Scott Alexander on schooling vs. learning; Americans on weed; The American Economic Association goes full woke; Andrey Mir on digital media and empathy
This is actually one of my pet points: It actually *isn't* that expensive as pure babysitting. 18k/year. 180 days of 7 hours a day works out to like $15/hr. Not bad!
On top of that, learning does in fact happen, even if yes I agree that school doesn't "work" the way most ppl think it does.
$15 an hour times twenty students equals $300 per hour. If we are paying for daycare, that is indeed outrageous. Not that I necessarily agree with the babysitting framing.
It's not that bad, I don't think. I'm lucky enough to have parents and in-laws care for my two-year-old, but I'm going to guess that finding her daycare for 180 full days/year wouldn't be appreciably cheaper and may even be more expensive. Anyways I hate arguing on the Internet I'm sure we agree on 90% of stuff and would be friends in the real world 🙂
I get that it should be "cheaper" per kid because high schools fit 20 in versus however many in actual daycare, but i doubt there are many examples of private high schools of any type substantially cheaper than the public school rate.
If you argue that kids should be apprenticing or something instead, then I'm totally behind that
And I love that last line about friends act like celebrities and celebrities act like friends in today's social media- I am sure to quote it regularly over the next few days.
I appreciate Mir's empathy distinction between electronic media and written media, and fear he is correct when he says, "Deep and long reading will never regain its position of dominance now that humans have tasted digital devices." But my view is digital empathy is a fake empathy. It seems to me that the resulting digital tribalism is more a manifestation of confirmation bias.
Empathy is reserved for other members of one's tribe, and refused for members of the other side, who instead are demanded to exude empathy for the opposing tribe, and to condemn members of their own tribe.
"School does some of that. Think of the math curriculum, where you use this year what you learned last year."
Alexander seems to have a rather narrow view of what school does. You mention repetition. Grade school is a place to get that repetition. Most people would not get that for a lot of basic skills through other means. High school starts a transition to learning how to learn and learning more advanced skills that may or may not be valuable later. Graduate studies tend to be more specific and deeper for working in certain jobs. Sometimes it's just a familiarity but most people would struggle without it. Nurses, doctors, engineers, lawyers for starters have to learn a lot on the job but I can't believe anyone thinks if these people started a residency or internship without schooling that would turn out well, although there is probably a small minority who could pull it off. School gets most people to the point where on the job learning makes sense and can take hold.
Behold! While school definitely has a babysitting aspect to it, it is also a talent /affinity identification engine. Not by any means an ideal one. But it is a systematic way to expose virtually every child to a broad swath of academic disciplines, to help the child, the parents, and to a lesser degree society, identify what types of latent talents the child might possess. "Why do I have to learn the quadratic formula?" - "Because one out of 30 of you might find it interesting, and discover a talent for engineering/statistics/analysis/etc". "Why do I have to learn about post-Civil War reconstruction?" - "Because one out of 30 of you might find it interesting and discover a talent for planning, law, history, construction, etc".
Would it be more efficient for parents to do this themselves? Yes, for *intelligent* parents. But most parents are not intelligent, and will not be able to address this in a remotely systemic or rigorous way. Also, it is reasonable to assume that for all but the smartest parents, some or many of the 60-odd teachers that the child will encounter in their primary education will likely be better at helping children discover their talents in that teacher's specific disciplines
Again, this is not to say that the educational system is particularly good at this process. But it is, as far as we can tell, the best of a bad set of options.
Beyond identifying those who will go on to a career in some specific sub-specialty area, isn’t there something to be said for a citizenry with broad general education and a keen understanding of the world? (Not claiming the current education system is accomplishing this.)
There is also something to be said for a climate that only goes below freezing for one month (to kill the bugs) and never gets above 79 degrees in the summer. But such a climate doesn't exist, and probably never will.
No school system today and none that ever can be in practice will reliably turn out a large percentage of people "with broad general education and a keen understanding of the world". If you want to cry, look at the results of surveys which ask questions like, "In what half century did the Civil War take place?"
I know that sounds snotty and I wish it didn't. But the education business lives on hopes and dreams that are remarkably unrealistic. Perhaps it would be better if it was more realistic, but I'm not at all sure. (Now there is despair.)
True. But I was thinking more in terms of objectives or ideals for an education. We might consider a different model if the goal of education is to identify the future technical specialist versus to create a well-read general populace.
I agree it would be wonderful to have a school system that did that. But it is utopian. I don't think we should try to do that, any more than we should try to prepare every student to become a professional athlete.
"Learning by spaced repetition" is why I write Random Walk the way that I do. I think steady, small doses of thematic repetition--the slow and steady accumulation of data points--is, in fact, how we learn (and a good way of learning). Deep dives and books are one time reads--useful as references, but actually poor learning tools.
