Comment by don-code | Hacker News Reader

Comment by don-code | Hacker News Reader

Tangentially: this answered a long-standing question I've had, why the long S disappeared, which also incidentally served as a great example of how the wrong learning environment can completely kill a child's curiosity.

I came across the long S in the fifth grade, if I recall, during some line of learning about colonial American history. The conversation between the teacher and me, in the middle of class, went something like this:

> Why is the letter S shaped differently?

> If you'd read the sidebar, it says that's the letter S.

> But why is it different?

> It's just an S. We need to move on.

I've never really been curious enough to go look up the Wikipedia article in the ensuing years, but that discourse really stuck with me. Luckily, now that it's been linked here, I _have_ read the Wikipedia article, and have my answer (typesetting). Even if Wikipedia didn't exist in those days, though, it would've been nice to be pointed at an encyclopedia instead of having my question dismissed.

What your story tells me is that your teacher didn't know and didn't want to admit it.

This was my impression as well. The older I get the more I appreciate someone who can admit they don't know something.

I don't know how old your story is, but one thing that I can see factoring in is that before recently-ish, it would have been hard to say "it's an interesting question, but I don't know. How about we figure it out?" without spending a large amount of time to find the answer.

Two ways my teachers liked to deal with that situation was:

- "That's an interesting question. To find out we could ..."

- "Does anyone have any ideas what the answer could be?"

Both approaches can be easily combined (first ask for ideas, then say how to validate them), but if you're in a hurry to get on just use the first approach.

Intentionally stifling others' curiosity because of your own ignorance and laziness is horrible

Yeah, but also, those people get punished for it - they are perceived less capable.

Admitting ignorance is a luxury that becomes affordable once you have knowledge, seniority, and respect. It can be an expensive hazard for those just starting out.

That's one obvious reason: teachers aren't intellectuals. But teachers can get fed up with questions as well, or know that a certain pupil should keep focus and not be distracted.

This is because teachers are themselves graded on standardized test results. Standardized tests don't give a crap about curiosity.

So classroom instruction in the US ends up being mostly about the teachers making sure that their students won't drastically underperform on the standardized test.

This! I sucked in school, had to leave early because of my performance. I was just bothered by those linear performance assessment strategies. Though I suck in every piece of information, technologies, biology, mathematics, physics, psychology... Whatever.

It makes me sad knowing, that the current system focusses on performance and leaves behind so many briliant people, and I don't even consider myself briliant.

Having taught for several years, I agree that this is part of it. A much bigger reason is the need to avoid or reduce distractions. A class of 30 students all going off on separate tangents unrelated to the lesson plan, or unrelated the subject of the class, is unmanageable.

I think most teachers just don’t care. In highschool, I remember asking my math teacher about ruler’s identity, and she had never heard of it. In middle school our math teacher told us pi was exactly 22/7. In elementary school one of my teachers said there was no gravity on the moon. My highschool chemistry teacher told us that if you put two cheerios in a bowl of milk, they move towards each other because of their mutual gravitational attraction.

As it turns out, there is gravity on the moon: you just need math to prove it (no wonder an elementary teacher thought otherwise). Safer just to wear heavy boots.

*euler's

The long s seems to form ligatures better. When people wrote with ink and quill flow was important —maybe that’s why it was devised. They also had many abbreviations so as to avoid tiring their fingers writing common words and particles over and over.

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