When Schooling Clashes with Education

[@_notch]

It resonated with me as a gentle reminder i was too lazy to memorize it when I had the chance to. I lose several seconds per month having to double check that 7*8 indeed is whatever it may be until I came across a video talking about WHY seven is the most difficult one. As a game programmer, understanding the latter is much more useful than remembering the former and I design ALUs as a hobby now. Oh and sold a game. Thank god I eventually got over that ego, it's much more fun to use when you're aware of it. You can even go meta.

[@academyofuselessideas]

thank you so much for this lovely, thought-provoking, and endearing comment... it humbled me that I didn't even bothered to ask why some multiplication pairs seem more difficult than others... thanks!

[@_notch]

I really liked the video. It got me thinking. :)

[@academyofuselessideas]

@@_notch I am glad! the channel aspires to make thought provoking videos!

[@nil3493]

The sheer success of rote in scoring grades to secure a higher position in the eyes of teachers and students alike, makes many people develop and aversion to thinking about the concepts being talked about, as it may take away from the time that they can use to simply memorize and apply concepts. To many people, pondering over such things may appear useless, for they have grown in a way in which they have experienced rote trump true understanding multiple times. That leads to the development of an aversion to thinking, and discouragement of the same. I myself, however, am of the unpopular opinion, that as humans, we must endeavour to truly understand ideas instead of merely blindly regurgitating "facts."

[@academyofuselessideas]

I wish your opinion is not unpopular... I've been thinking about the process of understanding. Originally I was considering the problem of understanding a mathematical proof vs verifying it... But the more I thought about it, the more complex the problem looked... So, instead, I took the approach of first pondering about memorization vs understanding. I thought that the multiplication tables example would be illustrative enough... but the same story could be told about any other concept, at any other level. Another interesting aspect that I am interested in talking about is the difference between education and indoctrination. The distinction to me is fairly simple, education advocates for the criticism of ideas, while indoctrination does not. From that perspective, the reason why education is not indoctrination lies in the fact that when you advocate for the criticism of ideas, you allow to criticize that idea itself... But most rational people realize that criticizing ideas ends up in more robust knowledge, and that it is only beneficial to avoid criticism when you are not in the business of creating knowledge but in the business of manipulation of the masses... Anyways, this is just a random thought about that... I might try to do a video on that at some point.

[@nil3493]

@@academyofuselessideas that is a very interesting point. It would indeed be ineffective to have more discoverers of hammers than users of hammers. Optimally, you only want one person who can understand the physics and reasoning behind the creation of the hammer, whereas you need many many more people who can actually put that hammer to use.

[@academyofuselessideas]

@@nil3493 I'd have to think a bit more about your point in efficiency... The problem I see is that efficient systems tend to sacrifice robustness. If indeed there is only one person that invents something while the rest only use it, then there is a high risk of losing such technology (perhaps that's how we lost Damascus Steel. One inventor might not have shared the secret to enough people). Moreover, if there is only one inventor you also lose the potential inventions that follow up that one... However, it is true that a lot of human knowledge require several generations to be achieved, and that transmitting that knowledge quickly is very valuable... For example, a first year student probably knows more calculus than Leibniz but that doesn't mean that they are more brilliant than him... it is just that they have the advantage of gathering that knowledge from someone else... Now, there is a difference on how people learn things from others... they can learn them by memorization or by understanding... i argue that you can learn efficiently from people but still do it critically

[@tarhelytarhely5662]

My interpretation is: The teacher offers a method of multiplication which is based on memorization. That is suitable for the vast-vast majority of kids. The minority is either too dumb, or too stubborn, or both. He is not some evil despot who wants to repress kids' ability to think. We use math to do things. Math is a tool. We need some people to make hammers, and a lot of people who can use it. If somebody cannot do the multiplication table without memorizing it, he is the latter. You can try to apply this method on every aspect of learning, or at least at the STEM sciences. Reinventing the wheel every day. That goes for a while, until there is something to learn, that is too hard to reinvent. There were a lot of people thinking hard for a couple of thousand years. Even if I am smarter than any of them, which is most certainly not the case, I cannot catch up. So this method works, until it does not. For this guy the threshold came in the elementary school. Sooner or later it happens. In other words math is a special language to describe a special way of thinking. Suitable mostly for natural sciences, and itself. For a language so useful, there are hardly anything to memorize in it in contrast to a natural language.

[@academyofuselessideas]

Very interesting perspective... I picked the multiplication tables because it is a simple example... I also picked a child as the main character because it is easier to be candid and to be more empathetic to children... but many people experience similar situations at different ages and on different subjects

[@tarhelytarhely5662]

@@academyofuselessideas Everybody has limits. There are two choices: You can choose a field, put in a lot of effort, and be an expert. And ignore everything else. or You can cope with the limitation, and accept the methodology offered by the teacher, parents, elders. If you want to have children, you have to cope with limitations unavoidably. So the first choice is only open for those, who want to procreate culturally :)

[@smoceany9478]

i still dont know the multiplication table i do the multiplication every time, once i saw a 144 box table i decided that no im not doing that, ill just do the math

[@academyofuselessideas]

it doesn't make too much sense to make an effort memorizing any unmotivated concepts... Even history, I wonder if it would be better to teach it backwards, starting with the current state of the world, and think of how it came to this stage... like how did we come to a place in which I am able to make a video that many people in the world can watch (perhaps even wonder about people who cannot watch this video). In any case, I am glad you identified somehow with the story!

[@tarhelytarhely5662]

@@academyofuselessideas The history education is flawed in at least two ways. First: It should provide the story of the present. It should make the present as a logical consequence of the past. So all the facts, and theories, that did not harmonize with it, are downplayed or thrown out. Second: It should provide cultural common ground to a group of people, typically a nation. Even when something is factually not true, history is bound to stick with it, because everybody believes in it. This two take up the vast majority of history lessons. In contrast to math or natural sciences, there is hardly any word, how the history as a science works. In math there is word about axioms, theorems and proof. In history no word about sources, source-critic, how to distinguish good theories from bad ones.

[@academyofuselessideas]

very true.. sometimes it feels like we (humans in our society) are using some doublespeak, and when we say education, we are meaning indoctrination... it is quite a problem.

[@tarhelytarhely5662]

@@academyofuselessideas Seems to me, that you have an overly idealistic notion of education. You seem to be indoctrinated:) The goal of education is to provide people with knowledge to work. If our goal is something else, our culture will vanish. As it happened many times in history, but they tend not to teach that :)