Minor point. Andrey Mir says “literacy enabled individualism and thus destroyed the primeval tribal immersion of people. With the proliferation of writing, prehistoric tribal society came to an end.”
If I understand right, Mir is referencing Walter Ong, who was looking at the Greeks and others. But the Greeks didn’t overcome tribalism (Greek vs barbarian) or caste systems (various levels of slave caste). The limited egalitarianism among the citizen class that existed in Greek society can be traced to solidarity and uniformity within the hoplite phalanx.
The only culture to overcome tribalism in a meaningful sense was Christianity-influenced European society. If literacy had anything to do with it, it was due not just to reading, but to WHAT they were reading (e.g. Genesis, Sermon on the Mount, etc.).
I think he means the sociology profession writ large--i.e. generally Marxist in approach and lax in its methodology. At least, this is how I read Arnold's view on this topic over the last 5 years or so.
"I think it’s fine for economists to recognize the importance of sociology. I just wish that they could do it without turning into sociologists."
I think it is great that economic principles are being used to better understand sociology, whether it is economists doing it or not.
"But don’t go looking for papers relevant to economic topics that are important these days, such as industrial policy, antitrust policy, the impact of AI, or tech in general."
I think what those links illustrate is sociologists recognizing that their field is considered a joke and thus trying to pass off their work as belonging to economics, which still (perhaps undeservedly) holds a higher reputation.
Maybe psychologists will now start pretending to be sociologists.
And the girls who major in marketing will be the psychologists.
That would leave child development to go into the marketing slot.
I'm not saying they were first but the economics dive into sociology took off after early work by Kahneman and Tversky, who are psychologists. Maybe Thaler contributed to it taking off too. Either way, I don't think it had anything to do with sociology being a joke.
Note: I'm assuming you mean a lot of research in sociology is a joke, note sociology itself.
“But I think that the larger point is that school is more about babysitting than learning (Null Hypothesis) is correct. It is very expensive babysitting at that.“
So, was Arnold a babysitter or a teacher for the 14+ years that he spent volunteering at a local school? I wonder what his LinkedIn profile says? Hmmm…null hypothesis.
I taught AP Drivers Education at the high school level for many years in Texas. There was no babysitting involved. Instead, I frequently used the Socratic method to question my student’s commonly held beliefs about driving here in Texas so that we could better explore the best options. Here is a smattering:
1) why do you think that backing your car into the parking spot is somehow superior to just pulling straight in? What are the possible upsides and downsides while everyone else waits around for you to get that backup just right? Do rear view cameras (which are now installed on pretty much all vehicle) change your beliefs?
2) when driving through the parking lot at the local Wally World, why do you think it’s best to ignore the lane markers and just drive willy nilly to your parking spot?
3) when making a right turn at a red light, why might it be useful to actually stop before proceeding? Would a quick scan for crossing pedestrians ever possibly make sense?
4) why might it be prudent to give bicyclists more than 2 feet of space when passing them on the left?
5) is driving at or below the speed limit in the fast lane on the freeway always the best approach? What other possible strategies could be employed?
My student’s minds were continually blown by such questions of their commonly held beliefs, which led to big improvements in driver performance and etiquette.
The backers-in (Mother has sometimes been one) puzzle me. I know they must feel “it is easier to get out”. But that seems more than offset by how much harder it is to get in.
FWIW my neighbor faithfully backs in and says it will be harder to steal his catalytic converter this way.
Shortly after I moved to TX from CA I got super curious about auto fatalities per capita by state. I wasn’t remotely surprised to discover that CA was significantly safer than TX. They cannot even mark off construction zones correctly down here and it’s a lot more laissez faire overall. Mississippi wins first prize though.
Actions > words. I’m not particularly interested in what Arnold says about his time at the school so much as how he acted in his volunteer capacity. Was he phoning it in as a babysitter or was it something else entirely? Here’s the link to help in that determination:
Ah, I see. I don't know how he acted--I wasn't there. So I have been relying on his words. I seem to recall him saying somewhere that he tried his best to teach but in the end viewed himself as merely a babysitter. I could be misremembering.
Also, it is possible that Arnold both intended to teach well, and in fact did teach well, but the net effect was still that of a babysitter. If that was the case, it would greatly strengthen the null hypothesis argument.
High school math teacher here.
This is actually one of my pet points: It actually *isn't* that expensive as pure babysitting. 18k/year. 180 days of 7 hours a day works out to like $15/hr. Not bad!
On top of that, learning does in fact happen, even if yes I agree that school doesn't "work" the way most ppl think it does.
$15 an hour times twenty students equals $300 per hour. If we are paying for daycare, that is indeed outrageous. Not that I necessarily agree with the babysitting framing.
