Musings Report #12 3-19-16 Is This the Future of Education?
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Is This the Future of Education?
According to this breathless, fawning New Yorker article, the future of education in America is being brought to us by (surprise) Silicon Valley, which is busy "disrupting" education with tech gadgets such as tablets and Big Data studies of each child's progress on the new curriculum, which is all about gathering and manipulating data: Learn Different: Silicon Valley disrupts education
The presumption here is that the work Silcon Valley engineers are doing today (manipulating Big Data) will still create value 20+ years hence.
But how do we know that? How do we know that teaching kids to look stuff up online and manipulate data will have any value a decade from now, much less 20+ years?
It is the height of hubris in my view to think that teaching kids to do what Google engineers do now will magically give them useful skills with substantial financial value in the future.
Another more realistic (and revolutionary) view is presented in this article: Stop Innovating in Schools. Please.
"The vast majority of “innovation” I’ve seen in my visits to schools around the world doesn’t amount to much change at all in the area where we need it most: using those new methods, ideas, or products to shift agency for learning to the learner. To put it simply, innovation in schools today is far too focused on improving teaching, not amplifying learning.
There’s little question any longer that those who are learners will have more opportunities for growth and success than those who are learned.
But innovating through the lens of the learner means fundamentally changing the way we think about schools and classrooms, not just layering on technology.
The real innovation that we need in schools has little to do with technologies or tools or products designed to improve our teaching. The real innovation, instead, is in relearning why we want kids in schools in the first place.
Nothing has really changed. Kids are still bored in school. We still assess the stuff that’s easy to measure at the expense of attending to the more important stuff that isn’t, things like creativity and curiosity and determination. Our cultures focus on teaching, not learning, and very little “innovation” as it’s currently constituted has impacted that at all."
Of all educational innovations I've seen, I prefer this one above all: teaching kids about Nature by immersing them in Nature, and nurturing their ability to get along with each other and collaborate with others:
Maruntabo- The Forest Kindergarten (47:40)
I highly recommend watching the entire program. It might change your perception of what "education" is and what it should be.
If kids absorb a deep understanding of Nature, learn to work with others and learn how to become lifelong learners, they will be able to create value in the future because they'll learn what is useful/needed at that time.
Summary of the Blog This Past Week
When a Friend Takes His/Her Own Life 3/19/16
How to Escape the Purgatory of Minimum Wage/Part-Time Jobs 3/17/16
Wait a Minute--Who's Fascist? 3/16/16
Why Our Financial System Is Like the Titanic 3/15/16
2016, The Year Of The Red Monkey: Expect Wild, Unending Volatility 3/14/16
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Homemade biscotti!
Market Musings: The Appeal of Analog Charts
It's tempting to seek a pattern from the past that seems to match the current market action.
Why is it tempting? If the market does in fact follow the previous pattern, we have a predictive machine we can exploit to make winning bets.
Here are two analog charts, one from August of 2015, and a current one that starts from August 2015:
Notice how the August 2015 analog chart was highly correlated up to 8/15, but the correlation broke down: if the analog had held, we should be in a waterfall decline, not a rally.
Correlation is not causation.
The current analog chart suggests a couple months of chop and a waterfall decline in May. Will this happen?
Nobody knows, but it's something to keep in mind if in fact the market chops around from April into early May.
From Left Field
A Year After China's 'Iron Hand' Hit Polluters, Air Still Chokes -- harder to limit pollution than the central planners expected...
Why Globalization Reaches Limits -- worth a read...
Millennials Are The Deflation Generation -- yes
U.S. Dead Last of 18 Countries on Skills Test -- oops
Start Preparing for the Collapse of the Saudi Kingdom -- well argued...
Bill Clinton’s odious presidency: Thomas Frank on the real history of the ’90s
Beware of Startup Prostitution: 10 warning signs for startup founders -- the men in orange are the vulture--oops I mean venture capitalists ogling what's under the kimono...
Rebooting Work: Redefining the digital economy
This is the Future of Work...and What It Means for Your Career "First, get past the mourning for the comfortable hierarchy, the big office, the heavy-stock cream-colored stationery, the sense of understanding the “rules of the game,” the singular view of what success looks like."
Measuring Donald Trump’s Mammoth Advantage in Free Media -- media hates him for this...
The Lone Chef of Palmer Station, Antarctica (via Nicole D.)
"The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be." Socrates
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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