I don't disagree with the 'school is hell' thesis, but the people who are complaining about school having been hell are the type of high agency people one finds on Twitter. They are definitionally outliers. I think a better way to frame this than 'school is hell' is that education ought to be more flexible such that outliers can conform their education to their abilities.
I haven't been to school in Germany but I understand they sort you into one of three tracts around age 10 or so. One where school is meant to make you higher functioning so that you're less of a burden on the state and find a way to contribute meaningfully, another that teaches you vocational or middle class job skills, and a third for those who can really benefit from academia.
That seems broadly correct to me. There's still a lot of being lumped in with the general population for the first 5 years that I'm sure is no less horrible but at least it's a start.
As a late bloomer (didn't develop the executive function to do well in school until 13-14 years old) this would have absolutely sidelined me, and probably many others, especially with ADHD, Autism, or other executive function challenges. I went from a student with C's and D's in some classes to all A's and B's within a year.
That segregation in Germany does lead to special cases. I understand it helps some learn at their own pace. But it also leaves behind many who were not"re
... not ready at the age where segregating is done. As per the late bloomer comment from squirrelly. So it is also not ideal.
Plus the social and economic segregation effects are there and rather lasting.
Also not ideal: it seems to me only those who can go to Gymnasium (high school which brings you to a kind of A-level, university entrance diploma) can get a (compared to other countries) somewhat decent academic education before entering university. (Which seems to me like it's lowering the mean, compared to other countries...)
Then there are different types of state universities, which seems to me slightly more like a status segregation machine.
On the other hand: there are ways for late bloomers who don't go to Gymnasium to go through some loops and then actually go to university. But it takes them more time and many don't invest in that time.
All in all: I'd say the system is not per se Bad. But a bit more flexibility might be worth it.
Yeah, I agree with a few points, but mostly this "school is hell" discourse strikes me as exaggerated and self-pitying. Not sure how comparable US and UK/Europe are, but after living/teaching in China and Africa, my early 2000s UK public education just seems unbelievably productive and humane by comparison.
About 1/3 of the classes (languages, tech, drama, music, sports) were reasonably fun, we had a handful of genuinely productive and memorable individual projects; sports classes were good except a few winter rugby days; exams were easy and low pressure etc.
I wasn't super intellectually inspired, some teachers weren't great, and I spent some classes bored because stuff was too easy... but what should I expect from a state-run institution targeted to socialise and train both the cleverest kid in town, and that wild-eyed kid with illiterate parents who bites the teachers and sets fire to the bins when she gets in trouble?
Of course I would have done better in a micro-school formed by the local elites, but that feels like expecting a state-funded ferry service to be equipped like a luxury megayacht.
"What should I expect from a state-run institution targeted to socialise and train both the cleverest kid in town, and that wild-eyed kid with illiterate parents who bites the teachers and sets fire to the bins when she gets in trouble?"
Perhaps that it be hellish. Such an institution doesn't sound like it even *could* be that good for children.
Counterpoint: It is good for children to be exposed to children that are not like them. Interacting with people who aren't like you is a social skill. Maybe it could be argued that school is the wrong place to do it, but knowing how to interact with both the cleverest kid in town, and the kid who struggles will make a much more socially flexible adult with tools available for more social situations.
There's a value there, but it's also a cost. The A+ student and the trash burner in the same room means the trash burner gets all of the attention. In fact, the A+ student and just about any other student that's not also A+ means the other student gets more attention. And the trash burner gets all of the attention - for safety reasons if nothing else.
I want my kids to have some knowledge of other kids outside of their normal range, but to spend most of the time socializing with kids in a smaller range and also some time with kids who are very close to their own level. They get the social interaction and learn social skills, but don't get overwhelmed by the genius kids they can't compete with or the destructive kids that seem bent on ruining everything.
I think this applies to most kids, especially kids who aren't dealing with the worst problems. Some kids at the very bottom in terms of grades and behaviors will benefit more from interacting outside of their own range, but also really negatively affect the students they are around. It's not a win-win.
The cleverest kid in town and the wild-eyed pyromaniac shouldn't be in the same classroom. It is a disservice to both of them.
The pyromaniac in particular ought to be expelled and sent to a special facility for violent kids. Can you imagine being coworkers with a homeless guy who attacks people and sets fires? That's the kind of environment you are describing as suitable for children.
She was expelled in Year 8 (age 12), actually. The school environment did get better by Year 9 when the worst 2% of kids had been thrown out. Then in sixth form (age 16), we basically lose the whole left half of the bell curve.
