High School Is Killing Creativity | Hacker News Reader

High School Is Killing Creativity

11 pointsrajat199615 comments

Schools are killing creativity by forcing students to memorize factoids rather than teaching them practical problem solving and pattern-recognition skills, and inspiring them to pursue their intrinsic motivators. Thoughts?

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You ask for thoughts so here's mine: Anyone can make a controversial, opinion-based statement. Anyone. There's nothing interesting about your particular statement in that regard. It could have been interesting if you'd taken the time to explain your opinion. But you didn't, and thus all I read is a one sentence opinion. Why should I take the time to offer my own explanation of my opinion when you couldn't be bothered to do the same?

I agree, but do not consider myself knowledgeable enough in the matter to actually think about a solution. Instead I think a lot about hacking this for myself (when I was in high school, back when we used to ride a t-rex to get to school) and for kids that I meet, friends' children etc. The optimal strategy that i've found is to challenge the child until the 7th grade with after curriculum activities, and then at 7th grade to start avoiding school as much as possible while still attending for the social benefits. this can be done by participating in special programs that vary from school to school but common examples are teaching the kid math after school that he may take the final exams by 9th grade and starting a university degree in a high school / university combined program. This way the student can avoid roughly 50% of high school while still getting the social benefits of making friends and getting used to being around people, yet get 50% of his time back so he can invest it in real education.

Memorizing stuff is good for excersizing long and short term memory capacity, which is a big bonus when you get into programming... though then again, I built my memory skills more from developing my programming than much other stuff... I'm sure if you talked to someone who has a degree in child development and higher learning they could give you the ins and out that both rote and process learning are valuable for cognitive development.

And sometimes all you need is a factoid to get by and not the process that went into its production.

When all you have is the ability to construct solutions, but no knowledge of solutions that came before you, you'll spend your life inventing wheels.

> Schools are killing creativity...

Assuming this statement were true, unschooled populations would have demonstrably higher rates of creativity and happiness indices. "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."

I don't think it is that bad. In high school there are things like creative writing. University can be way worse. In some majors like business studies original thinking gets punished systematically.

Absolutely true. Students shouldn't be forced to memorize facts, they should be encouraged to memorize those facts are that are necessary for problem solving and pattern recognition.

> Thoughts?

My thought is this is not a fast-breaking story.

Also, remember that high school students get exactly the education their parents want and are paying for.

[1] high school students get exactly the education their parents want

[2] high school students get exactly the education their are paying for

I would say you could argue 2 is true, but not 1.

> high school students get exactly the education their parents want and are paying for.

Not true. Lots of parents don't have any other options but to put their kids in their local public school.

> Lots of parents don't have any other options but to put their kids in their local public school.

That's certainly true, but think about what you're saying. When a Midwestern state tries to outlaw the teaching of Evolution in public schools, which letter-writing political constituency do you think is behind it? How about sex education? How about the treatment of controversial topics like Marxism? All these hot potatoes are vetted by the parents of the students.

I'm not saying parents have realistic alternatives to public school. I'm saying they can whittle away a progressive curriculum, item by item, until you see a clear ground truth in many places -- enforced mediocrity.

you need to have a certain corpus of knowledge -- before you can begin to innovate. We all must stand on the shoulders of giants.

This is already a known fact. Read about the education system in Finland to see the solution in action.

The reason I ask is because I wrote a book after my senior year of high school called "What High School Didn't Teach Me: A Recent Graduate's Perspective on How High School is Killing Creativity." You can get a copy here: http://amzn.to/1B98oi8

I agree, we memorize too much things that cannot be used in real life.

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