Quite a sweeping generalization! — BC

Isn't it just!

I have a typical formal education - bachelors degree and a masters degree. Quite a bit of the bachelor degree education was good instruction. I liked it. I learned quite a bit. The masters program was a credential generator--not a fraud, but not very good, either. — BC

Graduate teaching is often different because the students have volunteered to be there, it's in a subject they've chosen to pursue, and most of the effort is on them. It's not my target.

I have known a few self-taught individuals, and their intellectual accomplishments are impressive. But not everyone has the talent, early on, to guide their own education. I certainly didn't. — BC

Yet...

A lot of what I have learned between graduating from college and retiring, I learned through my own effort. — BC

... you underestimate yourself.

I certainly didn't. Most people don't. That's why we "educate". — BC

To you have any cause to believe that, have you tested it, or read of anyone having done so? Is your ground for believing it sufficient to imprison children against their will and punish them for failure to comply?

Education is not 'intervention'; it is a basic necessity to all intelligent life-forms. — Vera Mont

As above, do you have any grounds for this claim or is it just idle speculation?

I wouldn't recommend setting a young wolf free in the wild without teaching it how to hunt and how to relate to other wolves. I wouldn't recommend setting up shop as a carpenter, without first learning how to use a saw, an adze and a chisel. — Vera Mont

Learning and teaching are two different things. I can learn carpentry without being taught carpentry.

I do advocate for safe, clean, respectful and inclusive public schools from kindergarten through college, trade and technical school and university, accessible to all students, at all levels. — Vera Mont

I know. I'm not unclear on what you advocate, I'm unclear of the grounds on which you do so.

I didn't say one word in approval of the current state of public education in the disunited states; I may have implied a few against it. You seem to assume it's the only kind of education in existence or the realm of possibility. — Vera Mont

And why would I think that? If one claims "we ought to do more routine CT scans for brain tumours", I think it's ridiculous, when someone refers to the radiological risk of that strategy, to later argue "Oh, I didn't mean using the current CT scanners, I meant using some theoretical yet-to-be-invented ones which I don't even know are possible". Schools are what we have. If you advocate more education, that's where it's taking place. If you don't like the schools we have, don't advocate more education in them. Advocate for them to be changed.

I didn't say a word against improving the working conditions or standard of living for working people; you seem to think having access to education somehow impedes those efforts, rather than enhancing them.
I don't know why you think that, and I hold forth little chance of discovering it. — Vera Mont

I explained it quite clearly. Education improves job prospects. So it only improves the lives of the working class by removing them from the employment pool of working class jobs and placing them in the employment pool of middle-class jobs. This does nothing to change either the conditions of those jobs or, more importantly, the relative proportions of the jobs available. All it does is mean that a larger number of near retirees and recently unemployed need to take the low-paid, poor condition jobs the working class would have done, as a some small proportion of the working class are now able to take the better paid, better condition jobs they would otherwise have walked into.

No net improvement in human well-being is engendered because there's been no change to the nature of the lowest paid jobs. There's just been a little more social mobility between classes and job-types. The myth that education leads to better employment (overall) does however, act as distraction to real change in those low-paid jobs, which is why conditions and pay have stagnated for those workers for decades. People like you keep lending succour to the idea that they can merely 'educate' themselves out of that labour pool and so solve their own problem.

But yes, I suspect your blind political bias will probably prevent you from understanding that argument. Perhaps wait until someone writes it in The Atlantic. Then I suspect you'll suddenly 'get it'.

As above, do you have any grounds for this claim — Isaac

Yes.

Education improves job prospects. — Isaac

Not necessarily.

The myth that education leads to better employment (overall) does however, act as distraction to real change in those low-paid jobs, which is why conditions and pay have stagnated for those workers for decades. — Isaac

No, that's not why.

People like you keep lending succour to the idea that they can merely 'educate' themselves out of that labour pool and so solve their own problem. — Isaac

Not even close.

But yes, I suspect your blind political bias will probably prevent you from understanding that argument. — Isaac

Apparently.

Do you have any cause to believe that, have you tested it, or read of anyone having done so? — Isaac

Yes. The Industrial Revolution changed things. 250 years ago, the economic activity that most people (outside of the elite) engaged in did not require much in the way of literacy skills, numeracy, and 'general knowledge'. 100 years ago, most people (outside of the elite) required a fair amount of literacy, some numeracy, and more general knowledge. The relationship between basic educational attainment and a reasonable level of social/economic participation (still outside of the elite) became stronger over the 20th, into the 21st century.

