David Steiner | “A Retreat from Knowledge? The Strange Condition of Education in the U.S.”

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@renebuesa554 4 ай бұрын

Kudos to Mr. David Steiner for having the courage to inform and illustrate the dire situation with the education system in the U.S. While much was discussed I do see the opportunity to expand on the topic of "why" schools in America have stopped teaching a "content rich" curriculum to school children. By no means is this reality a mystery or inexplicable when the truth is staring us in the face every day. But like I said, courage is the one thing we must have if we're to stand a chance of solving the problems that afflict us. During Mr. Steiner's presentation great men of history (Socratis, Plato, Frederick Douglas, Martin Luther King, Mandela, Malcom X) were quoted and used as examples of achievement, purpose, learning, thinking, and let us not forget, courage. But the one thing that was glanced over was the fact that most of these great men of history didn't get to sit in a classroom day after day until graduation day. So how come these noteworthy human beings managed to become great learners and thinkers without the continuous reinforcement of classroom repetition? I like to start by using an analogy, I call it apples to oranges comparison. No one in their right minds could say that apples and oranges are not fruits but by the same token we all agree that they are not the same. While these are indeed fruits, they are each very different from one another and no matter how much we try we just can't turn an apple into an orange or viceversa. Human beings can be viewed along these same lines of observation, while we can all agree that we're all human beings we also know that we're not all the same. I got to learn the answer to this question a while back after I realized that some people are "motivated by what is best" while other people are "motivated by what they want." It is this difference between human beings that is critically important to understand why some people embrace learning and thinking while other people chase after what they want. There's no disputing the role of teachers and schools in "nurturing our capacity to think" to quote Mr. Steiner. But never make the mistake of thinking that the same learning achievement and courageous development that is produced when working with people "motivated by what is best" can also be had when working with people "motivated by what they want." One last thing, during my graduate studies I got to learn that all human beings have "innate" qualities, and that people will display differences in their innate qualities. Some people are innately introspected, thoughtful, sensitive to others, etc. On the other hand, other people are innately inconsiderate, insensitive to others, forceful, etc. You can rest assured that, for better or worse, the "kinds of people" we ultimately become in life will always be shadowed by those innate qualities we were born with. ReneB, Florida.

@emeryroe2487 5 ай бұрын

Brilliant. You hear in David Steiner's words those of his father, the great George Steiner.

@TheTeach56 5 ай бұрын

It's not parents' wealth, it's the education they have (which enables them to have better paying jobs) and the quality of the conversations at home.

@juliafox52 5 ай бұрын

Untrue and more and more untrue with each passing day.

@DemetriosKongas 5 ай бұрын

What a fascinating and brilliant talk! Thanks a lot!

@ellenharold5191 5 ай бұрын

Mr Steiner is critical of progressive education, but Finland overhauled its education along lines recommended by John Dewey, regarded as one of the founding pillars of progressive education, with such tremendous results that it received worldwide acclaim. Finland did this by recognizing the reality that the greatest obstacle to effective education is child poverty. Accordingly it took steps to address social inequality, increase social mobility, and raise the prestige and rewards of the teaching profession. That said, he is correct about the central importance of humanities - and not only for the schools but in society at large. There should be a wall of separation between education and commerce.

@jillfryer6699 5 ай бұрын

Agree, but I wonder if what Steiner (and Arendt) call 'progressive', like American public schools, is anything much like education in Finland. Or if the reforming or progressive, child centred education radicals of 1950 and 60s and even back to A.S. Neill would recognise anything 'progressive' about the basically conformist American education system. It sounds more and more like a right wing political speech. There could be many other explanations for the reading slump. Even a hopelessly addicted reader like me is seduced by You Tube here.

@solangeamato2949 5 ай бұрын

I did read some books about education in Finland. Particularly what some of its own educators thought were the main factors that made Finland achieve well for several consecutive years. The classroom teaching was not thought to be as progressive as some people still think it was in those years.

@ellenharold5191 5 ай бұрын

@@solangeamato2949 It may not have been as progressive as people thought, but the Finns say it was based on the educational philosophy of John Dewey. I think that people in the USA may believe that Dewey advocated a free-for-all (and behaved accordingly). If you read him, he did not. Interestingly, my daughter was assigned to read Dewey in her as a student in the Waldorf School (must have been in high school, and she liked him a lot.

@ellenharold5191 4 ай бұрын

Correction! John Dewey not William James.

@davidsteiner6641 4 ай бұрын

With great respect, Finland once had a national, content-rich curriculum and prepared its teachers to teach it. That strategy was in place as the country shot up the PISA results table. Just as it reached the top, it changed courses and embraced progressivist approaches, and since then, Finland has seen declining results.

@nicholastaylor9398 5 ай бұрын

'Our' very much refers to 'Western' culture. There is no reluctance of Islam to teach its stories to its children.

