Alternative education is getting great results. I personally funded an alternative to college to train software engineers(Holberton School). We have no formal teachers, no lecture, students learn by practicing and collaborating with peers. We started 9 months ago but already got students at NASA, Dropbox, Docker and Apple.
Look at Andela as well, accelerated training, then teams of "students" are integrated into companies and they learn while working.
Finally, coding bootcamps have also their share of success stories.
There is honestly A LOT of broken, unless you are studying in an Ivy League, I really think the education far from what the current & next generation needs.
Among other things, getting into a coding bootcamp tends to be both a selective and a self-selecting process. Many of the people who go into coding bootcamps would do acceptably in conventional educational settings too. School education is a bit different.
A ce sujet, pensez-vous qu'il faille encore, en France, unanimement préférer faire une école type Epitech pour devenir purement développeur, ou passer par une structure alternative telle que l'école 42 que vous connaissez bien et qui semble être le modèle du futur? Comment 42 est-elle vue par les recruteurs, de par sa nouveauté? Merci
> Of all the experiments that have been tried, none seem to really do better.
Plenty of things do better... if you have much more resources to spend.
The best is 1:1 or 1:few where the 1 is a world-class expert in the field of interest who also happens to be a world-class teacher. Something like a personal tutor/coach. Think Aristotle and Alexander.
This is basically how we train elite athletes, musicians, etc., and how some of the very wealthy provide training for their children. It’s very time-expensive though for the teacher, and doesn’t scale well because there aren’t that many world-class practitioner-teachers out there in any given subject.
Elementary mathematics took thousands of years to develop, and understanding basic arithmetic in a deep and fluent way is a highly advanced skill (really, a constellation of dozens of inter-related but distinct skills), which most students and even most teachers never fully develop, but which is incredibly helpful for becoming a fluent mathematician, scientist, or engineer.
Beyond basic understanding, teaching elementary mathematics effectively is a difficult job which can take decades to fully master. There are a large number of potential conceptual and procedural errors which various students can make, some of which are subtle and hard to correct. Someone who can perform elementary mathematics is not necessarily able to properly teach it.
As for world-class expertise, that really depends on what our goals are. There are undoubtedly world-class experts in elementary mathematics, who have spent decades doing extensive research in the history and practice, and have thought very deeply about the nature and meaning of numbers and mathematical relations. My comment was about the “ideal” case, if you want the student to learn as fast and effectively as possible.
But you can also get by okay with just a typical trained professional teacher (ideally a specialist in mathematics education).
I recommend Liping Ma’s book Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics for some basic analysis.
> I'm really weary about this change, it should be tested before anything.
It's "wary" not "weary" [1]. Normally, I'm not a grammar Nazi, but I've been seeing this mistake more and more on HN. The word "weary" means tired, whereas "wary" means cautious or on guard.
By the way, I'm also wary about these changes. I think multidisciplinary classes are great, but that you need a strong base before you can implement 100% cross-/multi-disciplinary classrooms.
Thanks for pointing this out, because ESL readers as me, when shown an error repeatedly, start confounding the good version and the bad one. The worst part is that it is subtle: you understand what it's meant, noone mentions it, and something in your brain accepts it as a fact.
My fiancee is French and whenever she speaks (an almost perfect) Spanish, I always make the effort to repeat back errors she makes, in the correct form, without interrupting the dialog. On the medium term, that single act works wonders. I suggest that as a subtle alternative to pointing out errors, that can also be handy!
> I think multidisciplinary classes are great, but that you need a strong base before you can implement 100% cross-/multi-disciplinary classrooms.
I think the perceived separation between subjects is largely artificial. English and math seem pretty separate, until you get into discrete math and algebra and you realise formal systems are just languages with grammars, syntax, etc.
Nearly everything we learn is multidisciplinary. Sometimes it might be an advantage to focus on specific topics in isolation, but it should always be placed in a wider context to properly understand it.
Some things work.
Of all the experiments that have been tried, none seem to really do better.
Hint: The Finns themselves take a very boring and classical approach. They start late, they have highly paid teachers etc. etc..
They were never 'progressive' they were more 'antiquated' than anything - just focusing on the basics and doing it well.
I'm really weary about this change, it should be tested before anything.
Some things require a structured approach in terms of thinking.