Using the Web To Turn Kids Into Autodidacts

theodp writes "Autodidacticism — self-education or self-directed learning — is nothing new, but the Internet holds the promise of taking it to the masses. Sugata Mitra, an Indian physicist whose earlier educational experiments inspired the film Slumdog Millionaire, is convinced that, with the Internet, kids can learn by themselves so long as they are in small groups and have well-posed questions to answer. And now, Mitra's Self-Organized Learning Environments (SOLE) are going global, with testing in schools in Australia, Colombia, England and India. On their own, children can get about 30% of the knowledge required to pass exams, so to go further, Dr. Mitra supplements SOLE with e-mediators, amateur volunteers who use Skype to help kids learn online."

Comments

Heck

[SilverHatHacker]

As far as programming goes, I've managed to teach myself the entire content of the courses I'm taking during my summer breaks and weekends. Admittedly, it is just basic stuff, but I now feel like I'm wasting $10k a year on schooling that I don't really need.

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[vlm]

I now feel like I'm wasting $10k a year on schooling that I don't really need.

You're not buying schooling, you're buying an expensive piece of paper, called a diploma, to get past the HR filter that requires it.

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[hedwards]

Teaching yourself is fine, but very few people are capable of doing it properly without a lot of help. Sure when it comes to something like programming you can learn on your own. What you're generally paying for with tuition is guidance and an assurance to future employers that you know what you're doing or more accurately that you've at least seen the materials.

But in general, most people lack the framework to make sense of what they're learning. Even with a degree I run into a fair number of people who don't understand more than just the basics of what was taught, they've gone to no effort to understand the whys and hows that go along with the whats involved.

If this is becoming big that's a very serious problem. The internet isn't really a place to gain an informed opinion over things. There's a lot of noise and very little quality signal to use and without having a degree to start with it's pretty much futile in terms of knowing what is and is not reliable information.

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[retech]

But you already had a base education.

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[TheLink]

Yep, nowadays you can learn a lot of stuff from the internet. For those it's more a matter of whether you want the "piece of paper" or not. Just from youtube alone you can learn undergrad stuff from MIT/Stanford/UNSW and even universities in India, guitar licks, to making a japanese omelette/omelet (tamagoyaki).

But some stuff requires physical equipment and tools that most people don't have access to. In an alternate universe public libraries would have physical tools, workshops and labs, rather than physical books - because books can be more easily duplicated :).

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[cheekyjohnson]

Teaching yourself is fine, but very few people are capable of doing it properly without a lot of help.

We're naturally talking about people who are capable of doing so.

Sure when it comes to something like programming you can learn on your own.

Actually, you can teach yourself about any subject that has a vast amount of information written about it, provided you're 'capable' of teaching yourself at all.

What you're generally paying for with tuition is guidance and an assurance to future employers that you know what you're doing or more accurately that you've at least seen the materials.

There's no 'assurance' to future employers. People with degrees aren't necessarily any better than anyone else. Though, you mentioned that yourself.

The internet isn't really a place to gain an informed opinion over things.

It is if lots of quality information is there.

There's a lot of noise and very little quality signal to use and without having a degree to start with it's pretty much futile in terms of knowing what is and is not reliable information.

Perhaps for some subjects, but it's certainly not true for many of them. I've seen lots of quality information about varying subjects available on the internet. As for knowing if it's quality information or not, you could merely, you know, double check to make sure.

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[stuntedclimber]

...so long as they are in small groups and have well-posed questions to answer

This is what I think is supposed to solve the problem you're bringing up. Ask the right questions in the right order. But isn't that the job of a good teacher?

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[betterunixthanunix]

Actually, you can teach yourself about any subject that has a vast amount of information written about it, provided you're 'capable' of teaching yourself at all.

I disagree with this one. Some fields are sufficiently difficult that being "self taught" would either require someone with an exceptional intellect, or an unreasonable amount of time. I would say this is particularly true of abstract math e.g. topology, abstract algebra, etc. Anyone could pick up the basics in those subjects, assuming they had sufficient mathematical background to begin with, but I would be surprised if all but an extreme minority of people could really understand what they are doing in those fields without some sort of formal education.

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[cheekyjohnson]

Some fields are sufficiently difficult that being "self taught" would either require someone with an exceptional intellect, or an unreasonable amount of time.

You're going to use an unreasonable amount of time either way. Notice the word "capable."

I would say this is particularly true of abstract math e.g. topology, abstract algebra, etc.

It depends on whether there's enough information about it and if you're intelligent enough to grasp it on your own. Otherwise, self teaching in that subjects obviously isn't a good idea.

but I would be surprised if all but an extreme minority of people could really understand what they are doing in those fields without some sort of formal education.

It's not really a surprise if a vast amount of quality information (notice the word quality) is there. I don't think it's just an "extreme minority," but certainly less than the amount of people who require being taught.

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[biryokumaru]

In New York City, there are actually quite a few "hacker labs" you can join for access to cool equipment, like laser cutters and lathes and such. While not tax supported like a public library, I feel the membership fee amounts to little more than a tax.

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[the_humeister]

There are some things that really can't be taught without schooling. Medicine/surgery come to mind.

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[betterunixthanunix]

It depends on whether there's enough information about it and if you're intelligent enough to grasp it on your own. Otherwise, self teaching in that subjects obviously isn't a good idea.

(Emphasis mine.) Yes, if you are intelligent enough to grasp the material on your own. This becomes increasingly rare as the material becomes increasingly advanced; there is a point at which only an extreme minority of people are capable of understanding the material on their own, without a teacher's help (even further is the point at which only an extreme minority are capable of understanding the material even with a teacher's help).

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[Simon80]

I see your Internet education has turned you into a skilled debater.

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[cheekyjohnson]

This becomes increasingly rare as the material becomes increasingly advanced;

That depends on whether the information is available and is quality. Even if it is as rare as you say, the information should still be available to these people.

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[WrongSizeGlass]

I see your Internet education has turned you into a skilled debater.

Pshaw. Clearly that's some book learnin' we were just exposed to.

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[WrongSizeGlass]

There are some things that really can't be taught without schooling. Medicine/surgery come to mind.

Clearly you've never had a drunk college roommate and a supply of kitchen utensils.

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[noidentity]

You're not buying schooling, you're buying an expensive piece of paper, called a diploma, to get past the HR filter that requires it.

And four years of daycare. It's expensive to hire all that staff.

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[betterunixthanunix]

At what point did I argue that any information should be unavailable to people who are interested in it? Quite the opposite, I think that given the Internet, people should be able to access any information they want, and they should be able to do so at little to no cost. There is no excuse for barriers to information in the 21st century, especially not in a developed nation like the United States.

It is also worth keep in mind that anyone who lives near a university can probably gain access to its libraries. At my current institution, anyone can walk into the libraries, and as long as they do not create a disturbance, they can read any of the books on the shelves; the only think they cannot do is remove books from the library. There are even publicly accessible computers that do not require a login. Even at institutions that require permission to enter the libraries, I have not yet seen a case where there was no way for a non-student to get such permission (not that I have a very large sample size; most of the places I have seen do not require special permission just to enter the library).

Given all of that, though, I would be surprised if non-prodigies were able to grasp the deeper material and insights from certain fields. There is a lot of high quality information on cryptography available, and high quality information on various fields of math needed to understand cryptography, but the truth is that modern cryptography is a very difficult field. Even with a great teacher, it is very hard to understand cryptography; lacking such a teacher would leave a student at a serious disadvantage. Sure, anyone could memorize protocols and algorithms, but that is not the same as understanding why those systems are (possibly) secure, and gaining such an understanding is difficult, especially when you go beyond the basics, and it becomes extremely hard when you have no guidance whatsoever.

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[JohnBailey]

You're not buying schooling, you're buying an expensive piece of paper, called a diploma, to get past the HR filter that requires it.

Which is in it's self a problem. HR is not hiring paper.

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[Duradin]

If all you're getting is a diploma and not schooling that you need perhaps you should take courses more advanced than the into course.

It's college. You pick your classes. You also pick your college. So if your education doesn't seem worth it perhaps the school isn't the problem.

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[cheekyjohnson]

At what point did I argue that any information should be unavailable to people who are interested in it?

You didn't... and I never said you did. I was merely stating that it should be available. There's at least some people capable of doing so, and if self teaching is what is best for them, then I think it's great that they have that option.

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[Hognoxious]

I've managed to teach myself the entire content of the courses I'm taking during my summer breaks and weekends.

Are you sure about the entire part? Self-taught programmers often know about 70% of the language quite well. They often convince themselves that the rest isn't important or useful. And they can often convince the PHBs too, so long as they can cobble something together that works, sort of, sometimes.

This is all fine and dandy until they encounter a situation where there's a simple, reliable and elegant solution to it that lies in the other 30%; they end up building an almighty kludge.

One advantage of a formal training course is that it has structure and forces you out of your comfort zone.

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[Bigjeff5]

Unfortunately, most teachers are not good teachers.

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[that IT girl]

I agree, and I think that while the Internet is a great tool that puts information out there to be accessed more easily, these people aren't doing anything a small percentage of people haven't been doing since the beginning of time. Some people can do very well with self-teaching--in fact, they thrive on it and do better than in a classroom environment--and those people have always been more inclined to seek out the textbooks, articles, manuals, documentation, whatever it is they need to learn. The Internet just makes it easier to find the information, it doesn't make it so that people who aren't wired that way can do it.

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[hedwards]

I call bullshit on everything you said.

Anybody that's capable of teaching oneself already does that. Having a vast amount of information available means that it's less likely that you'll actually learn anything as a result of information overload and an inability to filter out the crap from the stuff that's actually correct.

There is indeed an assurance involved, that's why employers take applicants with a degree from an accredited institution of higher learning over those that don't have a degree or have one from an institution which isn't accredited. Accreditation is supposed to allow for an assurance that there was at least some standards rather than a 2 week correspondence doctorate.

It doesn't matter how much quality information is out there when mixed in with bunk and unfortunately the bunk often times looks as real as the stuff which is real. Just look at all the crap which passes for medical research if you want to know what I mean.

As for your last point, that's true for all subjects I've ever looked into, there's just way too much crap out there. Economics and psychology as fields are particularly hard hit by that problem. Double checking doesn't work you have the problem of the chicken and the egg, you have to know what's right before you can double check it.

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[Hognoxious]

Your government, your protection foremost in their minds. Ignore the lobbiest.

Well said. We should focus our attention on those who are only slightly lobby, or preferably totally unlobby.

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[Hognoxious]

Which is in it's self a problem. HR is not hiring paper.

Seems sensible, if it's been written on by you.

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[Yvanhoe]

Why limit yourself to NYC ?
World list of hackerspaces

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[hedwards]

Well, to be fair, he had to choose between becoming a skilled debater and a master debater, I leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out which one he chose.

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[Kijori]

Absolutely agree. Heavy use of the internet to learn seems to me to lead to a very superficial level of learning - enough to sound knowledgeable in a soundbite, but not enough to actually understanding what you're reading about or do anything non-trivial with it. It's something that I think is very apparent on Slashdot; there are a great many posts made by people who have "learnt" about something via Wikipedia but who have completely misunderstood, or over-generalised, or misinterpreted it but who remain convinced that they are experts. It perhaps comes down to the old truism that the more you learn the more you realise how ignorant you are - and as a corollary, that when you know very little you are generally unable to tell just how little you know. A good teacher can guide your learning, because he/she has a solid general understanding of the subject area. Without one you're liable to stumble across a tail and assume that it's the entire elephant.