Overall, the system worked pretty well, given the constraints.
"after living/teaching in China and Africa, my early 2000s UK public education just seems unbelievably productive and humane by comparison."
Interesting, I switched from an early 2000s Danish public education to an early 2000s UK public education and my perception of UK education is that it's brutally autocratic. Uniforms, calling teachers "sir", 4 year olds wrote learning at desks, religious instruction, constant oversight on the playground, gender segregation, lineing-up to enter the building, and maybe 20+ other things. would all seem absurdly reactionary in Scandinavia. The schools themselves are also much less nice and have way less outdoors space. I guess everything's relative.
Yeah, the Danish system does seem particularly good for younger kids, but I've heard it falls into some of the traps that Zvi's post mentions, such as discouraging precocious students.
My UK school experience was a bit nicer than yours, though, probably because I grew up somewhere quite rural. We had a lovely Victorian primary school, and 6+ football fields worth of green space in high school, and we were mostly unsupervised, without any queueing except for school assemblies. We had uniforms, mild religious instruction (mainly hymns and stories) and 2-3 hours of daily desk learning at 4 years old, which felt quite normal, but might seem weird coming from Denmark.
> what should I expect from a state-run institution targeted to socialise and train both the cleverest kid in town, and that wild-eyed kid with illiterate parents who bites the teachers and sets fire to the bins when she gets in trouble?
Maybe what we should expect is that is not a job best served by a single institution.
They are not definitionally outliers. The curve is quite wide. In fourth grade, you have people 7 grades ahead in reading level to 3 years behind. Maybe the ends are outliers, but there are lots of students in between that could benefit from education at their own pace.
Reading about...basically anything CA-related on your blogs makes me despair for living in CA, where it's a fish-grokking-water thing of most people either not knowing about the Officially Endorsed Insanities, or not caring/And That's Good Acktually. Then wondering why the state has Issues.
"Zero Period" was decent for <s>state-sanctioned physical humiliation</s> PE, since at least it got that nonsense out of the way early and it's not like one needs to be fully booted for it anyway. I did genuinely enjoy the one early STEM class I had though, which was Marine Biology...mostly cause it was pretty exclusive, and consisted of lots of great field trips + bits of advanced-but-practical math. Small perk of going to school in an idyllic beachside town! But, yeah, can't imagine having done actual Calculus or whatever that early.
I really hope that isn't Education Realist's Twitter account. Would have to significantly downgrade my epistemic opinion of him. It's okay to be crotchety by temperament, but if your whole schtick is blogging about education, then I notice some Jello ma'amnesia coming on...
Regarding Aella's home schooling experience and "the only cons are having quirky socialization touchstones rather than the insane ones we get in primary and high school, which all mostly gets overridden anyway?" Well, perhaps. She literally became a prostitute. So...
There's a disappointing data gap in the literature re: primary school types of prostitutes but I'm reasonably sure that the world is not short of prostitutes without a homeschooling background.
To put this politely: Aella has had some highly unothodox life outcomes, so her saying "Homeschooling socializes children fine! I turned out all right." rings hollow
Good article, but I'm wondering when you wrote it and if you need to update given your choice of AI models: "Of course all of it is obsolete now. If you have access to Gemini Pro 1.5 and Claude Opus, all previous learning techniques are going to look dumb."
I was absolutely crushed when the proposal for the physical school got voted down. The team put a lot of work into it, but ultimately was turned down in the name of equity, even though they were themselves pushing for equity in their school. Such a loss for a town with a lot of underserved, incredibly talented kids of all backgrounds.
I skipped ahead in math when I was a kid. But I’m not really a fan of skipping ahead grades, because you usually aren’t really “ahead”, you’re just learning a different subject with kids who are just as not as smart as you, as your last class, just a bit older. What you really need is tracking, to be able to learn with other smart kids.
Ie, don’t go take multi variable calculus at the community college. Better off just learning independently, especially in the age of ChatGPT.
I don’t really have a great solution at the high school level because you just can’t track all that much, logistically. Obviously a lot of status quo is actively opposed to tracking, so, people should stop doing that.
There was a girl in my grade in high school who had skipped two grades; she was still among the smartest kids in our grade. I can't speak to her experience directly, but my guess is that skipping grades didn't have much effect on whether or not classes were intellectually challenging for her. (Although maybe if middle and high school gave more flexibility than elementary school, getting there more quickly could have been beneficial.)
