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I disagree.

"Education and religion are two things not regulated by supply and demand. The less of either the people have, the less they want." -- Charlotte Observer, 1897

There is very much a reason that it is the law that children must go to school until 16: we want to enforce a certain amount of education on them, otherwise they'll think they never need it.

The difference between me and my sister is a nice anecdote. I love to learn; I read books out the wazoo, etc. My sister, on the other hand, hates it. For the longest time, my parents had to watch her do her homework, or she wouldn't do it.

The thing that eventually got my sister to do her homework by herself? Getting it through her teenage head that if she reliably does her homework, my parents won't be on her case every 5 seconds. She's now learning, not because of intrinsic love of it, but because of extrinsic reward: independence from my parents.

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School is unpleasant. This turns people off learning. Then schools say: see? kids don't like learning. we have to force them.

That isn't a valid argument. If pleasant, voluntary, interest-based learning was offered, you don't know how children would react.

The same thing with your sister. the offer usually made is something like: obey me, and do your schoolwork. it won't be fun, but when you grow up you'll thank me later. if you don't obey, i'll hurt you.

That provides no information about how your sister, or any other child, would have behaved if offered some better options.

What I would like to see is more of the Socrates style teaching. I think that's a lot like the kind of pleasant, interesting learning that you're talking about.

I guess my question is this: if you say you're only going to teach voluntary, interest-based things, how do you make things interesting? How do you make math interesting to a kid who doesn't care if he knows how to add? How do you make history interesting to a kid who thinks it's awful?

There's a lot of value to a well-rounded education. If you don't "force" kids to explore a variety of areas, they'll have a tendency to become focused and centered on the one thing that really gets them off. That's great, unless they start blowing off other subjects and whatnot. It's the reason most universities require a variety of general education classes for all freshman.

So I think we have to "force" everyone to study different topics, not just the ones that intrinsically interest them. The key here is "forcing" the kids to like the material. How do we do this?

Well, I don't have a great answer to that. The only thing I can point to is that one great teacher we've all had (or I hope you've had). That one teacher who was able to just turn you on completely. But it was the teacher that was special, not the material, not the procedure, not the tests, not the class.

My favorite example is Mrs. Sams, my calculus teacher. When we got to the fundamental theorem of integral calculus, we held a mock wedding between the derivative and the integral.

"It's the reason most universities require a variety of general education classes for all freshman."

It's a bad thing universities do for a bad reason. They waste people's time.

An individual knows best how to find their own talents. When a person knows exactly what they want to do, as long as it's moral, that's what they should be helped to do.

You get a well rounded education by googling when you decide you need a question answered.

"The only thing I can point to is that one great teacher we've all had (or I hope you've had). That one teacher who was able to just turn you on completely."

Yes, I had one of those! I absolutely LOVED going to her class every day. I didn't really learn much, but that's OK!

I don't need to be forced to learn about a variety of things and do what's best for myself. A lot of people don't. Why assume that kids do, just because they are young?

I realize some people think everyone needs to be forced to do what's best for them, which at least isn't an ageist double standard. But in that case, what exactly is purported to be preventing reason from informing our decisions, and why can't we overcome that obstacle?

(BTW I do think there are various obstacles to a reason based life. Just not insurmountable ones. I'd rather face them than "force" people. Using force has downsides beyond being unpleasant. Like what if the forcer makes a mistake? The student will say, "I don't want to", but that was a given anyway. So how will errors be discovered and corrected?)

Another issue is that people who want to learn worthwhile stuff are often forced to go to school instead. I for one was often torn away from chess to be extremely bored at school. That is one of the results of indiscriminately forcing everyone to go to school with no regard for personal circumstance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_method

One of the premises of the Montessori method from the article is:

That children learn in a distinctly different way from adults.

That isn't reasonable, and isn't backed up by any serious theories of learning. There is only one known method for creating knowledge/complexity (evolution).

I kind of see what you are inferring to, but "There is only one known method for creating knowledge/complexity (evolution)" is not a strictly true statement.

If "evolution" implies some sort of selection among competing candidates of "knowledge," then the above statement is strictly false.

Say, a -> b, b -> c |=> a -> c.

The consequence ( a -> c ) is newly "created" knowledge, because you may not have known that fact when the two premises were stated, yet the consequence required zero competition. Point shortened, logical reasoning requires no competition, hence logical inferences, which can be new knowledge, are not evolved. They are "merely" deduced.

