Comment by MatekCopatek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MatekCopatek | Hacker News Reader

In my experience, this is even more true for art.

Where I live, physics and math are a part of obligatory general education, so you'll definitely have to study them until you're 15. After that, if you stay in the general education system (which is true for 95% of people who plan to go to college), you'll have to learn them for 4 more years. Sure, some people will develop a likeness/talent for it and others will hate it, but everyone needs to pass. Only when you go to college at 19 will people start telling you that perhaps you need to be a physics person to study physics and that it's not for everyone.

Art, on the other hand, is considered something magical and depending entirely on your talents right from the start. Art subjects barely touch on any practice, you have to learn a bit about the history and you pass. But I feel it's absolutely the same. Everyone can (and IMHO should be forced to) learn to read sheet music, play a simple tune on the recorder, draw still life with correct shading and proportions, write a short poem etc.

Personal involvment would give people a much deeper understanding of the topic. I mean, imagine if physics only consisted of everyone learning about Newton, Galileo and Einstein with just the smart kids doing calculations.

Interestingly, there's a paper "Lockhart's Lament"[1], on math education written about 15 years ago that proposes an absurd world from a musician's nightmare where formalized music education is mandatory but playing music is generally discouraged.

The point, poorly summarized, is that it resembles math education where a soltary focus on calculation distracts from learning how to do the type of math that only professional mathematicians seem allowed to do now.

It's worth reading if only to see how it often seems like the grass is greener for the educational environment of other fields.

[1] https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament....

Can we take a step back and make the physics/math optional instead of forcing art too on people :) I never understood why things are mandatory in education. Given a choice I would skip history (apart from reading on my own time what ever interests me),civics and anything that end up quizzing my memory instead of skill (aka memorized processes).

I never understood why things are mandatory in education.

Perhaps it's to combat entrenched prejudice. Back then we would make jokes about "Physics for Women", i.e. the non-calculus kind for non-majors. Everyone who would joke like that would know that physics is for anyone, just look around the lecture hall where 25 % of the audience are female, but talking like this he would pretend to be a Neanderthaler from an era thankfully past.

Forward to the present, where in Britain they make physics more "accessible" by watering the subject down. That doesn't help groups that are traditionally excluded, they need to be included, forceful if necessary.

Same thing holds true for the Arts.

Let's chalk it up to the human nature where any number of rules for others are not enough in ones opinion :)

> by watering the subject down

<RANT>

I think it's a false premise that the subject is hard in the first place. Why is it hard ? Because you have to get the "right answer" on your test/homework. Ok, but why do you have to get the "right answer" ? Why do I get zero points for a problem when I put 0.33 and the answer was 0.145 ? That is utterly ridiculous. Why are we using logical AND on all a problems steps ? Oh, you made one mistake, no points for you!

And before someone brings up "partial credit", That's myth that meant "pity points", not "9/10 points, minus one because you f-ed up your algebra or minus sign". You should be tested on the process of solving a problem, not whether you got 0.33 as your final answer. In the real world, even if you do exactly what the book says(!) you won't get 0.33. Your measuring apparatus wont be calibrated, there will be noise, other sampling errors, defects in materials, etc. If you start the test out with this bullshit premise that IF( ANSWER == 0.33 ) THEN grade='a'; then you're not testing them on physics, you're testing them on how detail oriented they are and how well they can concentrate without making a mistake (like the Japanese show "Unbeatable Banzuki"). If that's your class, then call the class "Following Detailed Processes I" or "Doing N steps without ever making a mistake II", dont call it "physics". You should be able to get an A without ever getting the "right answer", so long as you demonstrate that you know the concepts and what the equations represent and how to apply them. Not contorting yourself to do the work of a machine, like a sadistic hazing ritual.

Edit:

And I almost forgot about the fun little thing they do in college where the course covers topics {A,B,C}, yet they test you {A, B^-1, and C-d}, you know, just a little bit different* material or problem formats than what they lectured about. Just different enough that they dont resemble any of the quiz or homework problems. If you want to test me on Ax^2+bx+c, then test me on Ax^2+bx+c, not on problems I've never seen before.

</RANT>

When I went to uni (physics) an exam had four/five questions that would take about 40 minutes each, and the "final answer" was worth about 5/10% of the question. So it really was about the process.

Sorry but education serves society and not you personally. It serves society that you know certain things. Civics for example is extremely important in a free democratic society. I think of all my schooling it was singularly the most important. This is in part because a good civics class doesn't have you memorize the 1st Amendment (which BTW allow you to post your opinion on HN) but understand why free speech is necessary, the limitations on free speech, and what can happen when free expression is limited. I think few things are more relevant today.

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