I'll add: I cannot believe how much absolute sadist stuff they said to us in public school that didn't translate into the real world at all. No place that I've worked in was as fucked up and cruel as the public schools I went to in NYC. I'm guessing the only worse kind of institutions might be jails or like, call centers for debt collectors.
One of the things that strikes me about this is how little educators seem to care about the happiness of children. I mean, kids are mostly in school from six until they are eighteen. That’s twelve years! If you were sentenced to a twelve year prison sentence, you’d say that was a long time! Why do we think it’s ok for kids to be miserable for over a decade? Particularly since time seems to subjectively speed up as one gets older. I’d think the objective would be to teach people what they need to know, yes. But to do so as efficiently as possible and to inflict minimal misery.
Sorry for the pedantic way this is framed, but I think it makes it clearest.
How do kids actually get socialized in school? We're looking at basically 5 things.
1. They learn in-age-group social norms (i.e. be an annoying shit = get made fun of, say funny thing = win group approval) (this happens all the time, but also during 2-5).
2. Make friends and enjoy social time during downtime/lunch/recess/gym
3. Sports
4. Clubs
5. Group activities in class
Schools often let homeschool kids join sports, plus many many many private sports/leagues catering to kids so that solves #3.
Clubs are harder, but that's more of a HS thing anyway and at that age your kid is old enough to be doing volunteer work/community based stuff/adult activities + you (in my area many maker spaces will let kids join along with an adult or you could join a 3D archery league with your kid). So by the time clubs are a thing, I think many of opportunities for similar social activity exist AND they are probably better b/c not so incredibly strictly age gapped. Solves #4.
Downtime/lunch/recess/gym is going to require joining homeschool focused groups or leagues/sports, but assuming you only need to school 5 hours a day + a few hours of self directed learning (i.e. let your kid go deep on whatever you approve of they want to go deep on) plenty of other time for random visits/interactions with friends. I think this is only partially solving 2 b/c a big part of making friends in school is part of a product of the boredom/being forced in a box (not defending it, just it is a minor offset to the negative).
As to group activities in class, sadly I think for many of us here while much socialization/acculturation happened, it was probably negative during these. My lesson here was mostly limited to "do it all yourself and fight off anyone else who wants to help unless they are a previously verified smart kid". So probably not much of a loss.
#1 is the big thing. To some extent I think it's solved by simply letting your kid be social as much as possible, at the park, with family, with friends, with sports teams, with other kids in the area, just socialize and your good to go. I do think some of "being forced to interact with people you can't stand" will be missed out on which is a blessing and a curse.
But, for me and my wife, our plan is to school of choice (starting process now). If the kids like the school, great! They keep on keeping on. If they don't like the 2 fancy school districts in the area (we are almost certain to be in one of them, not sure which) then they can try our local district which has a much different vibe that might work for them.
If they don't like that, and I mean this simply "like" as in enjoy, and they've made reasonable efforts, then we'll homeschool. I work from home already and have the flex time to handle it.
Thanks for the detailed reply! Unfortunately, this mostly confirms what I was afraid of. There don't seem to be any easy answers, and this would definitely be my #1 issue in any homeschooling situation :(
> school starts too early for teenagers to properly sleep
Why don't teenagers go to sleep earlier? Social pressure? If school started 2 hours later, wouldn't teenagers just go to sleep 2 hours later and have the same problem?
Biorhythms are a thing, and they're also different. Some people are totally fine in the morning, while some feel awful regardless of the time they go to sleep. Even as an adult I struggle with morning hours because I just can't fall asleep earlier than 1-2 AM unless I'm absolutely exhausted (and I prefer not to push myself to that point)
People regularly adjust to new time zones within days, which is why I'm skeptical that the main reason teenagers stay up late is anything biological that could be addressed easily by adjusting school hours.
Doesn't that just refute your own hypothesis though? That proves that the biorhythms are not attached to arbitrary timezones and can easily be adjusted *if the location changes*. Somehow it's easy to adjust the sleep schedule if the daylight hours change, but way harder without that. Although I admit social things are also a factor, just not the only factor.
I think you're right that sunlight might be a factor, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how much it matters. Most people sleep in artificially darkened rooms so in theory should be able to adjust to any sleep schedule, but I know in practice it's a lot more complicated.
Still, if daylight hours are the main issue, the discussion around school hours seems to be largely missing it. For example, instead of "what time should school start", we should be discussing "how many hours after sunrise should school start", which is not a framing I've ever seen.
This would also make seasonal changes in daylight hours a lot more important and would be a strong argument for keeping DST or even strengthening it somehow (e.g. adjust school hours seasonally).