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[TheLink]

http://www.youtube.com/user/nptelhrd

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[cheekyjohnson]

Anybody that's capable of teaching oneself already does that.

Probably. When did I say otherwise?

Having a vast amount of information available means that it's less likely that you'll actually learn anything as a result of information overload and an inability to filter out the crap from the stuff that's actually correct.

Yes, because when I mentioned a vast amount of information I was referring to a mix of correct and incorrect information.

There is indeed an assurance involved, that's why employers take applicants with a degree from an accredited institution of higher learning over those that don't have a degree or have one from an institution which isn't accredited.

There is? That's odd. I didn't know it was 100% certain that someone with a degree knew what they were talking about! Here I thought it only increased the likelihood of that! Silly me.

It doesn't matter how much quality information is out there when mixed in with bunk and unfortunately the bunk often times looks as real as the stuff which is real. Just look at all the crap which passes for medical research if you want to know what I mean.

It does matter how much quality information is out there. Seriously, do you think I was talking about subjects that have a mix of correct and incorrect information? No. I obviously meant a situation where quality information was supplied and maintained.

Double checking doesn't work you have the problem of the chicken and the egg, you have to know what's right before you can double check it.

Maybe it doesn't filter out all incorrect information, but if an expert on the subject verifies its correctness, then I'd say there's a very good chance that it's correct. I didn't mean search google and then pull up the first website you see, it has to be credible.

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[Wonko the Sane]

Anybody that's capable of teaching oneself already does that.

That's true, but it misses the point.

Very few people are capable of teaching themselves because their ability to do so did not survive the conditioning of schooling, wherein the elimination of said ability is an explicit design characteristic of those institutions.

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[Gerzel]

Yes except some people learn in different ways and need the schooling that is provided with the expensive piece of paper.

Also the paper is a statement that the issuing organization believes you to be at a certain level of competence in the area that the paper specifies. The schooling is part of what helps them determine that as simple tests are inadequate in most cases.

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[arb phd slp]

Teaching yourself is fine, but very few people are capable of doing it properly without a lot of help.
But in general, most people lack the framework to make sense of what they're learning.

I agree with you. I think the solution to this is Problem-Based Learning. That is, allowing a specific problem that the learner faces (or has chosen to confront) to act as the framework that guides him or her into new learning. The outcomes of the learning are judged on the degree to which the learner can do something in the real world with that learning. This is perfect for the autodidacts, since classrooms, while efficient for imparting knowledge, are not very good places to assess it.
  However, an instructor still has a role in PBL to guide the student to think about problems they wouldn't otherwise have been aware of; and diplomas are indicators that the learner has been exposed to a sufficiently broad range of problems.

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[VortexCortex]

The internet isn't really a place to gain an informed opinion over things.

Yes, you are correct. Opinions should all be tossed out. Pure info is what the Internet is all about. Pick a language and a FOSS project, develop away, it's a great learning process that I've found much more "educational" than formal education.

Teach yourself C++: C++ Annotations, C++ Language Tutorial... ... or Perl: Perl programming documentation, or JavaScript,
or Java.

Just search the web, you'll find everything that any professor will ever be able to teach you online. Need guidance, clarification, or to ask a question? There are free online forums for that too... Yes, the Internet on average, much like the FM band, has more signal than noise, but similarly you can easily tune your into the signal you need.

Consider this: My Java "professor" gave an assignment where we read in rows of data from standard input, and output the table sorted by a certain column's value. He offered extra credit for proper alignment and justification of the table's cells... "WTF? Really?", I thought.

I used the Collections framework along with Swing to provide a GUI w/ sortable & justified JTable columns instead of doing character counting and sending extra spaces with the text to the standard output. He gave me a C. Another student used the Formatter to provide printf style formatting... also got a C, WTF! Go beyond the prof's teachings & expectations to meet a requirement, get a poor grade... That's dumb and counter productive.

In the real world, you try not to re-invent the wheel, this college course was not teaching practical programming; It was so far beneath what I learned already online, on Java's own website, I dropped the course (waste of time). Sure I can write a merge sort, or programatically align console text output, but that was not what the assignment said: "Provide a tabular output sorted by the 'Name' column." We learned merge sort 2 weeks prior, but the "professor" would not move on.

Not having a "degree" myself, I frequently answer questions that "Degree" holding graduates ask in online forums... Why? Because they didn't learn what they needed to know in their courses.

You would be hard pressed to find a programmer that doesn't have some form of documentation open in another window, screen, or context menu while coding. IMO, besides learning about algorithms and complexity, the language specs & online tutorials are all you really need. I find paper books pale in comparison to down-loadable, copy&paste-able free, online resources. Also note: As a programmer you will be expected to keep up to date with the ever changing languages you learn. All of these changes are easily accessible online too.

There's a lot of noise and very little quality signal to use and without having a degree to start with it's pretty much futile in terms of knowing what is and is not reliable information.

I call bullshit. See esp. the Java link above, your arguments are ill-informed, and reek of FUD. Search google for "java tutorial", or "$any_lang tutorial" and you get some pretty damn reliable, pure "signal" information about what you searched for.

Are you really arguing that Language specs & Tutorials from IBM, Microsoft, etc, and docs from a language's main website (such as http://perldoc.perl.org/

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[blahplusplus]

"If this is becoming big that's a very serious problem. The internet isn't really a place to gain an informed opinion over things."

This is incorrect, I believe the internet is a great place to teach oneself. The problem is resources are often all over the place, the real issue is searching for high quality resources and then combining them in one place. The other aspect is the quality of the language in a curriculum and how ideas are framed.

All people teach themselves stuff on their own everyday, how do you think somebody learned language? Most kids learn to speak without having to be explicitly taught. Every time you get into a car you are actually learning on the go (adapting and changing in response to your environment).

The real hard problem is that not everyone has the same potential, work ethic or quality of judgement to teach themselves.

The idea that learning doesn't take discipline is the issue. One has to have discipline and also be at the right stage of ones life (readyness).

Our whole western notion of "educating" children is often wrong, human beings have natural rhythms and cycles when they are more or less ready to be in a mature and disciplined enough state to seek and value learning. I would say most of public school and high school for many kids is totally wasted already because kids curiosity has been killed and there is too much distraction and toys (videogames, etc).

The whole idea that learning can be valued for it's own sake is flawed, since all human beings have limits on time, energy, tiredness, boredom, etc.

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[Paul Fernhout]

"Teaching yourself is fine, but very few people are capable of doing it properly without a lot of help."

Mostly due to schooling...
http://www.holtgws.com/whatisunschoolin.html
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm
http://www.thewaronkids.com/

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[lemmis_86]

You PAY money to go to school? Here in Finland the state pays us to study. We get paid almost 500 euros /month while studying at a university. Learning on your own, however, requires discipline and interest, which most people does not seem to have. If you are really interested in something you'll do great on your own, as long as you have material of high quality to study (with well formed questions and exercises). If you don't have high quality material (e.g. the internet), then you'll need a - lot - of discipline to make the most out of it.

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[vlm]

A degree used to be the difference between those who had a great work effort and not.

Behold progress... Now a degree is the difference between those (or those parents) willing to take on a staggering debt load, and those whom can't/won't.

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[Belial6]

I would say that the unable to understand it on your own to unable to understand it at all is a pretty narrow band, and the colleges are not even playing to that band. I know that I don't consider a degree less than a Masters to be worth an more than a high school diploma. And I don't think much of those.

Colleges are a REALLY good idea that has been debased into not much more than a paper mill. That includes the big name 'respected' institutions. So, for the vast majority of people, either they are intelligent enough to grasp it on their own or the college won't help. That only leaves the question of whether or not the matter of whether the information is available or not.

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[adamofgreyskull]

Diploma is slowly becoming irrelevant.

[citation needed] Maybe you're right, but this won't happen for a long long time.

Firstly, a degree from a university shows you can apply yourself for 3-5 years and have committed significant time, money and energy to improving your knowledge of your chosen subject. This commitment, and not just "the piece of paper" is why people tend to favour university graduates.
Secondly, 99% of HR positions are *not* held by people who have a university degree in your chosen field. If they have a degree, it's in something completely unrelated to the people they're hiring, so they will favour people with a degree because it's the easiest way to filter out the people who don't know what they're doing. If they start letting through everyone who has the 2 braincells required to lie on a C.V. then the managers trying to fill those positions will end up interviewing people better suited to careers that require only the ability to say "Would you like fries with that?". And if that happens, then guess who gets it in the neck for letting through unsuitable candidates? That's right: H.R. This is why any company big enough to need an HR function will probably never consider a diploma/degree completely irrelevant.

You're right of course, there are many bright, chippy young autodidacts who deserve a job, but you need knowledgeable people in place to tell them apart from the liars and the downright crazies. So you either end up with an HR department who discounts anyone without a degree, or with managers who have to wade through the raw resumé slurry themselves every time they want to hire someone. Almost all half-way houses between those two, e.g. H.R. personnel relaying the managers' questions to the candidates lead to good candidates being dropped or crappy candidates being let through.

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[hedwards]

That's interesting, I'm going to have to look into that. I'm not personally surprised that I was able to find one locally. We've got a pretty good assortment of geeks and creative folks here.

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[tivoKlr]

I've managed to teach myself the entire content of the courses I'm taking during my summer breaks and weekends.

Are you sure about the entire part? Self-taught programmers often know about 70% of the language quite well.

This is all fine and dandy until they encounter a situation where there's a simple, reliable and elegant solution to it that lies in the other 30%; they end up building an almighty kludge.

One advantage of a formal training course is that it has structure and forces you out of your comfort zone.

This described me, back when I was a self taught coder, and honestly, after I had exhausted my own ability to solve problems in my language of choice, I took a 3 day course which introduced me to the other 30% (structures, arrays, etc.). It was as if someone had opened up my other eye and I could see everything. I had no idea these concepts existed and was creating some pretty kludgey solutions to easy problems...

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[Palshife]

This. College is the absolute best place to explore targeted, interesting disciplines which you won't know about by cruising Wikipedia. If you're not getting your money's worth, you're doing it wrong.

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[Urza9814]

It's college. You pick your classes. You also pick your college. So if your education doesn't seem worth it perhaps the school isn't the problem.

Really? Out of 126 credits that I'm required to take, only about 40 of them were things I was allowed to select. And 18 of those had to be outside of my major (art classes, humanities classes, etc - things I'm not incredibly interested in as a Comp Sci major). Then I had to take some health/phys ed credits. When it comes down to it, I think there are maybe 12 or 15 credits of classes that I'm taking because I actually kinda want to take them (even those, I only had about 15 classes to choose from - there are a couple I scheduled that I"m not really interested in). Not that I haven't enjoyed some of the required courses, but I'm still, in my Junior year, re-taking classes on crap that I learned _IN HIGHSCHOOL_. Because I have to. Because I need that piece of paper to get past the HR departments. Honestly, I could have learned a _lot_ more on my own in these past three years. I learn more over the summer and over breaks than I generally do over the entire school year....taking assembly language for the second time, or my fourth introductory Java class. Or "learning" the crap that I taught myself in 7th grade.

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[Duradin]

"Out of 126 credits that I'm required to take"

There's your problem. Try some electives. Or talk to a professor about an independent study program if you think you're too cool for school.

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[Yvanhoe]

What do you think is more valuable to a company : someone spending 3-5 years to get a diploma, basically proving that he has funds to waste for knowledge available on internet, or 3-5 years of relevant experience ?

