Note: While I contributed to one of the posts about unsuccessful high-school outreach my experience with teaching EA concepts to high schoolers is much more limited than the others in the post. Most of my thoughts on this are based off of a few experiences teaching high schoolers, discussions with other people teaching high schoolers, my relative freshness out of high school (Graduated in 2017), and some extrapolations from running Yale EA and interacting with first-years.
As someone who contributed to one of the posts about unsuccessful high-school outreach I agree that outreach to high schoolers is not a lost cause (though I am inclined to think the majority of value would come from students in their last two years of high school since they will have a better grasp on topics and are closer to college).
I think even in just the few years after these posts were written we have learned a lot about movement building that could possibly contribute to more successful outreach. Particularly having more targeted outreach seems to be promising.
Catherine Low suggests here (though her opinions may have changed):
âThis might be possible if you have a strong brand (such as an association with elite University) allowing you to attract suitable students through schools and other networks, and the resources to run a fellowship-type program with these studentsâ
University group leaders have found that marketing their Fellowships as âprestigiousâ brings in more and better applicants. I imagine if you add prestige, the possibility of being able to add the program to college apps, and some selection process you could draw in a pretty promising high school crowd to a similar program. (However, if you did this I would disagree with your pro that there is âThereâs less competition for the attention and time of younger peopleâ since these types of students are often incredibly busy although they are more free in summers)
I agree with Peterâs concern about continued engagement. My inclination would be that a lot of the value would come from getting these students to then join their respective University group or start their own. This would probably require a bit more of a focus on community building as being particularly valuable.
As for concerns of the delicate nature of outreach to high schoolers, I think this should really be talked and thought about more. High schoolers being susceptible to ideas coming from older impressive people has its advantages and disadvantages. I havenât thought about this enough to really contribute but would like to.
Lastly, most of my optimism around this would be specifically for EA outreach as opposed to rationality outreach. I pretty much agree with all of your concerns about rationality outreach listed in cons here and at least personally think they outweigh the pros of having purely rationality outreach rather than mainly EA outreach with some rationality concepts. I do think you can greatly minimize the concern of people losing intellectual hobbies as a result of getting involved in EA if this concern is built into the curriculum (ie: how to be sustainable in your altruism, the value of non-directly EA activities etc.)
Note: While I contributed to one of the posts about unsuccessful high-school outreach my experience with teaching EA concepts to high schoolers is much more limited than the others in the post. Most of my thoughts on this are based off of a few experiences teaching high schoolers, discussions with other people teaching high schoolers, my relative freshness out of high school (Graduated in 2017), and some extrapolations from running Yale EA and interacting with first-years.
As someone who contributed to one of the posts about unsuccessful high-school outreach I agree that outreach to high schoolers is not a lost cause (though I am inclined to think the majority of value would come from students in their last two years of high school since they will have a better grasp on topics and are closer to college).
I think even in just the few years after these posts were written we have learned a lot about movement building that could possibly contribute to more successful outreach. Particularly having more targeted outreach seems to be promising.
Catherine Low suggests here (though her opinions may have changed):
âThis might be possible if you have a strong brand (such as an association with elite University) allowing you to attract suitable students through schools and other networks, and the resources to run a fellowship-type program with these studentsâ
University group leaders have found that marketing their Fellowships as âprestigiousâ brings in more and better applicants. I imagine if you add prestige, the possibility of being able to add the program to college apps, and some selection process you could draw in a pretty promising high school crowd to a similar program. (However, if you did this I would disagree with your pro that there is âThereâs less competition for the attention and time of younger peopleâ since these types of students are often incredibly busy although they are more free in summers)
I agree with Peterâs concern about continued engagement. My inclination would be that a lot of the value would come from getting these students to then join their respective University group or start their own. This would probably require a bit more of a focus on community building as being particularly valuable.
As for concerns of the delicate nature of outreach to high schoolers, I think this should really be talked and thought about more. High schoolers being susceptible to ideas coming from older impressive people has its advantages and disadvantages. I havenât thought about this enough to really contribute but would like to.
Lastly, most of my optimism around this would be specifically for EA outreach as opposed to rationality outreach. I pretty much agree with all of your concerns about rationality outreach listed in cons here and at least personally think they outweigh the pros of having purely rationality outreach rather than mainly EA outreach with some rationality concepts. I do think you can greatly minimize the concern of people losing intellectual hobbies as a result of getting involved in EA if this concern is built into the curriculum (ie: how to be sustainable in your altruism, the value of non-directly EA activities etc.)