Many studies have shown conclusively, definitively, that lacking basic skills (literacy, numeracy, general knowledge) is a barrier to minimal economic and social performance for most people. Are there exceptions? Of course there are, but not so many.

Furthermore, humans begin acquiring basic skills from an early age. Child development information shows that IF children have not been exposed to enough positive spoken language from caregivers by 5 years of age (20 million as opposed to 30 to 40 million words) basic educational attainment becomes difficult from kindergarten on up. Further, there needs to be a strong positive element in the communication -- being yelled at doesn't help.

Is your ground for believing it sufficient to imprison children against their will and punish them for failure to comply? — Isaac

Some schools provide very good experiences for children. Some schools are shit holes. The latter are more like prisons. Education critics have been calling out the negative features of schooling for a long time. Back in the 1960s, Edgar Z. Friedenberg labeled schools as a "labor pool management system" keeping young people out of the labor pool for as long as possible, through doctoral studies if need be. Many criticisms have been far harsher.

Schools have lost some of their raison d'être; mass media have had 24/7 access to children for a good 60 years (maybe a couple of decades longer) and have instructed 'the people' on what it means to be a good citizen -- I mean, "good consumer". Buy this, buy that. Wear this, wear that. Etc.

Quote possibly most children can not have the kind of growing-up experiences that both of us would like and approve of.

Schools have lost some of their raison d'être; mass media have had 24/7 access to children for a good 60 years — BC

And yet, the home/computer education to which children were restricted during Covid lockdown was not beneficial, either to their well-being or their education.

It's not just a question of labour-pool and employability -- both of which are fast becoming obsolete concepts anyway; education is a much broader topic than training for an occupation: it includes socialization, familiarization the culture and its mores, the rules of conduct and transactions and participation in a community of one's species.
Learning of any kind: from parents, imitating adults, experimentation; learning from peers, from books, television, computer, storyteller, tutor, mentor, master, pastor, professor or public school teacher are all be parts of an "education".
Of course the public school system can be improved. In the past, and in other places, it has been very much worse, a little worse and somewhat better; I don't think it has ever been very much better (Athena notwithstanding) than the elementary and secondary schools to which prosperous families currently send their young. Higher education may have been very much better in the Aristotalian Lyceum or European grand tour - but I'm skeptical; certainly, there is more diversity in formal post-secondary education, as well as self-conducted courses of study now than there has ever been.

I am in total agreement with you.

I attended school in a small town in Minnesota starting in 1952. Was it a good education? It was a mixed bag. Some elementary teachers were probably good; a few, probably less so. Secondary was more of a mixed bag, because in 7th grade, tracking began towards college or a trade. I was considered unpromising so was tracked into the commercial program. Owing to an intervention by several people, I ended up going to college after all.

I was not well prepared for college, and I had no real, well motivated plan. but I managed to do OK and graduated with a BS in English and social science. I figured that I would teach English. I quickly discovered that I was altogether NOT cut out to teach high school students. Instead, I ended up working with adults in a number of different educational contexts. That, and clerical temp work which I hated, whenever I needed quick employment.

Looking back at the intervening decades, I'd say a lot of schools are doing as well as they can under the circumstances (which is, in many cases, not terrible), and so are a lot of students. Any picture of the future is blurry at best. I don't know what the perfect school was, is, could be or should be. At least we need more varied options. Catholic education is good for some; for others, the public school is better. For some, high structure is critical, for others, low structure. And more. All of these things can not exist under one roof.

Besides the school, we know that parents and community make a difference. I don't know what to do about that, either. Small town Minnesota didn't / doesn't share much in common with megacities and/or really world-class slums.

Yes, I wish everyone was interested in maximizing their own and their children's and their community's human potential, but the masses, trying to get by--let alone maximizing their potential--are generally lukewarm on the matter. Not their fault.

My main criticism of my education is that it did not give me a very realistic view of the world, and I wasn't an outstanding student. At 76 I'm still working on "how the world works". It's kind of depressing.

I quickly discovered that I was altogether NOT cut out to teach high school students. — BC

Very few people are. All teaching is difficult; all teaching requires special aptitudes and personality traits, besides the knowledge one is assigned to impart, but I believe dealing with adolescents in any settings is one of the hardest things for adults to do well, and dealing with unassorted adolescents in a closed box for hours on end is the hardest of all. I was fortunate to have a number - seven, on reflection - of really good teachers in high school, along with the mediocre ones and a couple of sadly misplaced individuals, one of whom quit after the first year.
One thing we could probably remedy in quite good order is to better appreciate and remunerate the good teachers. Of course, it won't happen. The people who form 'our future' are some of the least valued members of modern society. A secondary school teacher is worth maybe half a stockbroker.

