Comment by gph | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gph | Hacker News Reader

This article brings up an important point about our education system. How much is it about teaching a subject versus teaching you how to work.

I always did well on tests and in any class I didn't totally hate I felt like I gained the knowledge I needed to. However, I never did all the homework. Hated it. Most of it felt like busy work, or just plain unimportant.

Not that I think self-discipline is worthless. It is a very important life skill. But they don't really teach you how to be self-disciplined so much as attempt to force it on to you by making your grade dependent on a ton of extra work. I like the idea of splitting grades into knowledge and self-discipline like the Minnesota school did.

I always got Bs in highschool. These were 89s and 87s. My homework average, which usually accounted for 20 to 30% of my grade was usually 80 or lower.

Thankfully I left loving learning and am always learning new things from different subjects I am interested in but I feel for those not as privileged/lucky as me.

Education needs a rework, one size fits all doesn't work. Splitting grades I think is just a bandaid on the problem.

I think instead of forcing younger students to memorize multiplication tables and which shoe belongs to which profession (my first F. I remember getting it in kindergarten) we should try to figure out what style of learning suits them.

The whole point about forcing kids to do homework is that they are not in a position to judge whether something is important or not. For everyone like you, I'm pretty sure there is someone saying "I didn't want to learn X in school but I'm sure happy they made me now that I know how important it is."

That wasn't really my point. If you don't want to learn something, you probably aren't going to. But even classes I enjoyed like Math and Science, I wouldn't do all the homework. I still learned all that I needed to. The fact is that a lot of homework just isn't necessary all the time, especially for quick learners.

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