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[Urza9814]

I already counted the electives. They're part of that 126 credits. I get 3 of them I think. Unless I want to be taking 20 credits per semester just for the hell of it. Which I certainly don't have time for. But I do other things though - I'm currently holding 11 officer positions in various student groups, so that helps...I've learned more about programming and IT work in general from being involved with Amnesty International than I have from any of my classes....

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[Anonymous Coward]

And is the reason why you don't need it anymore. People are starting to pickup that self taught hard workers are more dependable then those who just laid around and got a degree. I'm not saying that all college grads are lazy, on the other hand there is no reason why a college grad cannot be fantastic, but since everyone get's a degree nowadays it's hard to tell the difference. A degree used to be the difference between those who had a great work effort and not. Those who are self taught and prove themselves in 90days tend to be a lot harder workers in the long run then 80% of the college grads who just laid around.

A little incoherent, but this is from my hiring experience.

Yeah. Education isn't that important.

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[TooMuchToDo]

I'm looking forward to the time when I can pay an extra fee for my hackerspace membership, and be able to walk into any hackerspace in the world to get access to high end equipment (through hackerspaces collaborating). I like to call it "Make Anywhere".

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[lessthan]

A diploma is easily verifiable, whereas "3-5 years of relevant experience" is not. Not that it matters, these days they ask for a diploma AND three to five years of experience.

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[SageMusings]

Thank you very much!! There are one of these practically in my back yard. That list is gold.

I dabble with microcontroller projects but am excited about meeting like-minded people. You've made my day.

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[spambucket235]

When I tell people that I am a natural autodidact they often ask what "autodidact" means.

I just tell them that an autodidact is a person who looked up the word "autodidact" in the dictionary.

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[kmoser]

Yes, but what are your programming skills like? Show us some sample code so that we may judge you and decide whether that $10k/year is necessary. All for the sake of constructive criticism, of course.

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[DurendalMac]

Because the internet is certainly a proper replacement for a classroom environment and professors with PhDs that are available to help.

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[DurendalMac]

On top of that, a lot of the self-taught people I've seen may be pretty darned good at some things in their discipline, but have little to no knowledge in other important areas that they may not encounter until they hit the workforce. The degree shows that you've at least been exposed to a more comprehensive curriculum and should have a solid base of knowledge and skills upon which to build. No, this does not represent every case. You can have lazy college assholes who muddled their way through the degree and you can have self-taught guys who were quite comprehensive in their studies, but that's the exception, not the norm.

However, most of either negative type are often weeded out in the interview process. The thing is, a degree is easily verifiable. Self-taught isn't unless you've got a lot of accomplishments and professional references under your belt. HR is more likely to pick largely grads and maybe a few self-taught guys with serious credentials, then weed out the bozos in either category with interviews.

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[nine932038]

He's also buying the opportunity to engage in networking. A lot of jobs are acquired through the social network; a lot of employment options come from word of mouth and references from friends or colleagues. If I knew then what I know now, I would've spent a lot more time talking to people in university.

He's also buying - at least, hopefully - a more well-rounded education. It's nice to get an engineering degree, but it's also nice to talk to people in other fields, especially at a university where professors and experts gambol in the quad freely.

Re:Heck

[Yvanhoe]

Yes.

Re:Heck

[Yvanhoe]

If you are member in one, being invited in other ones is easy. The kind of system you are talking about have been discussed on the mailing list but we lack a definition of "hackerspace" to make it work. That would require a control authority and we don't want that.

Re:Heck

[wrook]

No offence but different people learn differently. Especially if we're talking about something like comp sci, it's not like it requires a huge amount of insight to understand undergraduate material. Go to a book store and buy the textbooks for the courses. If you want feedback on programming, participate in open source projects - you will get better feedback there than virtually any college I know of (although it might be painful at times...)

The cool thing about the internet is that it's easy to talk to people you don't know. And, especially in comp sci, people doing interesting work are often very generous with their time. If you read somebody's paper and send an email to them asking an intelligent question, you will almost certainly get a response. Learning is up to you, not your teacher, and so there is no need to feel restricted by small things like what college you go to.

The diploma is said to be necessary to show a level of commitment to study, and to show that you have been introduced to all the basics. But for those people who are already self motivated and have an eager mind, college can be a bit of a grind.

Re:Heck

[Mongoose Disciple]

But fear not, the generation that came before you already had the same feeling and begins to fill the HR positions and to influence decision-making process. Diploma is slowly becoming irrelevant.

Sure. Just like we're the generation that isn't going to get divorced because our parents did, or 50 other nice ideas that aren't actually happening.

Re:Heck

[plcurechax]

Perhaps bluntly said, but I agree at least in part: Access to structure and assistance can be a huge benefit.

In fact, part of this story does involve access to assistance for the "students", via the Internet for asking questions. I think this part of learning is necessary. The potential issue is that taken as a whole, the Internet is a mixed bag, and not all forums are of high quality value sources for answers.

One of the most common quotes from new university or college students, is that they don't know what they want to do. So rather than make 17-18 years old pick (guess) their first / primary vocation for the rest of the life, they can self-select "streams" of learning, which are pre-packaged by people with similar inclinations into a coherent, if basic, form, outlining a background that should create opportunities that the individuals can seize for themselves as they become more experienced and more familiar with those "streams" and their associated professions.

Re:Heck

[Quirkz]

This where the "you also pick your college" aspect comes in. I was required to take 120 credits to graduate. Maybe 46 of them were in my major (which, ideally, is stuff you *want* to take). Of the rest, I had a few loose constraints (mix up some humanities, social sciences and hard science) but all of the classes were of my choosing. No phys ed requirements, no freshman basic classes. Yeah, occasionally you have to put up with an intro course in a new subject before moving up to a tougher course with more meat, but that was the worst of it. My school also let me skip past Calc I based on my simply saying I knew it and wanted to go to Calc II--the burden was on me to pass the class.

Re:Heck

[Quirkz]

One of the other risks of self-teaching is not always knowing what you don't know. I've managed to teach myself enough PHP and MySQL to get a computer game up and running successfully, but half an hour talking with a more properly trained expert in the field pointed me towards several tools and techniques I'd never heard of. It's easy to stop at "good enough" because you simply don't know if you should be looking for something better.

On the other hand maybe the lesson of the story is if you're teaching yourself you need to make sure the regimen includes conversations with people who know more than you do and who can keep nudging you toward more things to learn.

Re:Heck

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't take courses where the instructors are incapable. That was a skill MOST of my instructors in college had in spades. I can count the really good instructors I had in college on one hand. All the rest were of the form. If you can't, teach.

For you youngsters, that comes from the old unix cookie jar.
Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach. Those that can't teach, write for the Bell Labs Reporter.

Re:Heck

[Emb3rz]

without having a degree to start with it's pretty much futile in terms of knowing what is and is not reliable information.

'Cause experiments are hard, and common sense doesn't come until you get a Ph.D

A smart person is a person who knows how to learn. People stop learning when they stop trying. Anyone can be smart (save for those with severe disabilities) in a different given way, so long as they continue activating their brain to study and learn about things. That's one reason, in my opinion, that college-schooled individuals are generally seen as smarter than the rest: they have continued to learn. If the lessons stuck, they won't accept their degree as a plateau and cease learning there, even.

To your comment that implies a degree itself makes one smarter and/or is required in order to know good from bad: take it from someone who is generally recognized as very intelligent that the piece of paper and title along with it do not mean as much as the work that went into them. And trust me, you can do that work and more without ever stepping foot into a classroom.

Re:Heck

[high_rolla]

Agree completely with this. Not only that but a skilled educator can give you challenges (ie tut work and assessments) that will push you and develop your understanding further than you realise it needs to go.

I like to use the game of Mastermind as an example. It's one thing to know the rules. It's another completely to understand how you go about cracking the code. I have found this game to be a good way to show many students that they need to improve their problem solving ability and logical thinking.

First Principles

[Chelloveck]

First thing to learn: When the web site asks, "Are you at least 18 years of age?" the answer is always "Yes". All else follows from that.

Re:First Principles

[cavebison]

From the web site:

"We are overwhelmed and grateful that so many of you, all over the world, have offered to help with interacting with children over the Internet!"

Are they really that surprised?

Isn't this obvious?

[Haedrian]

No seriously. The amount of things I have learnt from researching on the internet...

Anyone who has ever tried to develop any non-trivial piece of software knows all about learning on your own by using the internet. What is the fuss all about? Because its for children instead of adults?

Re:Isn't this obvious?

[betterunixthanunix]

No seriously. The amount of things I have learnt from researching on the internet...

...probably seems like a lot, but does not actually go into as much depth as you might think. I know plenty of people who are "self taught" and can do a fine job of hacking together certain types of programs, but they generally do not have deeper insights into the theory behind what they are doing. That might be OK for developing certain classes of applications, but it is usually a disaster for a field like cryptography, and I would not trust someone who was "self taught" to develop safety critical software (think Therac-25).

Re:Isn't this obvious?

[cheekyjohnson]

but does not actually go into as much depth as you might think.

Without knowing where someone learned the information or how they learned it, how could you possibly know this?

but they generally do not have deeper insights into the theory behind what they are doing.

Some people merely aren't capable of teaching themselves and may require help.

Re:Isn't this obvious?

[betterunixthanunix]

Some people merely aren't capable of teaching themselves and may require help.

At a sufficiently advanced level, I would say that statement covers just about everyone, with the only exceptions being prodigies like Ramanujan (who are outliers even among very intelligent people). I know quite a number of people who are "taught themselves" how to program, and like I said, they are generally capable of writing programs, even highly complex programs. Where they tend to fall short are places where subtle insights are critical; for example, they may understand the basic idea behind RSA, but rarely do they understand Blum-Blum-Shub or its security proof, even after reading a lot about it.

I will admit that there is a possible alternative explanation, which is that these same people may have difficulty getting access to material that is readily available to a university student, particularly journal access. This is particularly problematic for older papers that were published before the Internet, and those papers may offer a lot of the very insights I referred to above. However, I am less confident in this explanation, mainly because a lot of the advanced material necessary just to understand a journal article often requires the same sort of subtle insights that people who did not have a good teacher often lack.

Re:Isn't this obvious?

[cheekyjohnson]

At a sufficiently advanced level, I would say that statement covers just about everyone, with the only exceptions being prodigies like Ramanujan (who are outliers even among very intelligent people).

Well, I disagree. It's certainly more than an elite few, but I understand they're a minority. We're talking about them and only them. I believe they should at least have access to the information so that they can learn in ways that suit them best.

for example, they may understand the basic idea behind RSA, but rarely do they understand Blum-Blum-Shub or its security proof, even after reading a lot about it.

If the information is there...

I will admit that there is a possible alternative explanation, which is that these same people may have difficulty getting access to material that is readily available to a university student, particularly journal access.

There are a few instances of advanced topics not being available. This is what I think needs to be corrected.

Re:Isn't this obvious?

[Cyberax]

Oh, but you know about Therac-25. And I bet you've read it on the Internet, most likely from an IEEE reprint.

So at least you know that if you're designing a piece of life-critical software, you should not do dumb things. Like actually designing. And that's the point of education.

If tomorrow someone asks me to write software for nuclear reactor control, I'd most likely spend several next years learning about formal software checking and analysis. And even then I'd insist on doing pure mechanical backups.

Re:Isn't this obvious?

[Bigjeff5]

Where they tend to fall short are places where subtle insights are critical; for example, they may understand the basic idea behind RSA, but rarely do they understand Blum-Blum-Shub or its security proof, even after reading a lot about it.