> This would also make seasonal changes in daylight hours a lot more important
Note that people need 8 hours of sleep regardless of season, so biological clocks somehow account for seasonal changes (so you still go to sleep in winter at about the same time as in summer, even though the sun sets much earlier).
My prediction is that if you make school happen later, teenagers would stay up a bit later too, but as much, and instead they'll wake up a bit earlier than needed to have time to have time to get fully awake.
If school started 2 hours later, wouldn't that just make 12am to 4am the new hours crucial for socialization?
Basically if there's social pressure to stay up as late as possible, I'd expect teenagers to stay up 2-4 hours longer than what is healthy, adjusted for any possible school start time.
This is a neurological property that varies both within the population and within a given person depending on age and other factors. It is not a choice or a matter of willpower, routine, etc.
It's completely anecdotal, but the four people I know who skipped grades and graduated early generally regretted the decision. The people who were held back, much less so.
Skipping grades debate is a red hearing b/c that's the "solution" the system allows instead of refraining from murdering advanced classes/letting certain kids have more free study time.
A school that won't let a kid (done with work) read a book or do worksheets from home in a system that is actively removing accelerated classes/programs (or enshitting the entry process) tosses a fraction of kids the chance to be the social awkward 1-3 year younger kid sitting there bored in class to cover up their inability and unwillingness to let the smart kids study other things (and reward them for doing so) once their makework is done.
No significant disagreement from me, although we also had advanced classes. But given the choice of a band-aid or nothing I would have preferred the band-aid. It should surprise no one on a rationalist blog that I was as socially awkward in my age group as I likely would have been among older students anyway.
I did get to graduate high school a semester early. (That route, however, was basically open to everyone because you could satisfy all the graduation requirements without the second semester of senior year by following a basically normal curriculum in my school district.) I immediately put that acceleration to good use by - drumroll, please - enlisting in the military because I assumed college would be the same academic drudgery as high school.
I may have been a smart kid but that doesn't mean I was a wise one.
I skipped two grades as a (not US) kid (at 4 and 5) and have had mixed thoughts on that topic over time. I do think it was overall the right decision.
On the one hand, I probably would have been really, really bored had this not happened.
On the other hand, the age gap at middle school-like age (I was 10-12, they were 12-15) did some pretty catastrophic damage from which I’m still recovering.
Being this ahead made it pretty hard to relate to most people in the same age-group – and, being this much younger made it hard to relate to people in the same class.
I don’t think I ever thought “school is hell” in any kind of Zvi/Scott Alexander sense after I left pre-school.
I had a pretty miserable time towards the end of (the loose equivalent of) middle school, but that was always in the sense of “some of my classmates are making my life difficult”.
Sure, some of the classes were not very interesting, some teachers could be pointy-haired, I was useless in spite of my efforts (and resenting it) at a lot of sports (because I had to compare with people 2 years older), and sometimes I wasn’t in the mood for learning, but it never remotely rose to the notion that “school is hell”.
I know other people who skipped two grades and didn’t have any issue with their social lives, likely because they’re better with other people.
On the other hand, my parents decided not to have one of my younger siblings skip a grade (for reasons I forgot because I wasn’t very old or paying much attention, and my parents made it clear it wasn’t my business anyway), and they took it pretty poorly. I’m not sure how they feel about it now, but they’ve come out pretty well.
Regarding taking college courses in HS, this is exactly what my wife did back in the 70s. She was living in the barios of New Mexico and her school was crap (and they knew it.) So in her junior and senior year they created "independent study" courses and she went to UNM.
Waiting for Superman, the lemon dance/walk.
I am not sure if this was intentional, but I smiled in any case "This complication of tales from the world of school isn’t all negative. "
My first thought as well: "Wow, a complication of tales!" Surprised it hasn't been updated yet.
I don't disagree with the 'school is hell' thesis, but the people who are complaining about school having been hell are the type of high agency people one finds on Twitter. They are definitionally outliers. I think a better way to frame this than 'school is hell' is that education ought to be more flexible such that outliers can conform their education to their abilities.
I haven't been to school in Germany but I understand they sort you into one of three tracts around age 10 or so. One where school is meant to make you higher functioning so that you're less of a burden on the state and find a way to contribute meaningfully, another that teaches you vocational or middle class job skills, and a third for those who can really benefit from academia.
That seems broadly correct to me. There's still a lot of being lumped in with the general population for the first 5 years that I'm sure is no less horrible but at least it's a start.
