Subject: Re: [Gnu-arch-users] OT: trained dependency
From: Zenaan Harkness <zen@cashpoolcomps.com>
To: arch <gnu-arch-users@gnu.org>
In-Reply-To: <87y8hgdts6.fsf@tleepslib.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp>
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> Well, I'd like to believe in Santa Claus,
...
> There is plenty of evidence that home schooling works very well
> indeed--

Almost contradictory...

> -if the parents are reasonably...

Do you have _any_ evidence of "failed" home schooling. That
"unreasonably in tune parents" cannot effectively educate (assuming they
actually attempt to do so). Otherwise I'll cry handwaving...

> Apprenticeships ... to sorcerers, maybe.

Oh I forgot, apprenticeships have clearly never in history produced
competant individuals capable of learning the things they desire to
learn.

I suggest a brush up on European history that provides extensive
evidence to the contrary. Perhaps if that was your bent, you could even
find a sourcerer if you really wanted :) (You might have more luck
finding an alchemist, in that profession's modern form - chemistry :)

> The fact is that even if learning is what you do for fun, learning is
> hard work.

This is not the point. Nowhere did I say that learning was not hard
work. But you miss that learning is not something (in my personal
experience) one can just "do X for 40 minutes" then immediately "do Y
for 40 minutes" then immediately "do Z for 40 minutes". The schools that
I went to tried to do that, which is not teaching the way that I learn.

I seem to learn best, quickest and with minimum "work" (in fact it's
enjoyable) by grabbing a book or website _when_ I find myself interested
in something (new programming language, fractals, physics, and various
other pursuits I have dived into over the years, outside of school), and
at that point _nothing_ can keep me away from this 'self education' -
not even food for extended periods of time. I find that when I'm ready
and desiring to learn something new, I am kind of drawn into it. It's
hard to explain, but it's something that I basically never experienced
at school or university for that matter (my scholarship degree had very
limited subject choice), and I strongly believe this is, predominantly
the way people actually learn.

> Given the wide variation in sex drive among my
> acquaintances, I'm quite sure that learning drive is equally variable.

AIUI, part of Gatto's thesis is that:
1) schools don't teach the way _most_ people learn (and I concur)
2) this is inherent in their design, which was the _intent_ of the
creators of the modern schooling system (which I can't really comment on
since I know so little history and haven't done any first-hand research
on the matter, so all I can do is relate Gatto's thesis etc)

So, back to your statement "learning drive is equally variable". Well
then, how do you expect everyone to fit into the very rigid structure of
modern schooling? And could it not be that the very structure stifles
that learning drive? That the modern incarnations of the subjects you
teach are, without you even realising it, specified so as to minimize
actual learning. Of course, coming from me, without the detailed
historical analysis that Gatto performs, that probably just sounds
fantastical. Gatto taught for 30 years in New York. He was NY City
Teacher of the Year 3 times, and NY State Teacher of the Year once,
before retiring.

> I see no reason that a human being with median or below on the
> learning drive scale is likely to acquire the competences that are
> his/her birthright without teachers.  There's a reason why the word
> "education" has a root that is cognate to "educe".

You are now missing the point again - perhaps I went a little far with
my "self education" comment, since at least in the early days, having
someone (my mum) teach me to read and multiply was something I don't
think I could have done myself. However, once I could read, use a
dictionary, and knew enough basic maths, I subsequently:
1) taught myself to program in BASIC by reading and typing all the
examples in a book, and went on to write more programs of my own (at the
age of 12)
2) read heaps, including Lord of The Rings
3) learned so many new words based purely on my own interest and
volition in that year and 2/3 before I started regular school (since I'd
been tought how to use a dictionary), that when they tested me for
school entry I could pick which grade I went into

Perhaps I am "above average" (that may be the case). However given that
early (albeit brief) home schooling experience (which most was of my own
personal interest and drive), and my experience with 10 years of school
subsequent, I have a clear idea which one worked very well for me.

So, and here's the main point, to take someone who is, by the standard
schooling system "below average" and to say that without the standard
schooling system they'd be even lower, is not a valid claim. Without any
teacher (parent or otherwise), or we could say without any education,
I'd probably agree with you that their academic performance would be
lower.

But that's not what I've been saying (I thought).

You're caught (I think) in competance scales and bell curves and
medians, in their false significance and relevance, not able to see that
these very instruments might have effects that are not what we assume,
in fact reducing the majority of the population in actual "education".
Can you hypothesize this possibility?

...
> As for intelligence, intelligence is the product of the CIA, MI6, KGB,
> and other TLAs, and given that association, I'm sure you will agree it
> really is hardly worth worrying about.

Except here's my experience in the Australian public school system -
there is _soo_ much pressure, _so_ much anxiety around exams
(particularly as you head for the end of high school (University
entrance exams)), that, when you realise after it all it was a big hoax,
is in reality something that is almost universally worried about, by the
students themselves, if not by employers, managers and/ or society in
general.

By my reading of Gatto, this is a distinc symptom of the unstated
purposes of schooling. That they are unstated is why such things may
seem fantastical without a lot of research (I'm yet even half way
through Gatto's recent, fourth, and largest book - Underground History
of American Education).

> Results?  Results measure results, that's all.  This _is_ useful; all
> serious athletes own stopwatches (or other appropriate measuring
> instruments), you know.

Do you deny there are side effects to such constant measuring (and the
humiliation that results from publishing those measurements) that may in
many cases have a net deleterious effect on individuals?

(Say for example, dependence on external sources for internal
significance, class-based self-classification into the bell curve of
society ("I can never be a doctor or lawyer since I didn't get 99.2% or
above"), subservience to those who measure, initially teachers but
subsequently managers and even the government itself, an unquestioning
of authority (and consequent rebelliousness), and the list goes on...)

zen


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