Most professionally educated programmers don't understand it or its security proof either. They may be able to give you the book definition, but if they don't work with it regularly they aren't going to understand it.

The self-taught programmer may not know Blum-Blum-Shub or its security proof, but it is only because he hasn't needed to know it yet. If he ever does need to know it, he is well practiced at learning it on his own, whereas the college educated programmer may have more difficulty, depending on how much their professors spoon-fed them. The best teachers simply ask an interesting question, and require their students to find the answer, either within the class materials or elsewhere.

There is a reason grad school requires increasing amounts of research - often a class consists of "tell me why this works" or "tell me why that doesn't work" or "explain this to me", for concepts of which the student only has a vague understanding. When you get onto a PhD track you are writing more papers than you are listening to lectures. Hell your final test for a PhD is all original research, where you ask a unique and difficult question and then answer it yourself. You get a counselor to help steer you in a good direction, but that's it. A lot of the really important stuff out there isn't in books, and if you don't know how to find it your education will stagnate.

Re:Isn't this obvious?

[hedwards]

At a sufficiently advanced level, I would say that statement covers just about everyone, with the only exceptions being prodigies like Ramanujan (who are outliers even among very intelligent people).

Well, I disagree. It's certainly more than an elite few, but I understand they're a minority. We're talking about them and only them. I believe they should at least have access to the information so that they can learn in ways that suit them best.

It's not a small minority, it's practically unheard of. It's not just reading up on the material, it's making connections to other materials and properly predicting what the rest of the material that you haven't yet seen is likely to say. And knowing how to adjust what you've already learned as new information comes into it. Even amongst individuals that are brilliant or have advanced degrees it's pretty rare for a person to legitimately be able to do that without help.

I take it you've never heard the expression: "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Because otherwise you'd understand why certain materials are hard to come by. Other than that it's also not particularly worth putting the information online as by the time you're dealing with PhD level research there's maybe a dozen people in the world that really understand the topic of the study.

Re:Isn't this obvious?

[cheekyjohnson]

It's not a small minority, it's practically unheard of.

It is? I didn't know it was such an impossible task, sorry!

It's not just reading up on the material, it's making connections to other materials and properly predicting what the rest of the material that you haven't yet seen is likely to say.

Okay. An intelligent person couldn't do that why exactly?

Even amongst individuals that are brilliant or have advanced degrees it's pretty rare for a person to legitimately be able to do that without help.

Even if you believe that, such people still exist, yes?

Because otherwise you'd understand why certain materials are hard to come by.

You must've missed my point about there having to be a sizable amount of quality information on a subject before self teaching can commence.

Other than that it's also not particularly worth putting the information online as by the time you're dealing with PhD level research there's maybe a dozen people in the world that really understand the topic of the study.

Spreading information is always worthwhile, even if it's only for a few people. I also really doubt that in a world with more than six billion people, there's only a dozen that can use such information. Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean these people don't exist or they're extremely rare (or that they exist).

Re:Isn't this obvious?

[damburger]

Software is a special case; its abnormally well documented on the Internet, and knowledge can be immediately and definitively checked on your computer. You find a piece of code on a website, it doesn't work, you find something else - fine. What happens if you read a fundamental misconception about particle physics? Are you going to verify it with your USB particle accelerator?

In my experience, an autodidact is someone whose making too much out of confirming their own beliefs.

Learning coding has *nothing* to do with looking stuff up online and *everything* to do with trying stuff out for yourself. Don't generalise from your ability to learn Python without thinking about this, or you will end up some sad loser on an Internet forum bleating on about tired light or reactionless space drives.

Re:Isn't this obvious?

[vlm]

What happens if you read a fundamental misconception about particle physics? Are you going to verify it with your USB particle accelerator?

Cross check with the rest of physics and it seems proton lifetime theoretically is now 10 ns, all conductors are superconductors at room temp, the theoretical and observed orbits of planet mercury are once again not equal, or we radiate so many gravitons we should have spiraled into the sun after a couple decades. There is a lot more to theoretical physics than expensive lab experiments.

In my experience, an autodidact is someone whose making too much out of confirming their own beliefs.

Or is someone confusing "founding their own religion/philosophy" with "doing science".

Re:Isn't this obvious?

[Belial6]

I agree and disagree. While there are exceptions being prodigies, I would say that then number of people that need to learn these advanced subjects to such a degree, and cannot self teach those subjects are just as much an exception.

Re:Isn't this obvious?

[damburger]

Woah. You couldn't be much more ignorant about physics.

Welcome to our new overlords!

[retech]

When this digresses to Lord of the Flies, just remember someone thought this was a good idea.

Re:Welcome to our new overlords!

[WrongSizeGlass]

When this digresses to Lord of the Flies, just remember someone thought this was a good idea.

Is there a self-paced course on that book available on the internet?

Fear!

[Hatta]

Autodidacts are recruiting your children on the web!

Re:Fear!

[Hognoxious]

When the pedagogues get involved then it's really time to worry.

Re:Fear!

[Velex]

I'd mod you up but there's no +1, Facepalm. The saddest part of that anecdote is that it's completely believable. The degrees we're supposed to respect the people in power for having are meaningless.

Re:Fear!

[hedwards]

Don't worry, just as long as they're not thespians. You really don't want your kids getting involved in that sort of un-Christian lifestyle.

Hacking vs. Computer Science

[betterunixthanunix]

If you just want to learn how to hack out some code, sure, you can teach yourself. I would not recommend this approach for theoretical topics in CS, except for the most basic concepts; at more advanced levels, you are really studying abstract math, and it really does help to have a teacher.

Re:Hacking vs. Computer Science

[tnovelli]

If you just want to learn how to hack out some code, sure, you can teach yourself. I would not recommend this approach for theoretical topics in CS, except for the most basic concepts; at more advanced levels, you are really studying abstract math, and it really does help to have a teacher.

Absolutely. Now can somebody tell me, how would a 12-year-old (who already knows the basics) get to the good stuff without sitting through 10 more years of basics? That's what's wrong with the schools and colleges.

For that reason, I've been mostly avoiding formal education for 20 years, sorting out the advanced stuff the hard way. Now I'm screwed. I would love to be part of a study group, with peers and mentors. Maybe I could find that in grad school, or maybe not. For $100,000 or so, I don't care to find out... I'd have to give up too many more important things. But if it ever becomes practical for me, I'll definitely give it a try.

In the meantime, yeah, Wikipedia is crap, but there are better resources. At the elementary-through-undergrad level, Khan Academy is on the right track. I'd prefer more written material than video, but at least it's fairly cohesive. It's great that kids today can turn to people like Khan when they're stuck in overcrowded classrooms where teachers are reduced to babysitting. Now if only something could be done about these schools which only waste kids' time and teach them to hate everything to do with learning!

This IS traditional education for Americans

[Alan R Light]

If you've read John Taylor Gatto's Underground History of American Education you'll know that in the 1800s the people of America were the best educated in the world, and had largely educated themselves.

Re:This IS traditional education for Americans

[Sonny Yatsen]

Can you provide a pin citation to the part of the book that supports this proposition? I really don't feel like digging through an entire book to figure out what you mentioned vaguely. Right now, it sounds more like you're trying to use your post as advertising for the book than to provide useful information.

Re:This IS traditional education for Americans

[Wonko the Sane]

I really don't feel like digging through an entire book

Clearly autodidactism is not for you.

Re:This IS traditional education for Americans

[Sonny Yatsen]

Autodidact or not, some of us have better things to spend 4 hours digging through a book merely to figure out the point someone alludes to obliquely in a Slashdot post. For the time I waste, I could be learning something far more interesting to me.

Re:This IS traditional education for Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Except Gatto uses anecdotes to prove his point. Its very sneaky and sounds really nice. But its not strong scholarship. Its in fact ideologically biased scholarship. Be careful when using Gatto as proof for a point because any decent scholar with access to JStor can debunk him (and you).

Re:This IS traditional education for Americans

[Bigjeff5]

I've read it, and autodidacticism is one of the central tenants. In particular he pays a lot of attention to George Washington's self-education, which began around age 12 or 13, if I remember right, and was in full swing by the time he was 16 (when he taught himself surveying). Likely because his formal education ended so early, Washington always felt it was lacking, which he compensated for by continuing his self-education throughout his entire life.

That the man who is arguably the greatest man in American history was self taught is astounding. Mind you he was not a prodigy. He was smart, probably above average, but he was not a natural genius or anything of the sort. In fact most of the educated elite thought he was of moderate intelligence and some had a real problem with his elevated status and position of authority given his lack of formal education.

Gatto's book is definitely worth a read if you want some insight into the public education system (at least in New York) and why it works so poorly in the US.

And I don't see what is wrong with advertising someone's book if you found it insightful. Could you please explain to me the problem? I'll hold off on telling anybody about any books that I like until you do, thanks.

Re:This IS traditional education for Americans

[Bigjeff5]

+1 Funny

Re:This IS traditional education for Americans

[skywire]

That the man who is arguably the greatest man in American history was self taught is astounding.

What makes you think that?

Re:This IS traditional education for Americans

[Belial6]

First, you are right.

Second, one problem with recommending Gatto's book, which I have seen a lot recently on Slashdot, is that it brings on the information too strong. Much of it is obviously correct. Much of it is verifiable correct. Unfortunately, it undermines most peoples basic belief system. This means that it comes across like a book that explains to fundamentalist Christians why their entire religion is a lie.

What this means is that those who would like bring down the target institutions will take the whole book as gospel irrelevant of where it is correct, and where it isn't, and those that unquestionably believe in the institution book targets will deny the whole thing, irrelevant of where it is correct, and where it isn't.

Re:This IS traditional education for Americans

[sydbarrett74]

For a more authoritative treatment of the state of education in the first half of the 19th century, you should read Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Spoiler: autodidacts who amounted to anything were relatively rare, and the vast majority of Americans were ignorant rubes just like they are now. Plus ça change, and all that....

First things first

[cdrguru]

The problem in the USA today isn't a lack of quality teaching and quality schools or even a lack of quality curriculum. It is an attitude that doing well in school is for social outcast nerds and to be cool you have to ignore school and learning in general.

This is popularized by the hip-hop culture as well as other aspects of the currrent pop culture.

Contrast this with Asian children that are expected - no, required - to do well in school by their parents. Who is in the top of nearly all technology-oriented university programs? Asians. Why? Because they are getting the grades and it counts. Both for just "learning stuff" and getting a job later.

We can continue with a culture that will obviously lead to a nation like Idiocracy. Or we can change things. Feel-good programs where everyone gets a prize and self-directed learning isn't going to make the kind of change that is needed.

Re:First things first

[cheekyjohnson]

The problem in the USA today isn't a lack of quality teaching and quality schools or even a lack of quality curriculum.

This, too. I feel that schools need to focus more on what you actually need (in high school), and not on things that they merely think you'll need in the future. Instead of making you attend a bunch of classes that you won't need for your desired profession, they should (again, in high school) let you choose the classes that matter to you. Early on you can be taught the absolute basics. Forcing them to attend classes of every subject isn't helping them because you forget things that you don't need surprisingly quickly, and you'd have to relearn it anyway. Not only that, but people would likely be able to put more effort into subjects that actually matter to them.

Feel-good programs where everyone gets a prize and self-directed learning isn't going to make the kind of change that is needed.

Maybe not, but it will allow people who are capable of teaching themselves to do just that. More options are always nice, even if those options don't suit everyone.

