> Nearly every educator I've ever learned from has unconsciously insisted that learning material remain sterile, and never become as funny and opinionated as this essay.
As a former teacher, I think the reason for this is the educational system as we know exists to (attempt to) have reproduceable learning outcomes, at scale. We try to transmit the hard-won knowledge of centuries of geniuses into the minds of adolescents. It's kind of a weird thing to do. It's actually surprisingly successful when I think of it that way, even though I think that it is not great at transmitting the actual insights behind the knowledge.
I suspect a better way to educate people is the more student-led, discovery driven approach. But that is both seemingly harder to scale and less deterministic. Instead, we play out the same cycle of boring, mildly effective education over and over.
I couldn't agree more with you. I personally will attempt to circumvent "boring, mildly effective education" by homeschooling my children (who are at present still too young to even speak in words), but homeschooling is an ugly compromise to a stupid problem. A true comprehensive education would take place everywhere in society.
Have you ever read Ivan Ilich? I find his style almost too iconoclastic for even my contrarian tastes, and I can't stand his sentence structure. But he makes some very coherent points about exactly what you're talking about. John Gatto is a former teacher who writes in a somewhat less brazen style but keeps a lot of the same opinions. It was actually on HackerNews where I first read "the seven-lesson schoolteacher".
As a former teacher, I think the reason for this is the educational system as we know exists to (attempt to) have reproduceable learning outcomes, at scale. We try to transmit the hard-won knowledge of centuries of geniuses into the minds of adolescents. It's kind of a weird thing to do. It's actually surprisingly successful when I think of it that way, even though I think that it is not great at transmitting the actual insights behind the knowledge.
I suspect a better way to educate people is the more student-led, discovery driven approach. But that is both seemingly harder to scale and less deterministic. Instead, we play out the same cycle of boring, mildly effective education over and over.