HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

I'd like to revisit a classic CGP Gray video for talking points on this subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vsCAM17O-M

What roles does (Public) Education fulfill in society and to parents?

* A free society and elected government function best when the people who make decisions about the future of that society are properly educated and capable of high level decision making. Public Schools and Education are generally critical (decades to forever) health factors in such societies.

* Better educated laborers are able to further the knowledge of intelligent life, and make better things possible.

The video talks about how education has traditionally generally worked, how educational videos can be the basis for learning a subject, and how an AI can feed that to students as a personal "Digital Aristotle for Everyone".

'... I doubt that schools will go away. After all, they aren't just about learning but also freeing parents to work in the economy, while their feral children are are turned into civilized adults. Schools will be radically different, and there will be far fewer teachers working in them doing far less. While that's not great news for teachers, it is awesome news for students and society.' -- paraphrased a little, CGP Gray in the linked video.

* Free parents to work in the economy. I'll extend this with anecdotal evidence from relatives during the pandemic. It generally gives parents and kids a break from each other so they don't go mutually insane and so that both can progress forward with things they need to accomplish in work and life.

* Raise children to be adults. Schools can also serve as a baseline for being a model citizen. I'd really like for them to elevate from my childhood experience: thinly disguised prison babysitting warehouses that happened to pass time with education that never finishes a 20 year old textbook intended to be accomplished over a semester, with the same history and social subjects repeated ad-nauseam because different schools combined and people moved or never completed a course level.

* Teach people to work together. Schools _tried_ to do this, but never had the human resources to do it properly. A re-structured system where everyone is completing their own knowledge tracts at their own pace, but gets to work together on long term projects, as if it were a mini job. APPLIED science, technology, engineering, math; and even geography and history. Provide a historic context, teach how we understood the technology and society worked at the time, give the kids actual jobs and guidance in the planning. Maybe have them also grow some crops in a greenhouse with similar conditions over the year. Really inter-mesh and wave everything together. Combine that teaching AI for subjects and "teachers" / babysitters as the historic boss figures the kids have to give reports to and get orders from. We'll know school's been done right when 10 year olds think it's FUN to toss their school work at a spreadsheet or database the same way Eve Online and Factorio addicts do.

This video answers to your question and it is pretty cool:

https://youtu.be/7vsCAM17O-M

⬐ secstate

So, Kahn Academy, eh?

But seriously, I think the biggest problem with this "future of education" proposal is that it STILL assumes that we consume education, and that all people need all the education.

With a digital tutor, fine-tuned to my learning styles, what if I still don't give a shit about understanding partial differentiation? At some point, education has to be about more than an accumulation of knowledge.

For my money, I see the future of education going back to apprenticeships and well-timed opportunities for growth rather than new ways to shovel the Knowledge into the brain holes of children.

⬐ rfreytag

Maybe Kahn Academy but more likely Stamford's https://giftedandtalented.com.

As the cost of a good education declines it could diminish as a test of capability. That leaves the test of actual practice in the art - an apprenticeship.

Broadly I agree that apprenticeship is a likely model if what you are learning is the trade of discovering a market for your creativity. The market will determine if creativity is improved when primed with a broad or narrow education.

Related thoughts on education... from CGP Grey: http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_830833...

Also watch Greys favorites vol 4 (playlist on CGP Grey channel). These thoughts from Salman Khan are most relevant here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiKrFcgVSIU&list=PLgE-9Sx...