To realize how hard educating anyone is, pick 10 kids or adults and come up with a system of learning that enables all of them to flourish. Not just some of them.
What youtube educators don't get is every time a student suffers a setback some one has to take responsibility and sit there with them till they get over the obstacle. Views and Likes don't provide that signal of how many are lost or stuck.
Books and Libraries have existed long before Edu systems or Youtubers emerged, but kids and adults can easily get lost in that jungle if they don't have a feedback loop for guidance and support system when they stumble. Design of that system can be co-opted by Commercial and Political interests. Power corrupts all systems. But then there is always a counter reaction to pull the system back. Boundaries and balance emerge. It's a long slow process.
People maybe frustrated about how long it takes for trees to grow, but whether they are interested in designing a botanical garden or a healthy forest a good sign they will fail is when frustration starts turning into resentment.
The only way to prevent that happening is to stay humble at how complex it all is. Go into the garden. Get your hands dirty. Get one plant to flourish.
> Books and Libraries have existed long before Edu systems or Youtubers emerged
From my position, I am very concerned that people no longer have access to books and libraries.
Go walk into your local university library and try to get access to a journal article. Good luck.
This is as opposed to when I was a child--I could walk into the local library, pull an actual paper periodical off the shelf and run copies off on the photcopiers--all without so much as an ID. I could get access to the microfiche and take copies as well. If I wanted, I could get a library card to any of the local libraries for free.
If I look at the current situation, I'm extremely worried that a young me of today would have no path to where old me of today sits right now.
Kids know jack shit about how to learn or help others learn, and so do most adults, and no-one should expect the contrary. Having everyone flourish under a common education regime was never a goal for any education system (at least until NCLB Act).
Pedagogy is a science in itself and it got corrupted for political reasons.
"In our dream, we have limitless resources, and the
people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand.
The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and,
unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a
grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make
these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of
learning or of science. We are not to raise up from among them
authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for
embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish
even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers,
doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have
ample supply." - Frederick T. Gates (The Country School of To-Morrow)
> We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply. We are to follow the admonitions of the good apostle, who said, ''Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low degree." And generally, with respect to these high things, all that we shall try to do is just to create presently about these country homes an atmosphere and conditions such, that, if by chance a child of genius should spring up from the soil, that genius will surely bud and not be blighted.
It's almost like you're using a deliberately malicious selective quote that completely changes what the author is trying to say.
I may be one of the idiots. I really struggled to get through this and understand it ... I assume I should be familiar with all the links and thus would then understand some of it? The text after each link just seems like shallow summaries, but I'm not sure even those summaries support whatever the author is trying to say.
There are such random grandiose statements too like "There is no part of modern education that helps children." What does that even mean?
Author is a quack. There is deliberate mis-quoting in the article that completely warps the source material.
From their quoted section:
> We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or of science. We are not to raise up from among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embr}-o great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply.
And then the removed section, which effectively negates the (facial) point of the previous statement:
> We are to follow the admonitions of the good apostle, who said, ''Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low degree." And generally, with respect to these high things, all that we shall try to do is just to create presently about these country homes an atmosphere and conditions such, that, if by chance a child of genius should spring up from the soil, that genius will surely bud and not be blighted.
This is a really, REALLY common quote (with the latter part deliberately omitted) in lots of places complaining about the way the US education system works, as well as antigovernment movement people.
I certainly will not claim the US education system isn't broken, but using such a deliberate, malicious out-of-context quote casts a pall over anything else the author has to say, particularly given it's long, storied history in antigovernment propaganda.
I would definitely recommend that everyone read it.
They were dealing with some very big problems at the time (such as rampant disease), and were seeking ways to improve America's primitive and ad-hoc education system.
Did it work? It certainly missed the mark in a number of ways, but overall it's a damn sight better than it was!
Here's another quote from the same text:
As for the school house, we cannot now even plan the building, or rather, group of buildings. Quite likely we would not recognize the future group if the plan were put before us to-day, so different will it be from the traditional school house. For of one thing we may be sure : Our schools will no longer resemble, in their methods and their discipline, institutions of penal servitude. They will not be, as now, places of forced confinement, accompanied by physical and mental torture during six hours of the day. Straitjackets, now called educational, will no longer thwart and stifle the physical and mental activities of the child. We shall, on the contrary, take the child from the hand of God, the crown and glory of His creative work, by Him pronounced good, and by Jesus blessed. We shall seize the restless activities of his body and mind and, instead of repressing them, we shall stimulate those activities, as the natural forces of growth in action. We shall seek to learn the instincts of the child and reverently to follow and obey them as guides in his development; for those instincts are the Voice of God within him, teaching us the direction of his unfolding. We will harness the natural activities of the child to his natural aspirations, and guide and help him in their realization. The child naturally wishes to do the things that adults do, and therefore the operations of adult life form the imitative plays of the child. The child lives in a dreamland, full of glowing hopes of the future, and seeks anticipatively to live to-day the life of his manhood.
So we will organize our children into a little community and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way, in the home, in the shop, on the farm. We shall train the child for the life before him by methods which reach the perfection of their adaptation only when the child shall not be able to distinguish between the pleasures of his school work and the pleasures of bis play.
To realize how hard educating anyone is, pick 10 kids or adults and come up with a system of learning that enables all of them to flourish. Not just some of them.
