care, but the first part conspires to make that outcome unlikely. My memories from public school are that everything I'm interested in today, I'm interested in despite the efforts of the school system to make the topics appear painful and dull.

So on some level, I don't think the problem is with the literature itself, or with the student's age. It's just that the setting often sucks and you kinda start with the assumption that if the teachers are making you read a book or learn some dates, it won't be a fun experience. And so it isn't.

I don't see the conflict between the two. I think you can do both. But, yes, the quality of the teachers matters a whole lot. And, sometimes, how well they relate to the kids. Because I can imagine that some people just won't click well together. Thinking back on the poor professors, I kinds of am sorry for all the crap they had to put up with.

And I do believe the student has part of the blame here. Or at least, the culture the student is living in. Because if there is an air of "pff, school, who needs it?" it rubs on kids and they end up believing school is stupid, knowing things is dumb, and they just don't care about it. At least in my country, I just feel such an air of disdain for education, that, to me, just feels a problem of perception or cultural framing. Competency is cool. Knowing things is _actually_ cool.

You have 20 kids in a classroom. Fifteen of them want to know what's going to be on the state-mandated test. Five, if you're lucky, may have some interest in the subject you're teaching.

So, do you design the class for the five gifted kids and risk failing the other 15, or do you get everyone over the finish line through rote repetition until they can all recite the names of the Founding Fathers for the test, knowing full well that you can't make them care about history (or, in some cases, even keep them off drugs and street crime)?

Sure, there are exceptional teachers who can keep the entire classroom engaged, but it's so rare that we make films about them. In most cases, in public schools, it's a choice that needs to be made.

You can indeed do both. That's what separates a good teacher from a great teacher.

But I think we also all now understand that public teaching is one of the worst ROI careers financially and how the few carrpts on the stick (tenure, fairly strong job security) have been stripped away over the decades. The way schools are funded literally rely on real estste value in that area. It's all made so maybe some rich areas get great teachers, but the hopes of using education to crawl out of poverty gets harder and harder. Unsurprising that great teachers leave before their prime or never come in to begin with.

And nope. They do not teach you that in 12th grade econ/government class.

> in the right frame of mind and, importantly, _interested in it_

Very much so! I'm not saying the way school approaches books is good, I'd wish there would have been be a lot more time dedicated to reading the darn things. :)

My point is that, if you find reading enjoyable and do it as sort of a hobby instead of a chore (I did, and a bunch of my friends did too, so this wasn't just a me thing), you can get a lot out of the books even at that age.

Of course you understand them more later, but it also goes both ways, you also understand life situations a bit better because you've seen them before in books.

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