Yes. — Vera Mont

Do you care to share it?

Education improves job prospects. — Isaac


Not necessarily. — Vera Mont

True. I didn't say it did so necessarily. It sometimes doesn't even do that.

No, that's not why. — Vera Mont

Again, care to share your reasons?

Many studies have shown conclusively, definitively, that lacking basic skills... — BC

I asked about teaching and you've responded with evidence about learning. Learning and teaching are two different things. Students learn, teachers teach.

I was wondering if you had any grounds for believing the value of education - teaching - not whether you had any grounds for believing in the value of learning.

Do you care to share it? — Isaac

No. Watch a nature documentary.

It sometimes doesn't even do that. — Isaac

It sometimes does something entirely different. I'm not an advocate of cobblers sticking to their last -- or, indeed, employment of any kind. But that's another story.

Again, care to share your reasons? — Isaac

Beyond what I already elaborated and cited, no.

Students learn, teachers teach. — Isaac

Well, blow me down! If only someone had taught me that, I could have learned it sooner!

No one needs formal education, it's a myth designed to produce compliant little consumers. — Isaac

Had to inject this trite old slogan? ("little", too)
Such a waste it would be — stupid even — if we didn't try to retain and learn from what others have figured out before. And thus, we educate.
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Reducing to "a myth designed to produce compliant little consumers" is pretty close to lying; might want to save the rhetoric/rambling for ehh "less critical audiences"? :D
But of course, part of teaching is revisability of that which is taught.

might want to save the rhetoric/rambling for ehh "less critical audiences"? — jorndoe

Yes, the critical response here has been searing. I'm overloaded with quality evidence-based arguments like "watch a documentary" and "That this can happen to you is evidence in favour of the explicit teaching of critical thinking", and the devastating revelation that one of my interlocutors can speak to a chat engine.

I'm undone.

After all, it's not as if people were incapable of even making a basic distinction between teaching and learning and thereby assume the value of one was a proxy for the value of the other, and criticism of one stood as criticism of the other.

, so the quote was bullshit. :D

so the quote was bullshit. — jorndoe

I have no idea what you're talking about.

I try not to have too low a limit, but sometimes your responses are so lacking in any kind of rational structure that you might as well post a picture of your dinner.

, OK, the quote was bullshit. :up:

OK, the quote was bullshit — jorndoe

It doesn't matter what you or anyone cited: he didn't like school and he didn't like school, so there.

It doesn't matter what you or anyone cited — Vera Mont

Cited? Do you what a citation looks like? It isn't "watch a documentary".

No one has 'cited' anything, just repeated tired clichés as if they were fact.

Learning and teaching are two different things. — Isaac

One could think of them as reciprocal rather than as opposed.

Cited? Do you what a citation looks like? It isn't "watch a documentary". — Isaac

Unlike some people, I don't like repeating myself endlessly. I've given you explanations, newspaper articles, quotes, references and further clarifications. Any more would a be an unconscionable waste of my diminishing energies.

One could think of them as reciprocal rather than as opposed. — BC

One could. I was asking about why one would.

I've given you explanations, newspaper articles, quotes, references and further clarifications. — Vera Mont

You've not provided a single citation in support of your contention that we ought teach critical thinking skills.

I've questioned the necessity of 'teaching' as opposed to self-directed learning. You've not provided a single citation countering that position.

That some newspapers agree with you is not a citation. A fable about a wolf cub is not a citation. A story from your childhood is not a citation. "Watch a documentary" is not a citation.

You've not provided a single citation in support of your contention that we ought teach critical thinking skills. — Isaac

I've questioned the necessity of 'teaching' as opposed to self-directed learning. You've not provided a single citation countering that position. — Isaac

Fact-check those claims. A self-taught tenured professor should be able to do that all on his lonesome, as easily as a pre-school aged child can.

could — Isaac

would — Isaac

I could, would, and do consider them reciprocal. Certainly, animals of all kinds learn without instruction (including us), but many animals teach their young. People, of course, do this extensively.

One of the problems I see in the usual practice of education is that many teachers themselves are not actively engaged in learning -- not just in their field, but in other fields as well. And teachers surely ought to be able to manage self-learning. An English teacher should regularly read science and science teachers should regularly read literature.

Teachers who are not themselves engaged in learning (at a reasonably challenging level) are less likely to understand their students' challenges. Further, a teacher who stops learning is a poor model of adult citizenship.

Fact-check those claims. — Vera Mont

I did. No citation has been offered.

People, of course, do this extensively. — BC

That people do is not an argument that they ought, nor that they must.

