[extropy-chat] here's how complicated it is

[A B]

Hi Lee,
   
  First of all, I'll 'fess up to being an idealist.  :-)  Under unremarkable circumstances I would probably choose to lean closer to being a hybrid idealist-realist. ;-)  But when a Singularity may be in the wings, I feel compelled to fully and openly express my ideals because it is not impossible that some of them may be independently duplicated or at least approximated at some point in the future.
   
  And I admit to exaggerating when I wrote:   "We need to start experimenting
> *now* with wreckless abandon - I don't think it could possibly
> get much worse than it currently is."
   
  You are correct. It could obviously become much worse ... ranging to non-existent. I was mostly just trying to emphasize the desperate need to improve the situation which you can be sure is very, very far from "ideal". ;-) 
   
  Perhaps, one of the first changes could be an optional specialization program beginning around 7th grade or so, where a student can choose to focus on a specific "strand" of study (eg. science, engineering, arts, writing, etc. - depending on their interests) that would comprise most of the classroom time. If I'm not mistaken, Australia already uses a mild version of this program.
   
  Another large target is the excessive and tedious "busy work" that all to many teachers seem to rely upon.
   
  Best Wishes,
   
  Jeffrey Herrlich
   
  P.S. I do realize that there *are* caring and hard-working teachers and administrators here in America, and I'm grateful for their efforts.  
     
Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
  Jeffrey writes---there are several equally good narratives I could
could enquire further about, but his is handy---

> Having graduated from a typical high school not too long ago, I can
> admit that my "hard time" in that prison nearly managed to sap the
> very last ounce of my intellectual curiosity. Frankly, it's remarkable
> that I have retained *any* scholarly interest whatsoever. I definitely
> don't think I'm a genius, but I have no doubt that I could have
> achieved far more by this time, if I had not been driven to levels
> of near-hatred for the various subjects being "taught" (read: "forced on me").

What sort of ideal situation do you have in mind? Would
you enjoy the way they teach in Russia or Japan (the results
there are pretty impressive in many ways).

Again, I fear we have the usual phenomenon when idealists
speak up. They compare the real against the ideal, and---
guess what?---the real always falls short of their imaginings.

Where in the world, or in what historical epoch, do you think
that things would have been better for you? Here I am taking
a *realist* approach: don't compare the real against a nebulously
imagined ideal, but compare the real to any other real anywhere
or at any time.

> I'm not saying that public education in general is a bad thing.
> I do believe it's important. But our system needs *major*
> changes at the fundamental level. We need to start experimenting
> *now* with wreckless abandon - I don't think it could possibly
> get much worse than it currently is.

Couldn't get worse than it is? Now *I'm* the idealist. I can
easily imagine it being much worse. But I'm mainly a realist
still: you think that almost all education in history wasn't much
much worse? Well, think again. It was. And it's worse throughout
most of the world too (some very significant and interesting countries
excepted).

Lee

P.S. to all the rest of you idealists. Just tell me anything real where
education was or is so much better than here, or in the west generally.
We should do it here like it was done where? Or by whom?

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