Re:First things first

[cvnautilus]

"Feel-good programs where everyone gets a prize and self-directed learning isn't going to make the kind of change that is needed." Exactly. High school in the US is much to easy to graduate. I will never understand how some people managed to get diplomas, and yet still know essentially nothing about the world around them.

Re:First things first

[Archangel Michael]

The problem in the USA today isn't a lack of quality teaching and quality schools or even a lack of quality curriculum. It is an attitude that doing well in school is for social outcast nerds and to be cool you have to ignore school and learning in general.

It most certainly is the teaching quality. I work in education, and while there are quite a few good and excellent teachers there, there are plenty of teachers that shouldn't be. It is like dodging raindrops.

The current system also a system designed for Industrial age, and not the current post industrial age. We teach things in a manner which preps kids to be factory automatons rather than self organizing information age data processors. Mr Mitra has stumbled upon a new method for preparing kids to be functional adults in the post industrial information age. I've been touting his methods ever since I first saw his presentation.

The attitudes of kids you describe is also rampant. But it isn't helped by requiring those kids be in classrooms to disrupt the kids that want to be there. I've seen classrooms where the teacher spends 1/2 of their time dealing with kids who don't want to be there. Which is completely unfair to everyone involved.

Then there are the parents that think the world is out to get their kids and everything is everyone else's fault not theirs or their kids. Or parents who just don't care. Or no parents to speak of at all (only professional daycare providers).

Suffice it to say, the problems with modern educational system can be spread around to a myriad of places. We just don't have the guts to do anything about the problems as they exist for fear of hurting someone's feelings or fear of breaking the status quo.

Re:First things first

[locketine]

I agree that our pop culture needs some fine tuning but Mitra's work is exploiting a child's natural inquisitiveness and creativity, which largely sidesteps the anti-intelligence culture. The kids want to learn and his program gives them a loosely structured environment so that they can do just that but under their own volition. Most of the world's education systems fail to motivate students to learn and many don't even try. Kids just go to school because they have to, and not because they'll learn something cool or interesting that will help them later.

I suggest watching some of Mitra's presentations as it will become quite evident that he has started to transform education into a game where the goal isn't to learn but rather the path to winning the game is to learn.

Re:First things first

[blahplusplus]

"The problem in the USA today isn't a lack of quality teaching and quality schools or even a lack of quality curriculum."

The real problem is the whole idea of school, the idea that you can just throw kids randomly into a prison like system and get them to sit still and "learn" is totally flawed from the outset.

Schools by their very nature KILL CURIOSITY. I think most slashdotters can attest to the fact that school and learning has to be approached from ones own innate curiousness about things and can't be brow beaten into ones head without severe damage.

Re:First things first

[shiftless]

The problem in the USA today isn't a lack of quality teaching and quality schools or even a lack of quality curriculum. It is an attitude that doing well in school is for social outcast nerds and to be cool you have to ignore school and learning in general.

Really? And where in the USA is this attitude prevalent? I hear so much about this, but it's not really true from my experience growing up in Alabama. The difference between the smart kids who were popular and those who were social outcasts was nothing more than social skills, or the lack thereof. There were a number of popular kids at our school who had excellent grades and academic achievements and they were respected by all for this. It sounds to me more like you were one of the unpopular ones, and this has colored your experiences and ideas of society's expectations. The fact is intelligence is a big positive factor for anyone, but social awkwardness is not. Not that I like this situation any more than you, but it's fact and there is a good (evolutionary) reason for it, considering how important society is to human survival and evolution.

Re:First things first

[YttriumOxide]

This stereotype buys into the propaganda that the Asian countries want you to believe. Good job. Anyone that has actually worked with Asians knows they're nothing special. They often lack creative thought. They cheat, steal, lie, whatever, then act clueless about it when you call them on it.

While the parent most certainly is a troll, it does disturbingly raise what seems to be one valid point from my point of view. I am a programmer at a large multinational with our HQ in Japan. Our Japanese programming colleagues, while "technically" very good programmers (can write code that a university professor would praise for following some random formal style guide that he approved of), are in fact absolutely hopeless at creating good software.
The code is well laid out, but the functions given have almost no thought put in to them beyond what the spec said. For example, the spec says "must do x, y, z" and "must work with equipment a, b, c" - so they do EXACTLY that...
Despite that function "q" and equipment "d" would be trivial to implement, they don't.
Despite that they could make function "x" look and feel the same across equipment "a", "b" and "c", instead it looks and feels different for each because internally the code is different so they make the UI around it match the internal structures instead of keeping it the same across the three to make it easier for the user.
In short, it's crap design.

On top of that, the code is often a mess when it comes to pointless cruft. They'll create things like a structure that contains a single bool, then always use this structure instead of a plain bool. Or worse, two DIFFERENT structures that each only contain a bool, and then spend time "casting" from one of these structures to the other. You might think they're planning on some kind of future expansion to these structures, but they never do.
All of this, I have decided stems from a complete inability to be creative.
They're great code monkeys, but no-one should make the mistake of confusing them with real developers.

This is purely anecdotal. I'm sure there are some great programmers from that part of the world. But in my company at least, I'm less than impressed with them. Especially since they're the "up stream" developers from myself and I find myself helping them more than the other way around...

Re:First things first

[vlm]

while "technically" very good programmers (can write code that a university professor would praise for following some random formal style guide that he approved of), are in fact absolutely hopeless at creating good software.

Most people in the "debate" have no idea what the difference is between education and training, constantly confuse the two, and very loudly claim to all that both concepts are synonyms for the exact same activity and therefore must be tested the same way and result in the same life impact. Going thru life confused and trying to drag everyone else down with them like a bunch of crabs in a pot.

Your accurate and very long post seems to summarize to: they have a cultural predisposition to ending up as extremely gifted technicians, yet utterly uneducated.

Re:First things first

[hedwards]

Indeed. Which is one of the reasons to have a few alternative schools in the district. When I went to college, I wasn't really digging the traditional college system and so I ended up at one which focused more on self directed learning and developing minds so that they could continue to learn indefinitely without school

Re:First things first

[Belial6]

I would ask the opposite question. Which one doesn't. Here is how you can find tell which schools focus on being smart. Just look at the sign that sits in front of the school with it's name on it. Does it also have the schools sport's team name on it? Or, does it have the name of the Science club on it? Then also look at the amount of land that the school dedicates to the various subjects. How much land does your local school dedicate to Science, Language, Mathmatics, and Physical Education. While, no doubt in big cities where land is EXTREMELY expensive, this will be different, but outside of that situation, 100% of the public schools I have seen across the country have placed Physical Education (sports) as the number one priority of the school.

To more directly answer your question, California for one. I have a hard time believieving California is unique in this, as I hear the exact same story from people all over the country.

Re:First things first

[trytoguess]

They sound like the quintessential examples of folks who have a lot of book learning, but virtually no practical experience applying that knowledge. I'm guessing they were the type of students who only studied, and expected to gain the necessary experiences in the workplace. It doesn't help that the Asian education and social system encourages that mindset until one hits college. At least that's my own experience as a Korean American.

Re:First things first

[YttriumOxide]

Thankyou for summing up my post so concisely... I do have a habit of rambling sorry!

Basically you hit the nail on the head regarding "education" vs "training". I would however take it a step further and say that for creative endeavours (such as software development) one also requires varying degrees of inter-disciplinary education.

In the realm of software development:
The "training" provides knowledge of "how to put the code together".
The "education" provides the ability to put the code together in ways that make sense.
The "inter-disciplinary education" provides the ability to put the code together in ways that make sense to the intended target, provides for future expandability, makes the code easy to document, and much more.

You may however simply have included this in your concept of "education" in general.

Regarding the "cultural predisposition" - I didn't want to go this far, since I really only have my anecdote to work with. It's commonly said that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data", however I tend to disagree with this (one million anecdotes from a population of 5 million most certainly IS data!); so if you have a greater deal of experience with this in more than just one or two isolated cases, I'll definitely consider it may be cultural.

Re:First things first

[YttriumOxide]

They sound like the quintessential examples of folks who have a lot of book learning, but virtually no practical experience applying that knowledge. I'm guessing they were the type of students who only studied, and expected to gain the necessary experiences in the workplace. It doesn't help that the Asian education and social system encourages that mindset until one hits college. At least that's my own experience as a Korean American.

May I ask if your education was in Korea or America? Or did you get to experience both?

I'd be interested to know about some of the specifics that cause this kind of mindset.

A bit offtopic but I'm about to become a father, and I very strongly want my daughter to be a good self-learner (with strong critical thinking - I don't even want to blindly accept what *I* say as being true without verifying it herself) and will steer her as much as possible in this direction - by knowing the other side of the coin, it'd be good to know what I should try to avoid doing.

Re:First things first

[Maria D]

How did schools get into this conversation on learning?

Re:First things first

[wrook]

The problem in the USA today isn't a lack of quality teaching and quality schools or even a lack of quality curriculum. It is an attitude that doing well in school is for social outcast nerds and to be cool you have to ignore school and learning in general.

It most certainly is the teaching quality. I work in education, and while there are quite a few good and excellent teachers there, there are plenty of teachers that shouldn't be. It is like dodging raindrops.

I also work in education after having previously been a programmer. The problem is that teaching is really, really hard. And it's really, really easy to convince yourself, as a teacher, that the lack of progress you are making is due to the shortfalls of your students. When I worked as a programmer, I would often run into people who shouldn't be programming. So I don't think that lack of ability to do your job is unique to teaching.

But what I found in programming was that usually start ups had a higher percentage of programmers who could code. This is because start ups can't afford any dead wood. If you hire 4 programmers and 2 of them are complete shit, you run out of money very quickly -- natural selection. Not only that, but the pressures in the start up cause the good programmers to complain about the bad programmers. You *have* to deliver in May and this idiot is in your way. Problems come to the surface very quickly. But in large organizations, it is very easy to be polite and to not make waves. Even if you know your colleague is shit, it's not like you are going to say anything. Seriously, who tries to get their co-workers fired?

Schools don't close when the teachers are bad. Schools are big. Schools are stable places of employment. Schools are full of politics that have nothing to do with teaching. If you wanted to make sure that your teachers are all good, a school is probably not a good place to be. It is precisely the kind of place that attracts people who want a stable career where they can hide away with out too much scrutiny. Personally, I can't see how to make progressive changes that would work in the general case.

Re:First things first

[trytoguess]

May I ask if your education was in Korea or America? Or did you get to experience both?

I attended one year of elementary school in Korea before coming to NYC at age six. Also, while living here, my parents sent me to a Korean American church which had Saturday classes that focused on teaching the Korean language. The whole thing was run by an ex-Korean teacher.

I'd be interested to know about some of the specifics that cause this kind of mindset.

Well, if I had to guess, ancient China had an imperial examination which in theory allowed any man to become a civil servant. This system, which was adopted by various neighboring countries including Korea, was focused on testing memorization and comprehension of various materials. This (technically) meritocratic system created a cultural mindset that education was the key to success, but it also made people equate education with sitting down and reading textbooks. So, even when the schools modernized the emphasis on book learning remained.

A bit offtopic but I'm about to become a father, and I very strongly want my daughter to be a good self-learner (with strong critical thinking - I don't even want to blindly accept what *I* say as being true without verifying it herself) and will steer her as much as possible in this direction - by knowing the other side of the coin, it'd be good to know what I should try to avoid doing.