As a late bloomer (didn't develop the executive function to do well in school until 13-14 years old) this would have absolutely sidelined me, and probably many others, especially with ADHD, Autism, or other executive function challenges. I went from a student with C's and D's in some classes to all A's and B's within a year.
That segregation in Germany does lead to special cases. I understand it helps some learn at their own pace. But it also leaves behind many who were not"re
... not ready at the age where segregating is done. As per the late bloomer comment from squirrelly. So it is also not ideal.
Plus the social and economic segregation effects are there and rather lasting.
Also not ideal: it seems to me only those who can go to Gymnasium (high school which brings you to a kind of A-level, university entrance diploma) can get a (compared to other countries) somewhat decent academic education before entering university. (Which seems to me like it's lowering the mean, compared to other countries...)
Then there are different types of state universities, which seems to me slightly more like a status segregation machine.
On the other hand: there are ways for late bloomers who don't go to Gymnasium to go through some loops and then actually go to university. But it takes them more time and many don't invest in that time.
All in all: I'd say the system is not per se Bad. But a bit more flexibility might be worth it.
Yeah, I agree with a few points, but mostly this "school is hell" discourse strikes me as exaggerated and self-pitying. Not sure how comparable US and UK/Europe are, but after living/teaching in China and Africa, my early 2000s UK public education just seems unbelievably productive and humane by comparison.
About 1/3 of the classes (languages, tech, drama, music, sports) were reasonably fun, we had a handful of genuinely productive and memorable individual projects; sports classes were good except a few winter rugby days; exams were easy and low pressure etc.
I wasn't super intellectually inspired, some teachers weren't great, and I spent some classes bored because stuff was too easy... but what should I expect from a state-run institution targeted to socialise and train both the cleverest kid in town, and that wild-eyed kid with illiterate parents who bites the teachers and sets fire to the bins when she gets in trouble?
Of course I would have done better in a micro-school formed by the local elites, but that feels like expecting a state-funded ferry service to be equipped like a luxury megayacht.
"What should I expect from a state-run institution targeted to socialise and train both the cleverest kid in town, and that wild-eyed kid with illiterate parents who bites the teachers and sets fire to the bins when she gets in trouble?"
Perhaps that it be hellish. Such an institution doesn't sound like it even *could* be that good for children.
My high school dealt with it pretty well by putting us in ability-based sets, so we didn't have to spend much time with the problem children.
Counterpoint: It is good for children to be exposed to children that are not like them. Interacting with people who aren't like you is a social skill. Maybe it could be argued that school is the wrong place to do it, but knowing how to interact with both the cleverest kid in town, and the kid who struggles will make a much more socially flexible adult with tools available for more social situations.
Why not learn to do that at the park? In a school setting, the clever kids and the struggling kids are holding each other back.
There's a value there, but it's also a cost. The A+ student and the trash burner in the same room means the trash burner gets all of the attention. In fact, the A+ student and just about any other student that's not also A+ means the other student gets more attention. And the trash burner gets all of the attention - for safety reasons if nothing else.
I want my kids to have some knowledge of other kids outside of their normal range, but to spend most of the time socializing with kids in a smaller range and also some time with kids who are very close to their own level. They get the social interaction and learn social skills, but don't get overwhelmed by the genius kids they can't compete with or the destructive kids that seem bent on ruining everything.
I think this applies to most kids, especially kids who aren't dealing with the worst problems. Some kids at the very bottom in terms of grades and behaviors will benefit more from interacting outside of their own range, but also really negatively affect the students they are around. It's not a win-win.
The cleverest kid in town and the wild-eyed pyromaniac shouldn't be in the same classroom. It is a disservice to both of them.
The pyromaniac in particular ought to be expelled and sent to a special facility for violent kids. Can you imagine being coworkers with a homeless guy who attacks people and sets fires? That's the kind of environment you are describing as suitable for children.
She was expelled in Year 8 (age 12), actually. The school environment did get better by Year 9 when the worst 2% of kids had been thrown out. Then in sixth form (age 16), we basically lose the whole left half of the bell curve.
Overall, the system worked pretty well, given the constraints.
"after living/teaching in China and Africa, my early 2000s UK public education just seems unbelievably productive and humane by comparison."
Interesting, I switched from an early 2000s Danish public education to an early 2000s UK public education and my perception of UK education is that it's brutally autocratic. Uniforms, calling teachers "sir", 4 year olds wrote learning at desks, religious instruction, constant oversight on the playground, gender segregation, lineing-up to enter the building, and maybe 20+ other things. would all seem absurdly reactionary in Scandinavia. The schools themselves are also much less nice and have way less outdoors space. I guess everything's relative.