One of the problems I see in the usual practice of education is that many teachers themselves are not actively engaged in learning -- not just in their field, but in other fields as well. — BC

I would like to see that. But might it not first be necessary to lighten their work-load, particularly the administrative bookkeeping, and liberate some time for intellectual pursuits as well as family and social life? Incidentally, I would like the same for people in the food service industry - it's not so easy to get self-educated between shift changes and diaper changes.

I've questioned the necessity of 'teaching' as opposed to self-directed learning. — Isaac

I'm 100% in favor of self-directed learning, with the caveat that most children need help in acquiring the most basic information, like the sounds associated with the alphabet, the manual ability to generate writing, counting, basic arithmetic, and the like. Having acquired these skills early on (as most children do) they can build up their capacity. The shift from "learning to read" to "reading to learn" is where there is a drop off for some children, around the age of 10 or 11, give or take a little.

If you think that self-directed learning won't occur in a typical school, you are probably right. School children (and children who are put to work for long hours) don't have the unstructured time to engage in self-directed learning. Many adults maintain a level of busyness that relieves them of the time they could engage in self instruction. "Production must go on!"

That people do is not an argument that they ought, nor that they must. — Isaac

Yeah, well... what you do is not an argument for what you ought, or must do either. Yet you keep doing it. Why do you persist?

most children need help in acquiring the most basic information, like the sounds associated with the alphabet, the manual ability to generate writing, counting, basic arithmetic, and the like. — BC

Why do you think that?

If you think that self-directed learning won't occur in a typical school, you are probably right. — BC

Yes, that's basically my point. If we want children to develop critical thinking skills then absolutely the worst thing we can do to bring that about is further impose on their freedom by force-feeding them lessons on it before making regurgitate it for grades like show ponies doing tricks..

In other words, the final destruction of our children's critical thinking skills will be pedagogical lesson in critical thinking skills.

Why do you think that? — Isaac

Apparently the development of children is outside your field of knowledge. I think that because I have observed children acquiring knowledge. Spoken language -- no problem. Just about everybody who has ears acquires their native language(s) through self-learning. That is a built-in capacity. Writing -- and thus reading -- are, in the history of the species, very recent developments -- 5,000 years ago, give or take 15 minutes. Widespread literacy is much more recent, Similarly, widespread arithmetic skill eems to be quite recent too.

How many children do you know who have self-taught themselves from pre-literacy and innumeracy, on up to being able to read a newspaper and balance a checkbook? Personally, I don't know any. I have met quite a few people who are not able to do either of those things; they aren't stupid, they just didn't self-instruct their way there. I have read accounts of a few famous people who were really self-taught all the way. Mozart started playing the piano at 4 years, but his composer/musician father also taught him. Needless to say, geniuses are not typical people.

Yes, that's basically my point. If we want children to develop critical thinking skills then absolutely the worst thing we can do to bring that about is further impose on their freedom by force-feeding them lessons on it before making regurgitate it for grades like show ponies doing tricks.. — Isaac

So, millions of people who are very accomplished, creative, admired thinkers, creators, performers, etc. have gone through various school systems over the last 300 years. Granted millions went through modern education mills and did not come out as accomplished anything. But then, in the long history of civilization, most people are not brilliantly accomplished, Most people have maintained their societies by keeping their noses to the grindstone till they dropped dead.

The leisure that could be enjoyed by the masses today is, I suspect, viewed as more a problem than an opportunity by the powers that rule society. Hence, keep the masses busy -- in school as long as possible, then busy working, and after work busy mowing the lawn, and 1001 other things. "Idle hands are the devil's playground," Well, sort of true. People who have time to learn and think along their own lines, may very well conclude that there is something defective and oppressive about the ruling class. The ruling class has found that it's nicer to keep us proles busy than having to suppress riots all the time.

Apparently the development of children is outside your field of knowledge. — BC

My wife's a child psychologist. It never ceases to amaze me how people can be so certain of what they think they know that they simply cannot conceive how anyone could disagree other than through ignorance.

How many children do you know who have self-taught themselves from pre-literacy and innumeracy, on up to being able to read a newspaper and balance a checkbook? — BC

Two, intimately. My own.

Hundreds in studies of self-directed learning.

Thousands in ethnographies of tribal hunter-gatherer communities.

People who have time to learn and think along their own lines, may very well conclude that there is something defective and oppressive about the ruling class. The ruling class has found that it's nicer to keep us proles busy than having to suppress riots all the time. — BC

Exactly. And now, instead of actually address the issues which lead to populism, it's just more blame and suppression. Teach the stupid proles how to think properly so they vote Democrat.