Well, the only thing that motivated me to be a good learner (self or otherwise) was the stereotypical mindset that education is a good thing, plus horror stories of how various family members (including my parents) managed to escape poverty through hard work, education, and chutzpah. As one might guess, it didn't do much motivation. Though to be honest, it did work on others.

Re:First things first

[shiftless]

Bro, it's not sports vs. education. If the school has brand new bleachers and gym and the science lab is falling apart, then OK, that's one thing. But don't frame it as sports vs. education because that's nonsense. Sports may not be important to you but it IS important to a lot of people, and not for bullshit reasons. Look at the Greeks--Athenians, etc. They developed democracy and lots of thinking and philosophy, but physical achievement, competition, and improvement of one's body was important to them too. It's for a good reason.

How much space does it take to play football, and run all the supporting programs, cheerleading, band (**), etc vs. how much room does it take to teach physics? How much does it cost to play football vs teach physics, and how much cash flow does each activity bring into the school, respectively, which can be spent on many different needs? Comparing the size of facilities dedicated to each is a non starter and hardly supports your argument that all people care about is sports. Sure, that's true for SOME people, but that's hardly the majority.

Your argument is that people look down on those who are smart. This is patently untrue, easy to prove as false, and if you disagree it's simply because your own personal experience (and the experiences of those you relate to, which are likely to be similar to yours) is highly colored.

A lot of people ENVY those who are smart...just like a lot of people ENVY those who are popular, good at sports, etc. Intelligent people who envy popularity often take the position that popularity is evil and only intelligence is worthwhile. Social people who envy intelligence might take the position that intelligence is bad and only popularity is important. See a pattern here?

When we are talking about what "people" value, understand that people = society. Human society is built on SOCIALIZATION. If you're good at socialization, then of course you'll be popular in society, whether smart or stupid. If you're not social, then you won't be popular, whether smart or stupid. But if you are smart AND social, you're headed straight to the top.

The funny thing is, intelligence can't be learned, but social skills CAN be learned by anyone who is not mentally retarded. So if a nerd thinks he is looked down on for his intelligence, it is due to gross ignorance of how the world works/failure to put forth the effort to improve himself, and nothing more. The only person who has any legitimacy in bitching about his situation is the stereotypical dumb jock who knows that football is all he's got. If he's picking on nerds that's because he's insecure about himself, not because "society" dislikes intelligence.

** stands on its own of course, but extra band members are needed to support a football program.

Re:First things first

[Belial6]

Given that virtually every school in the nation says that they do not have enough money, yes it is about sports vs. education. When there isn't enough money, and you have to choose, you have to choose.

Claiming that having a billion dollar sports facility and a 10k or 100k science facility certainly shows the attitude that a school has concerning intelligence vs. entertainment.

The sign in the front of most schools shows our societal values. You can claim that it isn't so all you want, but the advertising the schools do, the budgets that schools run are in direct contradiction to what you claim. The ratio of good civics teachers who are assigned to be gym teachers (and are crappy at it) to round out their schedule vs. good coaches who are assigned to be civics teachers (and are crappy at it) to round out their schedule also contradicts your statements.

Taught myself computers this way

[Stele]

I was in 5th grade and our school had just gotten a TRS-80, the first computer I ever saw. Nobody in the school knew what to do with it - it just sat in the library. I and another kid in my class had reputations for being smart and inquisitive - the principal actually brought me broken radios and tape players and things to take apart.

Anyway, the school would send me and the other kid to the library once a day while the class did other stuff, and we taught ourselves to program the computer together, figuring out how to get the tape player working, storing our programs, etc.

That set me up for the rest of my life. In 10th grade (1986-7) I taught myself C while the rest of the class learned Pascal. By the time I got to college I knew more about programming than most of the professors.

Dropped out in 1992 and the rest is history.

I am grateful to the school system I was in (SW Virginia no less) to encourage and support my interest in such gadgetry, and to have the opportunity to learn things at my own pace. It works when done right.

Re:Taught myself computers this way

[Eil]

I think it's great that you were actively encouraged by your school's faculty to learn about things that you were interested in at an early age. There should be more of this. Understand, however, that your case is the extremely rare exception. The high school that I attended had computers, but it was always made very clear that they were only to be used under direct adult supervision and only for completing assignments in class. That meant no games, no programming, no tinkering of any sort. The computers weren't even networked to each other, let alone the Internet. The only satisfaction I ever got out of my high school computer classes was that after a while, my classmates started asking me for help when stuck on something, even when the teacher was standing right there.

American public schools are quite deliberately modeled after automobile assembly lines. Get the kids in, slap a minimum amount of knowledge on them, and get them out the door. In order for a student to really learn anything, they have to take the initiative do self-directed study on their own time. (Or hire a tutor, but that's not usually a realistic option for low- to middle-income families.)

Re:Taught myself computers this way

[cavebison]

Ha, yes I'm the same. When I was 12 my brother, who worked for IBM at the time, brought home an IBM 5120. Back then, computers were rocket science and I felt like a mad scientist playing with it, copying code for the old text-based games Star Trader and Star Trek. It was awe-inspiring, engaging, space-age. Keyboards were made of hewn stone. It felt important. My first home computer was also a TRS-80. Now I freelance writing commercial web apps, completely self taught.

But yeah, kids can learn anything if they're really interested in it. I think inspiring them is just as important as giving them the material and the freedom to learn.

But I think being inspired comes both from natural inclination and interaction with a teacher. You cannot replace the teacher. Too many times I've heard people talk about "the amazing art/science/math/history teacher they had" and I think that's very special. You won't get that over Skype.

I think trying to distance-teach kids (when it's not the only option) is disgusting and asking for trouble down the track. We will soon have a population of 7 Billion and somehow we can't manage to have enough teachers for small classrooms making kids feel special. It's pathetic. It's inexcusable. It's inhumane.

who's qualified?

[Alan R Light]

Teaching yourself is fine, but very few people are capable of doing it properly without a lot of help.

We're naturally talking about people who are capable of doing so.

Apparently "people who are capable of doing so" includes slum kids in India. That may still exclude many, but it's more than "very few".

Re:who's qualified?

[WrongSizeGlass]

Being able to 'teach yourself' is one of those 'x-factors'. You either have it or you don't. Even if there is a very very small percentage of the population who are capable we're still talking about millions of individuals.

Those who are capable and motivated will persist and succeed.

Re:who's qualified?

[hedwards]

There's literally tens of millions of geniuses out there, but we generally agree that there's very few geniuses out there. Other wise it wouldn't be considered special when one comes into contact with one.

Apart from the bigotry of your implication that this should be less common in the slums of India, you haven't got a particularly strong point.

Anybody can teach oneself checkers, or chess for that matter, they aren't likely to be able to become a chess grandmaster by self education, but it could happen.

As you get higher up in terms of the sophistication that's required, the number of people that are capable of teaching themselves a task goes down, by the time you hit college, I'd venture only a very small portion of the population is really able to do that as well as a decent college can. And by the time you hit masters or PhD level work, you can pretty much forget about being able to do it without being a genius.

The implication from the article is that it's something special, as in more so than what people normally can do.

Re:who's qualified?

[HungryHobo]

Hell yes.
I know 2 or 3 people like this.

One of them is a college dropout who works all hours.
He's one of those busy people, you know the ones, from the saying "if you need something done give it to someone who's busy"

I mentioned 1 way hashes to him over a pint when we were chatting about a problem he was having in work to do with checking for duplicate details without violating data protection.
A few weeks later I chat to him and he's educated himself about hash functions beyond what would be covered in a CS degree.

I sat down with him one afternoon and went through the basics of how to write a simple "hello world" program and compile it and how to do simple loops.
just enough to get past the "where do I start" bit with coding.
6 months later he's writing applications for his office.

I mentioned data structures and various search algortihms to him when he was talking about how his code was always far far slower than the professional coders stuff.
I fully expect him to find out next time I talk to him that he's gone off and educated himself about datastructures and algorithms beyond what a normal cs course covers.

He'll go far in life... or, considering the workload he takes on, go nuts.... but probably go far in life.
He has the tallent and drive to educate himself while working 2 jobs and isn't afraid of learning.

Re:who's qualified?

[Wonko the Sane]

Being able to 'teach yourself' is one of those 'x-factors'.

Being able to "teach yourself" is normal. That's what human beings evolved to do and children start doing it from day 1 of life.

The reason you believe this skill is so rare is because modern educational methods were specifically designed to inhibit this natural ability. See John Taylor Gatto's book linked else where in the thread.

Re:who's qualified?

[mfnickster]

Being able to 'teach yourself' is one of those 'x-factors'. You either have it or you don't.

Anyone can do it - in fact I'm writing a book to tell you how, it's called "Teach Yourself Autodidactism."

Re:who's qualified?

[WrongSizeGlass]

Anyone can do it - in fact I'm writing a book to tell you how, it's called "Teach Yourself Autodidactism."

I find you ideas interesting and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:who's qualified?

[cheesewire]

In this scenario we have a learner [your friend], some content [programming], and a more knowledgable peer/teacher [you]. Your friend (by the sounds of it) is a very motivated and capable learner, but we still have a 'teacher'-entity in the equation.

Re:who's qualified?

[HungryHobo]

It's more the aspect of knowing that there's something there to find out.
unless you know what hash functions are it's hard to know such things exist.
If you've never heard of abstract data types it's hard to jump from slow code to know what to look for.

you could ask "My code is slow, why" but unless you know what to look for there's a lot of possible answers.

He actually didn't do well in college though he was doing chemistry rather than CS, the structure and boredom got to him.

Re:who's qualified?

[HungryHobo]

I've worked as a demonstrator and tutor a lot and I'd barelly class what I tell my friend teaching.
Teaching would be sitting down with someone for an hour and going through the material they're struggling with.
They know what they have to learn, they know where to get it but just can't understand it.

this is more like telling someone of the existance of an area of study and coming back to find they've taught most of the damn thing to themselves while you weren't looking.

Re:who's qualified?

[HungryHobo]

no no, he knows too much about their dirty laundry now.

Re:who's qualified?

[plcurechax]

I've worked as a demonstrator and tutor a lot and I'd barelly class what I tell my friend teaching.

I would say you are teaching your friend, but you are not lecturing (or "hand-holding" / "spoon-feeding") him, since he is an adult (I assume).

It's that you are acting more as a mentor, than a lecturer which is different than the majority of formal education, but that doesn't make you any less of a teacher.

Drawing up a plain language version of a CS degree program (complete with possible electives) for your friend might be a helpful way to also help your friend, Map out what topics he has 'yet' to learn, so he at least knowns what he knowns versus the entire domain of knowledge (which he can learn as needed, as time permits).

And best of luck to your friend.

TED talk by Sugata Mitra

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/lang/eng/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html

Asians also cheat / do group work a lot in schools

[Joe The Dragon]

Asians also cheat / do group work on stuff that they should being doing on there own a lot in schools.

OMFG!eleventy-whatever

[TDyl]

I'd never have guessed that children could educate themselves, I was always under the impression that whichever book I read as a school-kid would only entertain me not educate me; how I missed out on so much. ;(

It does strike me that so much education is now based on parents or teachers beliefs and requirements rather than trying to give our kids an un-biased, stable view of history and science (as well as a damn good grounding in English spelling and grammar). All too often I see the politicians in the UK messing with the curriculum and tweaking things to get the best results, when all, in effect, they are doing is creating university entrants with biased positions on history and science, kids not knowing exactly what is is they excel in and a generation (after generation et. cetera) that is dominated by belief rather than proof.