Yeah, the Danish system does seem particularly good for younger kids, but I've heard it falls into some of the traps that Zvi's post mentions, such as discouraging precocious students.
My UK school experience was a bit nicer than yours, though, probably because I grew up somewhere quite rural. We had a lovely Victorian primary school, and 6+ football fields worth of green space in high school, and we were mostly unsupervised, without any queueing except for school assemblies. We had uniforms, mild religious instruction (mainly hymns and stories) and 2-3 hours of daily desk learning at 4 years old, which felt quite normal, but might seem weird coming from Denmark.
> what should I expect from a state-run institution targeted to socialise and train both the cleverest kid in town, and that wild-eyed kid with illiterate parents who bites the teachers and sets fire to the bins when she gets in trouble?
Maybe what we should expect is that is not a job best served by a single institution.
They are not definitionally outliers. The curve is quite wide. In fourth grade, you have people 7 grades ahead in reading level to 3 years behind. Maybe the ends are outliers, but there are lots of students in between that could benefit from education at their own pace.
Podcast episode for this post:
https://open.substack.com/pub/dwatvpodcast/p/childhood-and-education-9-school?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Reading about...basically anything CA-related on your blogs makes me despair for living in CA, where it's a fish-grokking-water thing of most people either not knowing about the Officially Endorsed Insanities, or not caring/And That's Good Acktually. Then wondering why the state has Issues.
"Zero Period" was decent for <s>state-sanctioned physical humiliation</s> PE, since at least it got that nonsense out of the way early and it's not like one needs to be fully booted for it anyway. I did genuinely enjoy the one early STEM class I had though, which was Marine Biology...mostly cause it was pretty exclusive, and consisted of lots of great field trips + bits of advanced-but-practical math. Small perk of going to school in an idyllic beachside town! But, yeah, can't imagine having done actual Calculus or whatever that early.
I really hope that isn't Education Realist's Twitter account. Would have to significantly downgrade my epistemic opinion of him. It's okay to be crotchety by temperament, but if your whole schtick is blogging about education, then I notice some Jello ma'amnesia coming on...
Regarding Aella's home schooling experience and "the only cons are having quirky socialization touchstones rather than the insane ones we get in primary and high school, which all mostly gets overridden anyway?" Well, perhaps. She literally became a prostitute. So...
There's a disappointing data gap in the literature re: primary school types of prostitutes but I'm reasonably sure that the world is not short of prostitutes without a homeschooling background.
To put this politely: Aella has had some highly unothodox life outcomes, so her saying "Homeschooling socializes children fine! I turned out all right." rings hollow
Good article, but I'm wondering when you wrote it and if you need to update given your choice of AI models: "Of course all of it is obsolete now. If you have access to Gemini Pro 1.5 and Claude Opus, all previous learning techniques are going to look dumb."
That does tell you when that section got written, then! And yeah, forgot to do a pass for that. But the point is even more true now...
You might enjoy this serious effort to reimagine high school: https://www.powderhouse.org/work
I was absolutely crushed when the proposal for the physical school got voted down. The team put a lot of work into it, but ultimately was turned down in the name of equity, even though they were themselves pushing for equity in their school. Such a loss for a town with a lot of underserved, incredibly talented kids of all backgrounds.
The big problem of educational reform is blocked by the enormous problem of institutional reform. C.f. the nascent "abundance" faction.
I skipped ahead in math when I was a kid. But I’m not really a fan of skipping ahead grades, because you usually aren’t really “ahead”, you’re just learning a different subject with kids who are just as not as smart as you, as your last class, just a bit older. What you really need is tracking, to be able to learn with other smart kids.
Ie, don’t go take multi variable calculus at the community college. Better off just learning independently, especially in the age of ChatGPT.
I don’t really have a great solution at the high school level because you just can’t track all that much, logistically. Obviously a lot of status quo is actively opposed to tracking, so, people should stop doing that.
There was a girl in my grade in high school who had skipped two grades; she was still among the smartest kids in our grade. I can't speak to her experience directly, but my guess is that skipping grades didn't have much effect on whether or not classes were intellectually challenging for her. (Although maybe if middle and high school gave more flexibility than elementary school, getting there more quickly could have been beneficial.)
I nod my head approvingly to this whole post.
