I've long thought that schools should just let people go at whatever pace they want. This should be easier now with video classes.<p>Just let people take the algebra or calculus or whatever module, when they feel like it. There would still be some sort of minimum requirement so that you can write a decent email, but there would be no reason to lock people in year groups.<p>Year groups are still important socially, but there will be plenty of time with people in your year regardless, because the big hump of people will follow along most courses at the same rate.<p>The theme the author is alluding to is the industrialization of education: shove a bunch of kids through, make sure there's an acceptable defect rate, let them out into society. But we don't have to live like that anymore. If you look at jobs, they don't really map to education these days, so there's not much point in making an assembly line of kids who can solve quadratic equations and write 5-paragraph essays.
I think there's two things.<p>1. The school system has been broken for many years. Learning from people who are not passionate about what they teach is the main concern I have. You can easily tell the difference of "engaged" students who have a great teacher they will remember forever vs. "disengaged" students who will be able to tell you how bad their teacher was. I think Montessori-esq / curiosity driven schooling is the future given 2/3 the world is on the internet and there's actually exciting, inspiring, and engaging teachers around the world doing an amazing job. (i.e. Khan from Khan Academy really paved the way here)<p>2. These rules work because there's a significantly smaller portion of the population who truly knows themselves and embraces their eccentric characteristics. We typically lose our identity when going through a formal means of schooling because we want to fit in and thus be "average". Even those valedictorians are quite "average" outside of working harder to get perfect grades. How many do you know that went on to do the amazing things expected of them? Usually it's the people who were eccentric and didn't do so well in school.
> Looking back on it, most of our essays were not good. They were rubbish.<p>It makes me cringe to look back at my high school essays, like I was trying to write with a thesaurus. Thankfully, senior year, a friend who went on to write professionally edited one of my essays. He crossed out almost every adverb, and over words like "utilize", he wrote "use".<p>It made me realize that myself, along with many students, mask their points with language because they have nothing to say, or are afraid to say it clearly (which is a separate problem altogether).
I think one of the best things about school is the timetable. You don't need to be there too much of each day, and there are generous periods of holiday. What this means is that you have lots of time on your own to go deep and explore the thing you are most interested in, whilst having enough broad knowledge of the stuff you should know via the school curriculum. School kind of offers you a taste of so many things, so you get a chance to see what your inclinations are.<p>People seem to think teachers can just deliver into you excellence, but excellence comes from within, and hopefully you are in an environment which permits you to grow and develop under your own personal efforts and dedication (i.e. stable home environment, warmth, food, etc.).
I think this also applies to failure.<p>You can have many failures without much consequence on your life but a few have massive consequences on your life.
well, English (and not only) word "School" comes from greek, via latin.
And it has also another teutonish meaning of "crowd", i.e. Schooling as in school of fish...
Few languages have another word for it, closer to "Learn".
But.. the overall system rots there too.. slowly turning into existing for the sake of existing.
School is a flawed meritocracy, but it actually makes efforts to be one.<p>Corporate is a deliberate non-meritocracy whose purpose is to ratify the inadequate descendants of an existing oligarchy <i>as</i> meritocrats. Mussolini didn't make the trains run on time; he punished people who said the trains were late. Corporate is the same: meritocracy by assertion--and only by assertion.<p>In school, you learn that hard work is rewarded (with some noise) and that cheaters eventually get caught. The system isn't perfect, and there's definitely some corruption in admissions decisions later on, due to the socioeconomic fuckery that infects everything... but the attempt to be a meritocracy is at least clearly there. If you are treated unjustly by the system, you can at least appeal to the concept of meritocracy, and you have a chance of winning.<p>Corporate is easier, in the sense that the work is almost never demanding, and the evaluation thereof is invariably political... but if you go in expecting a meritocracy, because that's what 16-20+ years of schooling had you believing you would find... then oh boy are you going to be disappointed when you see what it's actually like. If a professor played favorites the way the average corporate manager does, he'd be fired.<p>Corporate is also a lot noisier. In school, you might get a B when you should have gotten an A, once in a while, but over time the noise cancels out. In corporate, you can get fired, and have your income turned off, for all kinds of stupid political reasons.