Blog posts won’t convince me; I studied linguistics and education for my undergrad, which convinced me that most children don’t teach themselves to read. A few do, and some have parents who teach them. But if you want to convince me that all children (not just a handful!) can and will teach themselves to read without school, you will need to show me some academic evidence.
I am convinced of this not only because I was explicitly taught it by experts in linguistics and education, but also because we did not have universal literacy before we had universal primary education (and countries without universal primary education still don’t!), and because we have evidence about which teaching systems will help children read more quickly and fluently than other teaching methods (and if teaching did literally nothing beneficial, like you still seem to be suggesting, we shouldn’t see significant differences between teaching methods).
Also consider, in this hypothetical world without schools, how children will access books.
Note: Assuming you’re not a senior policymaker or politician, I don’t think it’s a good use of my time to continue. I will however click on any relevant peer-reviewed studies and at least read the abstract, even if I don’t comment.
We seem to be having different conversations. I think you’re looking for strong evidence of stronger, more universal claims than I am making. I’m trying to say that this hypothesis (for some children) should be within the window of possibility and worthy of more investigation. There’s a potential motte and bailey problem with that, and the claims about evidence for benefit from schooling broadly should probably be separated from evidence for harms of schooling in specific cases.
>Imagine a country with two rules: first, every person must spend eight hours a day giving themselves strong electric shocks. Second, if anyone fails to follow a rule (including this one), or speaks out against it, or fails to enforce it, all citizens must unite to kill that person. Suppose these rules were well-enough established by tradition that everyone expected them to be enforced. -Meditations on Moloch
Imagine that an altruistic community in such a world is very open minded and willing consider not shocking yourself all the time, but wants to see lots of evidence for it produced by the tazer manufacturers, since after all they know the most about tazers and whether they are harmful...
If you give children the option of being tazed or going to school some of them are going to pick the tazer.
Does this mean you no longer endorse the original statement you made (“there is little evidence of benefit from schooling”)?
I’m feeling confused… I basically agreed with Khorton’s skepticism about that original claim, and now it sounds like you agree with Khorton too. It seems like you, in fact, believe something quite different from the original claim; your actual belief is something more like: “for some children, the benefits of schooling will not outweigh the torturous experience of attending school.” But it doesn’t seem like there has been any admission that the original claim was too strong (or, at the very least, that it was worded in a confusing way). So I’m wondering if I’m misinterpreting.
we did not have universal literacy before we had universal primary education (and countries without universal primary education still don’t!
This is KEY, in already industrialized countries kids may learn on their own or via homeschooling. For society as a whole public education is necessary, otherwise kids don’t learn.
Blog posts won’t convince me; I studied linguistics and education for my undergrad, which convinced me that most children don’t teach themselves to read. A few do, and some have parents who teach them. But if you want to convince me that all children (not just a handful!) can and will teach themselves to read without school, you will need to show me some academic evidence.
I am convinced of this not only because I was explicitly taught it by experts in linguistics and education, but also because we did not have universal literacy before we had universal primary education (and countries without universal primary education still don’t!), and because we have evidence about which teaching systems will help children read more quickly and fluently than other teaching methods (and if teaching did literally nothing beneficial, like you still seem to be suggesting, we shouldn’t see significant differences between teaching methods).
Also consider, in this hypothetical world without schools, how children will access books.
Note: Assuming you’re not a senior policymaker or politician, I don’t think it’s a good use of my time to continue. I will however click on any relevant peer-reviewed studies and at least read the abstract, even if I don’t comment.
I apologise for my tone in this thread. I don’t think it was very helpful.
I feel like, before pulling out “blog posts won’t convince me” you could have first provided any links to support your view.
We seem to be having different conversations. I think you’re looking for strong evidence of stronger, more universal claims than I am making. I’m trying to say that this hypothesis (for some children) should be within the window of possibility and worthy of more investigation. There’s a potential motte and bailey problem with that, and the claims about evidence for benefit from schooling broadly should probably be separated from evidence for harms of schooling in specific cases.
>Imagine a country with two rules: first, every person must spend eight hours a day giving themselves strong electric shocks. Second, if anyone fails to follow a rule (including this one), or speaks out against it, or fails to enforce it, all citizens must unite to kill that person. Suppose these rules were well-enough established by tradition that everyone expected them to be enforced. -Meditations on Moloch
Imagine that an altruistic community in such a world is very open minded and willing consider not shocking yourself all the time, but wants to see lots of evidence for it produced by the tazer manufacturers, since after all they know the most about tazers and whether they are harmful...
If you give children the option of being tazed or going to school some of them are going to pick the tazer.
Does this mean you no longer endorse the original statement you made (“there is little evidence of benefit from schooling”)?
I’m feeling confused… I basically agreed with Khorton’s skepticism about that original claim, and now it sounds like you agree with Khorton too. It seems like you, in fact, believe something quite different from the original claim; your actual belief is something more like: “for some children, the benefits of schooling will not outweigh the torturous experience of attending school.” But it doesn’t seem like there has been any admission that the original claim was too strong (or, at the very least, that it was worded in a confusing way). So I’m wondering if I’m misinterpreting.
I think there are two claims. I stand by both, but think arguing them simultaneously causes things like a motte and bailey problem to rear its head.
This is KEY, in already industrialized countries kids may learn on their own or via homeschooling. For society as a whole public education is necessary, otherwise kids don’t learn.