What youtube educators don't get is every time a student suffers a setback some one has to take responsibility and sit there with them till they get over the obstacle. Views and Likes don't provide that signal of how many are lost or stuck.
Books and Libraries have existed long before Edu systems or Youtubers emerged, but kids and adults can easily get lost in that jungle if they don't have a feedback loop for guidance and support system when they stumble. Design of that system can be co-opted by Commercial and Political interests. Power corrupts all systems. But then there is always a counter reaction to pull the system back. Boundaries and balance emerge. It's a long slow process.
People maybe frustrated about how long it takes for trees to grow, but whether they are interested in designing a botanical garden or a healthy forest a good sign they will fail is when frustration starts turning into resentment.
The only way to prevent that happening is to stay humble at how complex it all is. Go into the garden. Get your hands dirty. Get one plant to flourish.
> Books and Libraries have existed long before Edu systems or Youtubers emerged
From my position, I am very concerned that people no longer have access to books and libraries.
Go walk into your local university library and try to get access to a journal article. Good luck.
This is as opposed to when I was a child--I could walk into the local library, pull an actual paper periodical off the shelf and run copies off on the photcopiers--all without so much as an ID. I could get access to the microfiche and take copies as well. If I wanted, I could get a library card to any of the local libraries for free.
If I look at the current situation, I'm extremely worried that a young me of today would have no path to where old me of today sits right now.
Kids know jack shit about how to learn or help others learn, and so do most adults, and no-one should expect the contrary. Having everyone flourish under a common education regime was never a goal for any education system (at least until NCLB Act).
Pedagogy is a science in itself and it got corrupted for political reasons.
"In our dream, we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or of science. We are not to raise up from among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply." - Frederick T. Gates (The Country School of To-Morrow)
Maybe include the next part?
It goes:
> We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply. We are to follow the admonitions of the good apostle, who said, ''Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low degree." And generally, with respect to these high things, all that we shall try to do is just to create presently about these country homes an atmosphere and conditions such, that, if by chance a child of genius should spring up from the soil, that genius will surely bud and not be blighted.
It's almost like you're using a deliberately malicious selective quote that completely changes what the author is trying to say.
To be fair, the article itself is doing the misquoting.
For others who are wondering, the full, non-sinister text of Gates can be found here:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/context-people-yield-themse...
It's very much worth a read, at the very least to gain some perspective on how life was back then, and the problems they were trying to solve.
I may be one of the idiots. I really struggled to get through this and understand it ... I assume I should be familiar with all the links and thus would then understand some of it? The text after each link just seems like shallow summaries, but I'm not sure even those summaries support whatever the author is trying to say.
There are such random grandiose statements too like "There is no part of modern education that helps children." What does that even mean?
I think I became dumber by reading this.
Author is a quack. There is deliberate mis-quoting in the article that completely warps the source material.
From their quoted section:
> We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or of science. We are not to raise up from among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embr}-o great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply.
And then the removed section, which effectively negates the (facial) point of the previous statement:
> We are to follow the admonitions of the good apostle, who said, ''Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low degree." And generally, with respect to these high things, all that we shall try to do is just to create presently about these country homes an atmosphere and conditions such, that, if by chance a child of genius should spring up from the soil, that genius will surely bud and not be blighted.
This is a really, REALLY common quote (with the latter part deliberately omitted) in lots of places complaining about the way the US education system works, as well as antigovernment movement people.
I certainly will not claim the US education system isn't broken, but using such a deliberate, malicious out-of-context quote casts a pall over anything else the author has to say, particularly given it's long, storied history in antigovernment propaganda.
The full text in question is available here: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/context-people-yield-themse...
I would definitely recommend that everyone read it.
They were dealing with some very big problems at the time (such as rampant disease), and were seeking ways to improve America's primitive and ad-hoc education system.
Did it work? It certainly missed the mark in a number of ways, but overall it's a damn sight better than it was!
Here's another quote from the same text:
As for the school house, we cannot now even plan the building, or rather, group of buildings. Quite likely we would not recognize the future group if the plan were put before us to-day, so different will it be from the traditional school house. For of one thing we may be sure : Our schools will no longer resemble, in their methods and their discipline, institutions of penal servitude. They will not be, as now, places of forced confinement, accompanied by physical and mental torture during six hours of the day. Straitjackets, now called educational, will no longer thwart and stifle the physical and mental activities of the child. We shall, on the contrary, take the child from the hand of God, the crown and glory of His creative work, by Him pronounced good, and by Jesus blessed. We shall seize the restless activities of his body and mind and, instead of repressing them, we shall stimulate those activities, as the natural forces of growth in action. We shall seek to learn the instincts of the child and reverently to follow and obey them as guides in his development; for those instincts are the Voice of God within him, teaching us the direction of his unfolding. We will harness the natural activities of the child to his natural aspirations, and guide and help him in their realization. The child naturally wishes to do the things that adults do, and therefore the operations of adult life form the imitative plays of the child. The child lives in a dreamland, full of glowing hopes of the future, and seeks anticipatively to live to-day the life of his manhood.
So we will organize our children into a little community and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way, in the home, in the shop, on the farm. We shall train the child for the life before him by methods which reach the perfection of their adaptation only when the child shall not be able to distinguish between the pleasures of his school work and the pleasures of bis play.