I'm just attacking that one statement of yours and not discounting your criticism of the Montessori method. It is a worthwhile clarification though, because you are talking about "serious theories of learning." I have not thought much about it, but I do think there are merits, at least theoretically, to the Montessori method.

"That isn't reasonable, and isn't backed up by any serious theories of learning."

I don't know whether that's true or not; I'm a developmental psychology ignoramus.

"There is only one known method for creating knowledge/complexity (evolution)."

Are you saying that other known methods for "creating knowledge/complexity" like those employed the human brain or artificial computers are really just evolution working through indirection? i.e. evolution made humans, therefore, anything we credit to humans should really be credited to evolution?

Well, then I see your "evolution created all known complexity" and raise you "fundamental laws of physics created all known complexity". HA! Check and mate!

The human brain uses evolution, computers today don't create knowledge.

I thought this was well known. The famous question, asked by Paley and others, was: where did complexity come from? And the presumed answer was: a designer (God, who imbued some other creatures with limited design abilities themselves). This was never a great answer, because where did the complex designer come from? But anyway, then Darwin came along, and he came up with a different way of accounting for where complexity came from. Imperfect replication + selection -> complexity/knowledge. That's what evolution is. Human brains create complex ideas and new knowledge. No one has ever come up with a different solution to the classic problem. Therefore, human brains do evolution. they do replication and selection of ideas. and this can't be different for adults vs children.

"computers today don't create knowledge"

Whenever a computer program discovers a new prime number, or any of a zillion other things, a computer has created some knowledge. If you want to say that this is really a human operating through indirection, we need to again follow the chain all the way back through evolution and say that it was the fundamental physical laws which "created" the knowledge.

If I am misunderstanding your definition of "create knowledge", please clarify.

"human brains do evolution. they do replication and selection of ideas."

I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly here, but I'll respond to it as I interpreted it.

Let's be more precise, since "evolution" can pretty much apply to anything. e.g. The Grand Canyon "evolved" from a big chunk of rock. I assume that you're referring to the process of natural selection when you say evolution.

It's true that memes replicate and undergo a process analogous to natural selection in biology, memes float around the memepool, and their success at "infecting" minds (getting that mind's owner to agree with the meme) determines their fitness, which in turn allows it to reproduce, etc. But this is entirely separate from the process used within the mind/brain to determine whether or not to agree with the meme. Through some process brains arrive at decisions and opinions, and those decisions are what put selective pressure on the memes. But this says nothing about what's going on inside the brain to arrive at the decision, so we can't say that the brain operates by evolution. All we can say is that once the brain arrived at a decision, that decision added a bit of selective pressure on the memepool.

Saying that decisions themselves are produced by an evolutionary process is analogous to saying that death operates by evolution. Death is a biochemical process, and there's no natural selection going on inside the organism to cause it to die. We don't yet know what's going on inside a brain to arrive at decisions.

Anyway, having said that, there is a theory that brain development operates by something called "Neural Darwinism", but I don't know how valid it's considered to be. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_Darwinism

"Imperfect replication + selection -> complexity/knowledge"

Yes, but the converse is not true; complexity/knowledge do not imply imperfect replication and selection. Natural selection doesn't have a monopoly on all complexity. It's entirely conceivable that the brain uses some "algorithm" other than something analogous to natural selection.

Where else does complexity/knowledge come from, besides evolution, then?

While it's possible some answer to that question will be invented in the future, it definitely doesn't exist now, and is not known to Montessori.

A computer finding a prime number isn't creating new knowledge. The knowledge about prime numbers was in the program. Following those mechanical instructions isn't a creative act. The chain doesn't go back further because the programmer created knowledge that wasn't a mechanical/simple transform from some previous chain link.

You'll have to define "mechanical/simple transform" and explain why it is that humans don't count as "mechanical". As I interpret it, "mechanical" just means "follows the fundamental laws of physics to get from state at time t to state at time t+1" so your claim makes no sense. What do humans have that's special and allows them to perform "creative acts"? And what's a "creative act"?

"I thought this was well known."

All the forced schooling at their education is not well rounded after all.

*and their education

i don't think you understand evolution. BTW children's brain structure is fundamentally different from adults, the neurons literally are different - one concrete example of this is how children seem to learn languages effortlessly until they're about 8 or so; adults can never become as fluent. japanese people literally cannot hear the difference between 'r' and 'l' - again, brain hardwiring is different.

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