I'll add: I cannot believe how much absolute sadist stuff they said to us in public school that didn't translate into the real world at all. No place that I've worked in was as fucked up and cruel as the public schools I went to in NYC. I'm guessing the only worse kind of institutions might be jails or like, call centers for debt collectors.
One of the things that strikes me about this is how little educators seem to care about the happiness of children. I mean, kids are mostly in school from six until they are eighteen. That’s twelve years! If you were sentenced to a twelve year prison sentence, you’d say that was a long time! Why do we think it’s ok for kids to be miserable for over a decade? Particularly since time seems to subjectively speed up as one gets older. I’d think the objective would be to teach people what they need to know, yes. But to do so as efficiently as possible and to inflict minimal misery.
> There are far better ways to get socialization.
What are they?
(This is an honest question, I have no idea, and this is the #1 reason for keeping my children in traditional school right now.)
Sorry for the pedantic way this is framed, but I think it makes it clearest.
How do kids actually get socialized in school? We're looking at basically 5 things.
1. They learn in-age-group social norms (i.e. be an annoying shit = get made fun of, say funny thing = win group approval) (this happens all the time, but also during 2-5).
2. Make friends and enjoy social time during downtime/lunch/recess/gym
3. Sports
4. Clubs
5. Group activities in class
Schools often let homeschool kids join sports, plus many many many private sports/leagues catering to kids so that solves #3.
Clubs are harder, but that's more of a HS thing anyway and at that age your kid is old enough to be doing volunteer work/community based stuff/adult activities + you (in my area many maker spaces will let kids join along with an adult or you could join a 3D archery league with your kid). So by the time clubs are a thing, I think many of opportunities for similar social activity exist AND they are probably better b/c not so incredibly strictly age gapped. Solves #4.
Downtime/lunch/recess/gym is going to require joining homeschool focused groups or leagues/sports, but assuming you only need to school 5 hours a day + a few hours of self directed learning (i.e. let your kid go deep on whatever you approve of they want to go deep on) plenty of other time for random visits/interactions with friends. I think this is only partially solving 2 b/c a big part of making friends in school is part of a product of the boredom/being forced in a box (not defending it, just it is a minor offset to the negative).
As to group activities in class, sadly I think for many of us here while much socialization/acculturation happened, it was probably negative during these. My lesson here was mostly limited to "do it all yourself and fight off anyone else who wants to help unless they are a previously verified smart kid". So probably not much of a loss.
#1 is the big thing. To some extent I think it's solved by simply letting your kid be social as much as possible, at the park, with family, with friends, with sports teams, with other kids in the area, just socialize and your good to go. I do think some of "being forced to interact with people you can't stand" will be missed out on which is a blessing and a curse.
But, for me and my wife, our plan is to school of choice (starting process now). If the kids like the school, great! They keep on keeping on. If they don't like the 2 fancy school districts in the area (we are almost certain to be in one of them, not sure which) then they can try our local district which has a much different vibe that might work for them.
If they don't like that, and I mean this simply "like" as in enjoy, and they've made reasonable efforts, then we'll homeschool. I work from home already and have the flex time to handle it.
Thanks for the detailed reply! Unfortunately, this mostly confirms what I was afraid of. There don't seem to be any easy answers, and this would definitely be my #1 issue in any homeschooling situation :(
We don’t homeschool but we moved a lot so we did a lot of social stuff for our girls to help make friends in new places.
1- Girl Scouts was good.
2- summer camps in the area
3- YMCA swim classes and other sports classes
4- just going to the local parks and letting the kids play with whomever
5- neighbors
6- dance and gymnastics, though surprisingly few friends out of those
In general that all worked out. Once the girls had friends they played, met their other friends, etc.
> school starts too early for teenagers to properly sleep
Why don't teenagers go to sleep earlier? Social pressure? If school started 2 hours later, wouldn't teenagers just go to sleep 2 hours later and have the same problem?
Biorhythms are a thing, and they're also different. Some people are totally fine in the morning, while some feel awful regardless of the time they go to sleep. Even as an adult I struggle with morning hours because I just can't fall asleep earlier than 1-2 AM unless I'm absolutely exhausted (and I prefer not to push myself to that point)
People regularly adjust to new time zones within days, which is why I'm skeptical that the main reason teenagers stay up late is anything biological that could be addressed easily by adjusting school hours.
Doesn't that just refute your own hypothesis though? That proves that the biorhythms are not attached to arbitrary timezones and can easily be adjusted *if the location changes*. Somehow it's easy to adjust the sleep schedule if the daylight hours change, but way harder without that. Although I admit social things are also a factor, just not the only factor.
