<story><title>More parents, students saying &apos;no&apos; to homework</title><url>http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20151026_More_parents__students_saying__no__to_homework.html#c5m34J1fBGIPuuwg.99</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>guimarin</author><text>I disagree with your comment about better teachers. Teachers are simply a conduit for learning. They don&amp;#x27;t scale, which is why there is still a power-law distribution in educational outcomes despite tons or research and data and training and testing that should combat that. Basically rich people get richer because all rich people who are generationally consistently rich have one thing in common. They are autodidacts. If you can learn on your own, and have the capacity to recognize when the assumptions underpinning the status-quo are no longer correct, you can consistently remain wealthy relative to everyone else. True rich families understand this and teach it implicitly&amp;#x2F;explicitly to their children. Who end up being the fertile ground on which &amp;#x27;good teachers&amp;#x27; have a multiplicative effect. This does not work for the poor as they lack the necessary base skills and knowledge to benefit from good teaching. Poor people still break through because circumstance often teaches people, like everyone who came from nothing on this message board, how to learn on their own without help or assistance from others. Advocating more assistance from others is not the solution. And for the same reason that sending $1T in aid to Africa has had mixed results.&lt;p&gt;Knowledge cannot be taught it must be learned.</text></item><item><author>unquietcode</author><text>Let&amp;#x27;s not forget that the inhabitants of this website are almost certainly the kind of people who saw through the noise and got their education on their own terms. As we raise our kids we help them tip-toe around all this garbage, but most parents have no tools at their disposal to review and revise and push back against bad practices in their child&amp;#x27;s education. The issue of education in this country needs to be addressed, but the system has to serve all types, including children who&amp;#x27;s parents are unable to provide alternative structures and insights and &amp;#x27;hacks&amp;#x27; to get by.&lt;p&gt;That didn&amp;#x27;t add much (I wasn&amp;#x27;t trying), but these threads always seem to turn into an echo chamber of &amp;quot;I got by without doing any homework!&amp;quot; because, let&amp;#x27;s face it, here we are. What is the 98% solution, I wonder, versus the 2% version? Of all that I&amp;#x27;ve seen, it starts with better, smarter, well-paid, un-stressed, empathetic teachers. Students too afraid to think? Too pinned down to discover how best to learn for themselves? I just want to give all these poor kids a hug and tell them how smart they really are--it makes me so sad.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>justinhj</author><text>Your comments about rich families ignore completely the effect of status in life. Knowledge alone does not generate wealth. That needs work directed in the right direction which is also a lot easier if you have the society connections and the capital to pull off your ideas. The rich get richer because they can invest and buy successful businesses. Sending your kids to Eton to rub shoulders with royalty has far more to do with status than education.</text></comment>
<story><title>More parents, students saying &apos;no&apos; to homework</title><url>http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20151026_More_parents__students_saying__no__to_homework.html#c5m34J1fBGIPuuwg.99</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>guimarin</author><text>I disagree with your comment about better teachers. Teachers are simply a conduit for learning. They don&amp;#x27;t scale, which is why there is still a power-law distribution in educational outcomes despite tons or research and data and training and testing that should combat that. Basically rich people get richer because all rich people who are generationally consistently rich have one thing in common. They are autodidacts. If you can learn on your own, and have the capacity to recognize when the assumptions underpinning the status-quo are no longer correct, you can consistently remain wealthy relative to everyone else. True rich families understand this and teach it implicitly&amp;#x2F;explicitly to their children. Who end up being the fertile ground on which &amp;#x27;good teachers&amp;#x27; have a multiplicative effect. This does not work for the poor as they lack the necessary base skills and knowledge to benefit from good teaching. Poor people still break through because circumstance often teaches people, like everyone who came from nothing on this message board, how to learn on their own without help or assistance from others. Advocating more assistance from others is not the solution. And for the same reason that sending $1T in aid to Africa has had mixed results.&lt;p&gt;Knowledge cannot be taught it must be learned.</text></item><item><author>unquietcode</author><text>Let&amp;#x27;s not forget that the inhabitants of this website are almost certainly the kind of people who saw through the noise and got their education on their own terms. As we raise our kids we help them tip-toe around all this garbage, but most parents have no tools at their disposal to review and revise and push back against bad practices in their child&amp;#x27;s education. The issue of education in this country needs to be addressed, but the system has to serve all types, including children who&amp;#x27;s parents are unable to provide alternative structures and insights and &amp;#x27;hacks&amp;#x27; to get by.&lt;p&gt;That didn&amp;#x27;t add much (I wasn&amp;#x27;t trying), but these threads always seem to turn into an echo chamber of &amp;quot;I got by without doing any homework!&amp;quot; because, let&amp;#x27;s face it, here we are. What is the 98% solution, I wonder, versus the 2% version? Of all that I&amp;#x27;ve seen, it starts with better, smarter, well-paid, un-stressed, empathetic teachers. Students too afraid to think? Too pinned down to discover how best to learn for themselves? I just want to give all these poor kids a hug and tell them how smart they really are--it makes me so sad.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JDiculous</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s what I hate about school. It doesn&amp;#x27;t teach or encourage autodidactism. Instead, it rewards those who do what they&amp;#x27;re told and follow the status quo. You see it a lot in straight A students where they&amp;#x27;re basically just really good at jumping through hoops given to them and have no creativity. Being able to answer problem sets from a textbook is great, but independent and original thought often requires you to step outside the box and question things.</text></comment>