Comment by Nadya | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nadya | Hacker News Reader

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I'd have taken exposure over nothing. I had to teach myself - as an adult - calculus, linear algebra, probability (outside of the ever-so-brief introduction in school) and trigonometry. I personally don't think I did a very good job as my own teacher either. 3Blue1Brown was a lifesaver and every now and again I try to brush up on the topics - not for my benefit at all but for my child's benefit in the future.

I think schooling absolutely failed me in almost every regard once I made it past the 4th grade. Half of what I learned isn't even true anymore or were partial truths/mostly lies to make it easier for a 5th/6th grader to grok and they'll be told "the truth" at some point later in high school or college only to never be told the truth or not have the opportunity to attend college where you finally would have been told the truth.

Exposure to something is the first step in learning about something.

> Half of what I learned isn't even true anymore or were partial truths/mostly lies

This is true of most levels of education. What you learn in elementary turns out to be bullshit because of what you learn in high school which turns out to be bullshit because of what you learn in undergrad which turns out to be bullshit because of graduate school which turns out to be bullshit because of the work of an army of scientists.

Yes, but often times the army of scientists had already done their work. Even in the late 90's a lot of what I was learning was already known to be false but the updates hadn't yet hit by textbooks published in 1982. The teachers even sometimes already knew it to be wrong but had to teach it anyway because it was still considered part of the state curriculum. But the more common and larger issue was the partial truths/mostly lies - even if some of the lies are arguably justified to make learning easier for some kids. The better teachers wouldn't lie but would simply say "You'll be taught about that later in a higher grade".

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