I think you're right that sunlight might be a factor, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how much it matters. Most people sleep in artificially darkened rooms so in theory should be able to adjust to any sleep schedule, but I know in practice it's a lot more complicated.
Still, if daylight hours are the main issue, the discussion around school hours seems to be largely missing it. For example, instead of "what time should school start", we should be discussing "how many hours after sunrise should school start", which is not a framing I've ever seen.
This would also make seasonal changes in daylight hours a lot more important and would be a strong argument for keeping DST or even strengthening it somehow (e.g. adjust school hours seasonally).
> This would also make seasonal changes in daylight hours a lot more important
Note that people need 8 hours of sleep regardless of season, so biological clocks somehow account for seasonal changes (so you still go to sleep in winter at about the same time as in summer, even though the sun sets much earlier).
My prediction is that if you make school happen later, teenagers would stay up a bit later too, but as much, and instead they'll wake up a bit earlier than needed to have time to have time to get fully awake.
The hours from 10pm to 2am are crucial for kids' Instagram socialisation.
If school started 2 hours later, wouldn't that just make 12am to 4am the new hours crucial for socialization?
Basically if there's social pressure to stay up as late as possible, I'd expect teenagers to stay up 2-4 hours longer than what is healthy, adjusted for any possible school start time.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronotype
This is a neurological property that varies both within the population and within a given person depending on age and other factors. It is not a choice or a matter of willpower, routine, etc.
See also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder
I think you mean "taught" here, not thought:
Even getting math thought at all is increasingly hard.
It's completely anecdotal, but the four people I know who skipped grades and graduated early generally regretted the decision. The people who were held back, much less so.
As you say anecdotal, but my school tried to have me skip grades twice and my mother didn't allow it. I have always bitterly resented those decisions.
The other side, its grass greener.
Skipping grades debate is a red hearing b/c that's the "solution" the system allows instead of refraining from murdering advanced classes/letting certain kids have more free study time.
A school that won't let a kid (done with work) read a book or do worksheets from home in a system that is actively removing accelerated classes/programs (or enshitting the entry process) tosses a fraction of kids the chance to be the social awkward 1-3 year younger kid sitting there bored in class to cover up their inability and unwillingness to let the smart kids study other things (and reward them for doing so) once their makework is done.
No significant disagreement from me, although we also had advanced classes. But given the choice of a band-aid or nothing I would have preferred the band-aid. It should surprise no one on a rationalist blog that I was as socially awkward in my age group as I likely would have been among older students anyway.
I did get to graduate high school a semester early. (That route, however, was basically open to everyone because you could satisfy all the graduation requirements without the second semester of senior year by following a basically normal curriculum in my school district.) I immediately put that acceleration to good use by - drumroll, please - enlisting in the military because I assumed college would be the same academic drudgery as high school.
I may have been a smart kid but that doesn't mean I was a wise one.
I skipped grades and it was the right decision for me. Anecdote vs anecdote!
I skipped two grades as a (not US) kid (at 4 and 5) and have had mixed thoughts on that topic over time. I do think it was overall the right decision.
On the one hand, I probably would have been really, really bored had this not happened.
On the other hand, the age gap at middle school-like age (I was 10-12, they were 12-15) did some pretty catastrophic damage from which I’m still recovering.
Being this ahead made it pretty hard to relate to most people in the same age-group – and, being this much younger made it hard to relate to people in the same class.
I don’t think I ever thought “school is hell” in any kind of Zvi/Scott Alexander sense after I left pre-school.
I had a pretty miserable time towards the end of (the loose equivalent of) middle school, but that was always in the sense of “some of my classmates are making my life difficult”.
Sure, some of the classes were not very interesting, some teachers could be pointy-haired, I was useless in spite of my efforts (and resenting it) at a lot of sports (because I had to compare with people 2 years older), and sometimes I wasn’t in the mood for learning, but it never remotely rose to the notion that “school is hell”.
I know other people who skipped two grades and didn’t have any issue with their social lives, likely because they’re better with other people.
On the other hand, my parents decided not to have one of my younger siblings skip a grade (for reasons I forgot because I wasn’t very old or paying much attention, and my parents made it clear it wasn’t my business anyway), and they took it pretty poorly. I’m not sure how they feel about it now, but they’ve come out pretty well.
Regarding taking college courses in HS, this is exactly what my wife did back in the 70s. She was living in the barios of New Mexico and her school was crap (and they knew it.) So in her junior and senior year they created "independent study" courses and she went to UNM.
Worked out great.