I have no problem with any of the education I had in the 60's and early 70's as that was a full, unbiased and rounded education with no crap from religious groups or politico's trying to score points from voters; because of that I know I had a decent education, even though a lot has been re-written with new discoveries in archaeology and the disparate sciences.

Sorry.

Re:OMFG!eleventy-whatever

[noidentity]

I'd never have guessed that children could educate themselves, I was always under the impression that whichever book I read as a school-kid would only entertain me not educate me; how I missed out on so much

Next you'll be telling me that newborn babies can actually learn things without being taght, things like language and how basic physics work. Yeah right...

Re:OMFG!eleventy-whatever

[TDyl]

I'm not sure of the differences between UK and US (or maybe Canadian) ed systems, but even at an earlier age than starting primary school in the 60's I was on the head-mistresses "advanced reading group" and was educating myself through reading.

Your comment about babies is disengenuous and insulting to those of us that know how to read and assimilate that information - albeit that the books we were reading were slightly more basic than "Janet & John Discover the Nature of Black Holes and form a coherent theory of Everything".

Re:OMFG!eleventy-whatever

[noidentity]

I figured my sarcasm was evident previously. Babies are amazing sponges of everything around them, far more than they will ever be when older. If anything, I think we vastly short-change them, due to our feeling that we're adults and always know better.

Re:OMFG!eleventy-whatever

[hedwards]

In the US system, they give kids tests really freaking early, like at age 6 or 7 and then based on the results will segregate the kids that are expected to do well from those that get the standard treatment. The problem is that a lot of kids are still developing at that age, and it gives an advantage to early learners at the expense of those that take a couple years to get there. That wouldn't be so bad if there were actual evidence to back the premise that early learners do better later on.

The unfortunate consequence is that if you're not fortunate enough to do well on those tests you're largely left to languish and there's little chance of getting into the programs later as the basic education lacks the rigor to allow for that.

And with the increasing focus on giving more and more homework combined with the crushing load of extra curricular activities which is being encouraged so that kids can get into college, I suspect that learning on ones own is going to be going the way of the dodo in the near future.

Personally, very little of what I know came from school up till college. Then I had to bust my ass to catch up on all the things that the primary system was supposed to teach, but didn't.

Maybe not?

[DaMattster]

While autodidacticism is a great idea, learning from the internet is not necessarily a great idea because data on the internet can be replete with factual errors or even information designed to be biased towards one point of view. Wikipedia comes up against this problem quite often. You don't want a sixth or seventh stumbling on some web pages proclaiming that the holocaust was a myth and then believing that to be true. My point is that, while self education is a good idea, it does need guidance so that information learned is accurate and we are not learning to hatred.

Everything you need to know is a Google away.

[cvnautilus]

"On their own, children can get about 30% of the knowledge required to pass exams..." Only 30%? These kids must really suck at Googling. It's kind of terrifying to imagine public schools instilling hatred of learning using the internet, like they've taught hatred of other kinds of learning.

That would be me.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm 17 and I've been doing this since I left public school in third grade. So I think I'm pretty qualified to say that, in fact, self-directed learning almost purely via the internet Actually Works. I'm familiar with calculus and a multitude of fun areas in abstract algebra, have taught myself to fluency in several programming languages, have built a 3D game from the ground up, and --as far as I can tell-- have a much broader general range of knowledge than almost everyone I talk to. Two years ago I taught myself the basics of modern cryptography and successfully explained Diffie-Hellman key exchange to a group of 12-year-olds. I've won debates with political science professors on the importance of WikiLeaks. And I got high-fived the other day by somebody I've never met because he overheard me working linguistic relativity into ordinary conversation. Pretty much everything I know I've learned from Wikipedia, specialty websites and comment threads on various blogs (including but not limited to Slashdot, thankfully).

There's a lot of information out there just waiting for ready minds to come find it.

Re:That would be me.

[nbauman]

When I was in high school, my math teachers sucked, so I knocked off the high school and college textbooks up to calculus and differential equations and learned quite a bit more on my own.

I ran into problems. An autodidact has no way of evaluating his own knowledge. How do you know you're as smart as you think you are? You have no teacher to tell you whether you understand it, whether you've studied enough of it, or whether you're misunderstanding it.

You're rowing hard, but you have no compass. An autodidact has no way of knowing what's important to learn. He has no way of knowing what direction to move in. I spent lots of time trying to understand math textbooks that I couldn't get through, sometimes because (I found out later) that it would have been impossible to understand them without certain prior background. Some books on analytics that I found in the library were very important for very specialized engineering applications, but if you weren't, say, designing industrial turbines (interesting though that might be), you wouldn't have any use for it and you could have spent the time on something more useful.

A PhD adviser warned his students that one way to fail out of grad school is to read things because they're interesting. You have to read things because they're going to help you in your research.

Even seeing an adviser once a week, or once a month, can make all the difference in the world. You're seeing things close up. A good adviser sees the whole world that you're boring through, and sees where you're going (or not going).

Of course, if you're like those Russians who are studying mathematics purely out of intellectual curiosity, and can be happy being a well-educated cab driver, you can just follow your curiosity. But in my experience, following your curiosity is great for a year or two, but then you wind up in the middle of a maze and no place to go.

BA in misplaced modifiers?

[Hognoxious]

Even with a degree I run into a fair number of people who don't understand more than just the basics of what was taught

I'm not sure why the fact that you have a degree should affect what other people understand.

Re:Asians also cheat / do group work a lot in scho

[Bigjeff5]

Ah, so that's why they can come to the US and outperform their native schoolmates, even though they don't yet have a firm grasp on the language!

It explains everything!

Oh wait, no it doesn't.

If that were the problem, then the US wouldn't rank 40+ countries behind the Asian countries. They must have an inferior education, even though they obviously know a lot more, because they didn't do it on their own!

Did you ever think that perhaps doing group work may be more beneficial than doing solo work?

Kids are autodidacts by definition...

[crovira]

All you can do is to ensure that there is enough material and of a diverse enough nature that they get exposed to a wide variety of subjects/topics and then can dive into what ever interests them.

My parents didn't have an internet but we did have a library at home and access to a public library.

They fostered curiosity, inquisitiveness and risk evaluation (should I or shouldn't I?) by example.

NO KNOWLEDGE IS BAD, BUT HAVING NO KNOWLEDGE IS BAD.

The end result is that I am sitting here in my home-office on my duff while most of my friends growing up are unemployed or stuck in dead-end thankless jobs just waiting for the next round of pay cuts, or dead.

Both of my parents are dead now but none of us were prepared for Bush and the idiocy of letting the fools at the bank take risks like they did on financial instruments like derivatives.

By the rule of 72, (72 divided by the real percentage of interest that I can get for my savings) it now takes 36 years for the value of my assets to double (longer than I've got left to live statistically,) so what I've got now is all I'll ever have, and I still have to live, eat and pay NJ real-estate taxes. (This last item means I'm not going to make it and will have to sell at some point, hopefully not before the new WTC complex across the river is up which would raise my condo's value...)

Life fast, die young and leave a good looking corpse... I'm nought for three unfortunately.

Pass Exams?

[tomhath]

On their own, children can get about 30% of the knowledge required to pass exams

This quote is very telling. Education isn't (or at least shouldn't be) focused on passing the exam. It should teach students how to think on their own, how to recognize and solve problems they've ever seen before.

So much today is oriented toward answering the test or interview questions. I see many programmers who are experts in a particular IDE and programming language, but who are helpless once they get outside that specific tool set. These people tend to be terrible designers as well, they simply can't go someplace where they don't have the answer memorized.

Taught how to learn

[AllWorkAndNoPlay]

The biggest advantage I see to teaching oneself is the ability to do the exercises and research necessary to learn the content in a way that stimulates the individual. So much of the reason school can be boring and "uncool" is because teacher-generated assignments of repetitive activities don't take into account how an individual child needs to learn to be effective. Using the internet without any direction will probably lead to a lot of misguided, over-opinionated kids, but using some internet coursework repository as your basis seems like the way to go.

A few pointers for self-learning

[presidenteloco]

When you are ready, study the more formal parts of modern philosophy
(epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science), to acquire the
meta-level skills necessary to understand what knowledge is, and what
its properties are, before you try to load up on too much specific knowledge.

Also, study some westernized writings on Zen philosophy, to the level at which you
understand its relationship to the other above-mentioned aspects of modern
philosophy. When you understand the significance of the dividing of the world
by the cutting strokes of the knife, you may be ready to start learning a few specifics.

Re:A few pointers for self-learning

[The_mad_linguist]

Philosophers are not entirely trustworthy.

After all, was it not a philosopher who claimed the ideal government was that of a philosopher-king?

Re:A few pointers for self-learning

[Fallingcow]

How is that not true?

I mean hell, it's pretty much a tautology. "The best system of government is one run by a person who is best at running governments". Even Socrates/Plato didn't consider it practical, and later created a more realistic framework for good governance.

Besides, "arguing" with the philosophers is a big part of how reading them teaches one to think. Of course you'll be wrong more often than not, but after reading a few and reading some commentary that points out the actual errors or weak spots, you'll eventually be able to tear apart political columns, spot poor premises or incomplete accounting for actors in grad-level papers almost effortlessly, and maybe even catch quite a few errors in older philosophy texts that you didn't read the first time through.

Being wrong sometimes is part of why they're instructive.

ABSOLUTELY

[b4upoo]

Free education is promising and should be extant in the US already. It can replace schools completely with a few exceptions and that includes colleges. Part of the problem is that once this catches on single parent and poor families will be angry as there is no one at home to supervise their kids and a computer and electric and phone service may not be in place as bills often go unpaid. For example think not only of not supporting buildings and school buses but also the concept that a single eighth grade history teacher can cover the entire nation so salaried for teachers and staff can also be eliminated.
                The second problem will be in settings standards and making sure that diplomas are completely recognized.
                And the third, shocking, huge, highly political issue is what do we do with the millions of displaced teachers, staff and educational supportive industry employees who are no longer needed? Technology will also eliminate the higher professions in the near future. Soup anyone?

As an Autodidact...

[l0ungeb0y]

I would recommend keeping the kids offline as much as possible. Wikipedia and Google can lead you to a wealth of information, but the distractions online are endless. Also, the information on most sites is questionable. Besides, the library will have many kid activities that helps socialise them with others which is just as helpful as the books they have in helping shape your child's mind. So while the internet is a tool, it should be kept as a secondary utility for watching informative how-to videos on youtube and getting cliff-notes from wikipedia and other sites.

So here's what to do: Get your kid to the library, provide them a library card and let them go to the library whenever they want.
Here's what not to do: DO NOT FORCE them to go, DO NOT give them assignments, DO NOT make yourself a part of it

If you want to assist them or steer them towards self-education fine, but do it by LISTENING to them when they choose to talk to you, then ASKING them intelligent questions about what they are talking about. Try to get them to run out of answers about what they talking about so they are hungry to learn more FOR THEIR own edification. But, take it no further. Structuring it, controlling it or tampering with it in any way takes the "self" part and throws it right out the window and will likely kill whatever interest your kid has in it because now you're a part of it and their freedom is diminished. When the parent becomes directly involved, no matter how good the intention, what was once a fun hobby for the kid can quickly become yet another form of "school" or chore.

Also, their interests may come and go or change entirely, I know they did for me. Entire subjects would change after I exhausted them or they became boring. Sometimes entire months would go by where I would only read fiction and play with friends and watch TV. But, then I'd get going on something and take up that interest. So don't expect it to be consistant.. let the kid guide his interests freely.