@ensi6796 5 ай бұрын

Amazing, true. I was not expected these ideas about learning academic content at Hopkins. Great take on the failed American educational system: the educational system should not just show a mirror of yourself because you end up being a prisoner of yourself and a prisoner in the world.

@FizuliAbilov 5 ай бұрын

Thanks for major data анализ

@benjamingeorgecoles8060 5 ай бұрын

I wonder if Mandela really (as Steiner implies in the Q&A) chose Sophocles simply or primarily because he saw that it has this particularly immense, universal power Steiner speaks of. I wonder whether other factors weren't, for instance, that it was one of the pretty limited set of options in the prison library, or that the prison authorities would permit, or even that Mandela had learnt in his own colonial education.

@jillfryer6699 5 ай бұрын

Yes. He's not very good at considering 'other factors' to explain whatever he is banging on about.

@averayugen7802 5 ай бұрын

The "management" in any realm seems so much stupider than the rank grunts, store clerks always know how to get around the neighborhood and then some... but the manager never knows why there's no soap in the bathroom...

@benjamingeorgecoles8060 5 ай бұрын

I don't think that, if I don't believe great books can speak to something deep in EVERYONE, I'm giving up on the Humanities, as Steiner claims at the end. I believe they can speak to something deep in many, many people - that seems enough to me. There is some deep diversity in human nature. Steiner seems just not to acknowledge that. Even the most canonical writers didn't all appreciate each other's work. Tolstoy didn't like Shakespeare, etc. And what about neurodiverse people? Or people with sever learning difficulties? And then, for instance, there are people like Ayn Rand who are never gonna understand any kinds of collectivist or empathetic sentiment, or, by extension, works based on them. That's just not how such people function. Etc.

@TheVigilantEye77 5 ай бұрын

YA ! STEINER !

@PatCorry-i7p 5 ай бұрын

He may be addressing an auditorium who appreciate the ancient Greek references, self-ethics aesthetics etc, but this speech merely grabs the snake by the tail. The headmasters and teachers in schools are either planted there by corporate interests or there's no one actively encouraging good potential teachers to do the job. It might sound impossible or ridiculous but the only thing to do is to get back to the teacher led curriculums of 40 years ago, with whiteboard, textbooks and no computers at all. A school is potentially the only available haven where students are safe and removed from the hungry spiders and the sticky web.

@anialiandr 5 ай бұрын

Does the professor suggest he felt he lived in a democracy under Biden ? This keynote is full of contradictions and has little intellectual content. I sympathise with the critique of current teaching, he seems too confused himself to present a way forward

@iii-d8e 5 ай бұрын

Well , whether you see the logic in his arguments or not is surely dependent on if you can see through the political dogma.

@susanwinter1163 5 ай бұрын

The students in our classes have to cover too many subjects and too much content within those subjects to make what you are proposing possible. What is important in my view is encouraging students to be confident to learn autonomously: from KZbin, online courses and text books. There is tremendous value is students taking even the tiniest interest in learning by themselves because in real terms classrooms are not ideal learning settings.

@vsstdtbs3705 5 ай бұрын

Much of education and ethics is made up. For instance we are a fire animal, if primates did not come across cooked meat the East Africa Rift Valley, then we would still be a primate. Taught at school? -- no Overpopulation is the cause of the climate crisis and if we do not deal with overpopulation, we will go extinct this millennium.Taught at school? -- no Most voters are women, hence laws in their favour such as custody, support, employment and feminised education curriculum. Taught at school? -- no

@markusrose9667 5 ай бұрын

Do you believe those things?😂

@meofamily4 5 ай бұрын

The mistake in the first place is, to regard Hannah Arendt as a person of philosophical accomplishment. Education is impossible? And the fact that literacy has been extended to 85% of the global population does us no good? And improved lifespan and health, a result of education, is equally impossible? All the scientific advance since 1950 does not exist? -- oh, maybe it's not "education", is that it?

@lewreed1871 5 ай бұрын

I don't know what kind of education you had but you've missed the point here quite spectacularly.

@jillfryer6699 5 ай бұрын

And the fact that you could respond straight off like this, starting with noting his waving of the sacred name of Arendt, and then the facts and figures shows that your education has been quite good really, whether all by yourself with whatever resources society provides or at school.

@meofamily4 5 ай бұрын

Thanks,@@jillfryer6699 . I have a master's degree in mathematics and one in history of science.

@ellenharold5191 4 ай бұрын

Whatever she was, Hannah Arendt had no expertise in child development.

@lewreed1871 4 ай бұрын

@@ellenharold5191 It's quite interesting - one might say salutary - that so many have the knives out for Hannah Arendt. Wonder what she could have done to elicit such waspishness.

@FizuliAbilov 5 ай бұрын

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