Comment by b112 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by b112 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I think the real issue here is, we've reached the point where we need to realise (and can, for the first time ever) that there is no one, single teaching method.

Humans aren't off an assembly line. We have a collection of genes which enable capabilities, and further, those genes may be expressed or not.

Little Bobby may read via 12 genes, and Pete via 14 genes, with only 10 genes identical between them.

An example ; some humans cannot tell the difference between faces. Literally, some humans do not have the genetic framework to understand concepts conveyed in certain ways.

Why would teaching, learning, be different? And when we talk to people, listen to people regarding their learning experience (such as yours), it all seems subtly different. Unique.

That's because it is.

So teaching needs to be wrapped more, IMO, in the desire to convey info, but also, in the ability to realise that lessons are going to require individual nudging no matter what.

Thus, teaching methods should be less specific about "how to teach" and more about a framework to teach.

There's a common belief among inhabitants of American bureaucracies that expertise does not exist, only knowledge, so if that knowledge can be written down then there's no need for training or experts. Many people in HN have likely encountered middle-managers who ask their senior engineers to write policies, and then hire teams of juniors to implement those policies rigidly -- same principle.

When applied to education, this manifests as a belief that the teacher is less important to education than the textbook. The people writing the educational policy framework might understand that it's not a one-size-fits-all, but they're not allowed to write one policy per child. The teachers in a classroom environment aren't given the autonomy to teach according to their own judgement, because (in the eyes of the administration) if their judgement could be trusted then they would be writing policy instead of teaching.

> There's a common belief among inhabitants of American bureaucracies that expertise does not exist, only knowledge, so if that knowledge can be written down then there's no need for training or experts.

Ah but if everything can be written down, why can't the whole bureaucracy be replaced by a very small shell script?

I don't know about the very small part, but it does seem to me that the bureaucracy is pushing for its automation. Complete with Byzantine processes that leave you out in the cold if you're a corner case.

Is this "belief that the teacher is more important than the textbook" actually incorrect? It may be exaggerated, but the teacher is extremely important. How many children have given up learning something they were good at because of a bad tutor? I'll speak for myself and say that I never learned or did well in math in school because I had awful teachers, but then found that I was quite good at it when I found a tutor that explained concepts in a way that makes sense.

You also seem to think that "these people make the policies because they are the best at making policies for X", but again, is that right? Have you never heard of an incompetent politician?

Given that the original article is about a lack of literacy and reading comprehension, I'm not sure if your comment is a meta-joke.

If not, I urge you to read my comment again.

You're right I didn't understand your point. Remember that communication is a two-way street, though

No. Bobby and Annie read thanks to tens of thousands of genes and astronomical numbers of interactions between them. One may have a few more copies of this or that gene. But there are super duper few actual "you have a gene with X function but they simply don't" cases. Loss of function cases for some non critical genes are the only case you're likely to encounter in typical people. And it's not even clear how much this matters in all but extreme cases (e.g. dominant genetically determined face blindness certainly can happen https://doi.org/10.1080/02643290701380491) but I'm not sure that it makes sense to take these extremes as a model to understand normal human capacities. We are in general extremely similar in innate abilities, with incredibly low genetic diversity relative to other species. In fact, our similarity may be the driving factor in the incredible levels of social organization that we can achieve relative to other organisms.

The smallest human is under 3ft tall. The largest, over 8ft tall. Perfectly fit humans also have a widely varying maximum speed, and endurance.

The same is true of every other aspect of human capacity, intellectual abilities included.

We are not all equally capable.

Fairness comes from knowing this, knowing that each person is somewhat different, and working to enable the best outcomes for all.

To speak to this, imagine if a teacher explained an aspect of math to a student; multiplication perhaps. In this case, the student does not understand.

Would you feel it sensible for the teacher to explain again, without deviation, without changing the lesson, precisely as before, because it worked for others? And because we are all essentially the same?

Or would you consider that an inept, cruel teacher?

>To speak to this, imagine if a teacher explained an aspect of math to a student; multiplication perhaps. In this case, the student does not understand.

>Would you feel it sensible for the teacher to explain again, without deviation, without changing the lesson, precisely as before, because it worked for others? And because we are all essentially the same?

>Or would you consider that an inept, cruel teacher?

It depends. If there are 29 other students in the class that got it just fine and the one is struggling, then I would think that the teacher would have to make a judgment about how much time to spend on that one student. Or maybe that one student needs to be in a different class with more one-on-one for a particular subject.

I am all about new pedagogy research, but over the last few thousand years, we know a few things that do tend to work for most people.

It depends. If there are 29 other students in the class that got it just fine and the one is struggling, then I would think that the teacher would have to make a judgment about how much time to spend on that one student. Or maybe that one student needs to be in a different class with more one-on-one for a particular subject.

What a valid statement, you're missing my point. In the scenario I listed above, the teacher is already re-explaining the lesson again, to that specific student.

So if you read my statements in that context, the difference is -- when already repeating the lesson individually, does the teacher say precisely the same thing, word for word, or does the teacher try to explain it in a new way?

Too late to edit, I meant 'while a valid statement'

Reply on news.ycombinator.com