Most importantly, if your kid just isn't into it and would rather play with friends or watch TV, so be it. Let it be.
Remember: The majority of people are not inclined for rigorous self-education, in fact, I'd say it's a trait of a select minority.

Re:As an Autodidact...

[Belial6]

Yeah, and keep them away from electricity as much as possible too. And book written with that evil movable type, or that were edited using computers. Heck, stay away from any tools that have been popularized in the last century or too. They should be using a chunk of lead to write notes, not the distracting pencils that where made with those modern machines.

OK, that may have been a cheap shot, but books contain at least as much bad to good information as the internet, and making the recommendation that you should keep kids away from the internet makes just as much sense as trying to keep them away from any of the other things I listed.

Re:As an Autodidact...

[The_mad_linguist]

The internet is a source of unending distracting flash games.

You cannot say the same about a library.

Re:As an Autodidact...

[neminem]

Libraries generally have computers with internet connections, so yes, we could.

homeschooling

[d3matt]

More or less, this is how homeschooling works for thousands of students nationwide. Parents aren't really teachers, they're facilitators.

Highest tech for remotest areas

[steveha]

From the article:

We notice that new educational technology is always piloted in the affluent schools of cities where good students and good teachers are present. As a result the educational gains from such technology are marginal and educational technology is considered over-hyped and under-performing. We propose that the highest technology should be developed for and piloted in the remotest areas first.

Wow. That makes a lot of sense to me.

How does the old saying go? The best school in the world is a log with a student on one end and Plato on the other. (I'd pick Richard Feynman or Issac Asimov rather than Plato, but you get the idea.) If a student can be taught directly by a really good teacher, you don't need a lot of fancy stuff.

Contrariwise, educational technology can make a big difference in remote areas. With decent computers and access to textbooks, the Internet, etc. the students can end up surpassing any available teachers.

steveha

Why educational technology has failed schools

[Paul Fernhout]

http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html
"Ultimately, educational technology's greatest value is in supporting "learning on demand" based on interest or need which is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to "learning just in case" based on someone else's demand. Compulsory schools don't usually traffic in "learning on demand", for the most part leaving that kind of activity to libraries or museums or the home or business or the "real world". In order for compulsory schools to make use of the best of educational technology and what is has to offer, schools themselves must change. ... So, there is more to the story of technology than it failing in schools. Modern information and manufacturing technology itself is giving compulsory schools a failing grade. Compulsory schools do not pass in the information age. They are no longer needed. What remains is just to watch this all play out, and hopefully guide the collapse of compulsory schooling so that the fewest people get hurt in the process."

My Self Education and ADHD

[Nyder]

Well, my story seems to agree.

I grew up with ADHD and Dyslexia, but wasn't diagnosed until I was in my mid 30's.

While these are learning disorders, I didn't have much a problem learning, it just mattered how it was taught to me.

The problem with school was I was easily distracted. And if I didn't like the subject, or if it didn't make sense, there was no way I could sit thru it and learn it. I usually had to figure it out on my own, in my own time. Memorizing stuff? I sucked at it. Badly.

Now come to high school, mid 80's and I had a big interest. Computers. I took office/typing classes (just to get access to the computers),and whatever computer classes I could. None of them could teach me what I wanted to learn, so I self taught myself.

Taught myself basic, took pascal in a class, taught myself C.

Taught myself assembly and how to hex edit crap way before I even knew what I was doing. (used to get disks of "demo" software from my typing/office teacher and would be asked to make copies of the disks because I seem to figure it out very well. (talking like TRS-80 software, where the "copy" would leave a few sectors out, and i'd use a hex editor to put the correct values back in).

Due to life and my "learning disorders" I didn't do much with my life or computer work (though you'd be hard to find a better person who can find & fix computer problems, hardware or software, who works as cheap as I do), as I should of, but everything I want to know, or learn, is pretty much on the Internet, in various forms, for me to learn with.

Hacking my Dreamcast, PS2, GBA. GC. Wii, Xbox 360, G1, various other phones. Cracking various Windows OS's, programs, etc, all learned online.

How to download whatever I want? Learned online.

But then, I'm possibly different. I've been teaching myself for a long, long time.

That being said, there is a lot of wrong and useless info on the internet also. You have to figure out how to wade thru that, to pull out the actual gems.

Maybe because I've always questions stuff and been self reliant mostly, I don't have a hard time teaching myself. I know some people are too stupid, or think they are too stupid to teach themselves.

And now? The internet rocks. Mainly sites like Wikipedia. Sure, I understand the info might not be accurate, but I can spends lifetimes going thru all the various info.

Dang, like astronomy and stuff like that. I love the stuff, had life been different and crap, I wish I would of taken that direction in life. And if there wasn't Internet or something similiar, I would of never probably ever realized how much I like it and am into it.

Of course, thanks to the internet, I did discover the type of porn I'm into. And that took lots of research (not finished, of course) and time to discover. You say that's not educational? I beg to differ. I learned a lot of stuff on the journey, stuff I wish I could unlearn. trust me.

College Daze links...

[Paul Fernhout]

http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html

Maybe the whole point is to waste your time and dumb you down and keep you locked up in a mirror maze?

And failing that, to neuter you politically? See Jeff Schmidt's "Dsiciplined Minds":
http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/
http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/01BRrt.html
"How to survive? Well, how can captive soldiers survive what is commonly called "brainwashing"? The US Army has a manual on resisting indoctrination when a prisoner of war. As Schmidt amusingly notes, this manual wasn't written for students, but "students in graduate or professional school should be able to put such resistance techniques to good use." (p. 239). A person who maintains an independent, nonconforming outlook in any institution, including a prisoner-of-war camp, is seen as deviant and threatening. The keys to resistance are knowing what you're up against, preparing to take action, working with others (organization!), resisting at all levels, and dealing with collaborators by cutting them off from key information and attempting to win them over. Schmidt gives a revealing account of his own difficulties in graduate school and how he survived as a radical."

Undergrad is not quite as bad though. But remember, all the professors and assistants whose salaries you are paying (even by incurring debt) -- they have all gone through this brainwashing process.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

Something else I wrote on this:
http://groups.google.com/group/openvirgle/browse_thread/thread/3dd2b7e6648da125/231e63e966e932df?hl=en#231e63e966e932df

And on how things may change, by me:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14bAe6AzhA

Or by someone else:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=related

Good luck.

EVERYONE learns for themselves

[Peter (Professor) Fo]

Teachers give exercises in the same way that cooks prepare food. Everyone learns just like everyone eats. And while we're at it let's not muddle "pupil" and "student".

The mentor, professor or role-model turn pupils into students by showing them how to be pro-active and then giving mature guidance, and not-least, encouragement.

• An ignorant (but wise) man says "I ask a question when I don't know"
• A wise man says "I ask a question when I already have an answer"
• A teacher says "I ask questions to teach my pupils"
• A professor says "I teach my students to ask questions"
• A leader says "There is a time for questions and a time for action"
• A pupil says "I must know the answers"
• A student says "I must know the questions"

Mentor, not teacher...

[Paul Fernhout]

And such relationships can work both ways.

You've made an excellent argument for learning from knowledgeable other people with hands on experience about some area of interest, but, sadly, such people can only rarely be found in conventional schools...
    http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-schools
    http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_for_kids.html

And you ignore the other baggage professional teachers come with:
    http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
    http://www.the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html
    http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/

Why not just watch a video series instead, and ask questions online?
    http://www.learner.org/
    http://www.khanacademy.org/
    http://www.explorelearning.com/

Of find some other alternative arrangement, including knowledgeable mentors among family, friends, or in the community?
    http://www.educationrevolution.org/
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling

Is that really going to be that much worse than trying to learn from most "teachers" (who if you've ever been aroudn teacher training programs, you would see generally know little about math, science, and technology), as well meaning as most of them may be? The first thing most schools do is destroy a child's natural ability to learn and natural creativity:
    http://www.amazon.com/Scientist-Crib-Early-Learning-Tells/dp/0688177883
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=related

Here is an alternative funding model for hiring private tutors or having neighborhoods again where people have time to share their knowledge freely, based on just giving public school funds directly to the parents:
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html
   

re: hackerspaces

[King_TJ]

I know here in St. Louis, MO - I discovered the existence of one of these. Very interesting concept, so I read everything I could find about it on their web site and other related ones. I think one of their biggest problems though lies in lack of resources. For example, one of my friends is a sculptor/artist/handyman who also works part-time at a used computer/PC recycling store. This seemed right up his alley, so I forwarded him a link to it. His response? That's great ... but let me know when they get ahold of a 3D printer we can use as members. Then I'll sign right up! Until then, he has most of the equipment he needs already, in his own private workshop he's put together. Plus, by having his own stuff, he doesn't have to share with other people and waste gas and time making trips out there to work on projects.

Maybe other "hackerspaces" are a lot more elaborate and well-funded? But at least from what I saw, it's a great concept that in practice, is probably struggling a bit to remain viable.

Disagree too ....

[King_TJ]

In my experience? Heavy SCHOOLING leads to a superficial understanding about a lot of things, coupled with an arrogant attitude that "I know this stuff inside and out, because I spent $$$'s to learn it and have the grades to PROVE it!"

In that regard, I'm not sure heavy Internet use to learn things is any different, except there's no formal grading or large amount of money that changed hands?

The truth is, to really KNOW things well, you have to take and interest in actually working with them on a regular basis, besides just acquiring the knowledge. That means at some point, you have to get out in the real world and DO things with the information. Same problem for perpetual students as for Internet-addicted know-it-alls.

Not everyone can do it

[dreamchaser]

Being an autodidact is not something that can be taught for many people. The majority need to have some sort of guidance. A true autodidact can learn on their own without any special setting, web site, etc.

On the other side of the coin, some people can't learn successfully in a classroom type environment. A lot of it has to do with how one is wired and that can't be changed for the most part.

Princess Nell is ashamed of all of you

[The Master Control P]

Ctrl-F... not a single result for A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer or related terms? This is Slashdot, isn't it?

Future of education

[talornin]

With no higher education what so ever (stopped at high school) the internet has been my salvation. I now work as as an engineer at one of the worlds biggest telecom network equipment vendors.

I belive that future generations will be more focused on finding, evaluating, and applying information rather than outright remembering it. Computers do remembering alot better than humans do, but we still have the upper hand in dynamic evaluation and application of information and data, so it only makes sense that a shift will occure to focus on educating a mind to be highly capable of absorbing and utilizing available information.

Sudbury

[greap]

Sudbury schools http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school have been doing this for quite some time. Unsurprisingly alumni studies have shown them to outperform the alternatives in almost all measures.

WFT?

[Stooshie]

Another post referencing an article from 2007!? I saw this guy's video on TED ages ago!

Re: Tool-libraries exist

[plcurechax]

No need for an alternate universe, tool libraries, while not common, do exist. In part associated with the maker "movement" which has increased the number of formal open-membership hacker spaces around the world.

I suspect any medium to large city could make a tool library work, and a number of public libraries are acting as catalysts for the tool libraries, in the cases where they are not yet large enough to be free-standing organizations.

More TED talk by Sugata Mitra

[jonaskoelker]

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html

Yoda say

[badzilla]

Yoda self on internet learn English did!

Make Contacts

[bill_mcgonigle]

I now feel like I'm wasting $10k a year on schooling that I don't really need.

Are you going to grad school? If so get good grades. If not, spend all your time making contacts and connections (assuming you're at a good school). Those will more than make up for the tuition.

Repeat until you're done with school.