It's not that bad, I don't think. I'm lucky enough to have parents and in-laws care for my two-year-old, but I'm going to guess that finding her daycare for 180 full days/year wouldn't be appreciably cheaper and may even be more expensive. Anyways I hate arguing on the Internet I'm sure we agree on 90% of stuff and would be friends in the real world 🙂
I get that it should be "cheaper" per kid because high schools fit 20 in versus however many in actual daycare, but i doubt there are many examples of private high schools of any type substantially cheaper than the public school rate.
If you argue that kids should be apprenticing or something instead, then I'm totally behind that
And I love that last line about friends act like celebrities and celebrities act like friends in today's social media- I am sure to quote it regularly over the next few days.
I appreciate Mir's empathy distinction between electronic media and written media, and fear he is correct when he says, "Deep and long reading will never regain its position of dominance now that humans have tasted digital devices." But my view is digital empathy is a fake empathy. It seems to me that the resulting digital tribalism is more a manifestation of confirmation bias.
Empathy is reserved for other members of one's tribe, and refused for members of the other side, who instead are demanded to exude empathy for the opposing tribe, and to condemn members of their own tribe.
"School does some of that. Think of the math curriculum, where you use this year what you learned last year."
Alexander seems to have a rather narrow view of what school does. You mention repetition. Grade school is a place to get that repetition. Most people would not get that for a lot of basic skills through other means. High school starts a transition to learning how to learn and learning more advanced skills that may or may not be valuable later. Graduate studies tend to be more specific and deeper for working in certain jobs. Sometimes it's just a familiarity but most people would struggle without it. Nurses, doctors, engineers, lawyers for starters have to learn a lot on the job but I can't believe anyone thinks if these people started a residency or internship without schooling that would turn out well, although there is probably a small minority who could pull it off. School gets most people to the point where on the job learning makes sense and can take hold.
Behold! While school definitely has a babysitting aspect to it, it is also a talent /affinity identification engine. Not by any means an ideal one. But it is a systematic way to expose virtually every child to a broad swath of academic disciplines, to help the child, the parents, and to a lesser degree society, identify what types of latent talents the child might possess. "Why do I have to learn the quadratic formula?" - "Because one out of 30 of you might find it interesting, and discover a talent for engineering/statistics/analysis/etc". "Why do I have to learn about post-Civil War reconstruction?" - "Because one out of 30 of you might find it interesting and discover a talent for planning, law, history, construction, etc".
Would it be more efficient for parents to do this themselves? Yes, for *intelligent* parents. But most parents are not intelligent, and will not be able to address this in a remotely systemic or rigorous way. Also, it is reasonable to assume that for all but the smartest parents, some or many of the 60-odd teachers that the child will encounter in their primary education will likely be better at helping children discover their talents in that teacher's specific disciplines
Again, this is not to say that the educational system is particularly good at this process. But it is, as far as we can tell, the best of a bad set of options.
Beyond identifying those who will go on to a career in some specific sub-specialty area, isn’t there something to be said for a citizenry with broad general education and a keen understanding of the world? (Not claiming the current education system is accomplishing this.)
There is also something to be said for a climate that only goes below freezing for one month (to kill the bugs) and never gets above 79 degrees in the summer. But such a climate doesn't exist, and probably never will.
No school system today and none that ever can be in practice will reliably turn out a large percentage of people "with broad general education and a keen understanding of the world". If you want to cry, look at the results of surveys which ask questions like, "In what half century did the Civil War take place?"
I know that sounds snotty and I wish it didn't. But the education business lives on hopes and dreams that are remarkably unrealistic. Perhaps it would be better if it was more realistic, but I'm not at all sure. (Now there is despair.)
True. But I was thinking more in terms of objectives or ideals for an education. We might consider a different model if the goal of education is to identify the future technical specialist versus to create a well-read general populace.
I agree it would be wonderful to have a school system that did that. But it is utopian. I don't think we should try to do that, any more than we should try to prepare every student to become a professional athlete.
"Learning by spaced repetition" is why I write Random Walk the way that I do. I think steady, small doses of thematic repetition--the slow and steady accumulation of data points--is, in fact, how we learn (and a good way of learning). Deep dives and books are one time reads--useful as references, but actually poor learning tools.
"I think it’s fine for economists to recognize the importance of sociology. I just wish that they could do it without turning into sociologists."
Perhaps today's young economists simply don't have the intellectual firepower to do real economics.
"Teens who use cannabis face 11 times the odds for a psychotic episode compared to teens who abstain from the drug, new Canadian research contends."
I would guess that teens who otherwise are at higher odds for a psychotic episode are more likely to use marijuana.
Minor point. Andrey Mir says “literacy enabled individualism and thus destroyed the primeval tribal immersion of people. With the proliferation of writing, prehistoric tribal society came to an end.”
If I understand right, Mir is referencing Walter Ong, who was looking at the Greeks and others. But the Greeks didn’t overcome tribalism (Greek vs barbarian) or caste systems (various levels of slave caste). The limited egalitarianism among the citizen class that existed in Greek society can be traced to solidarity and uniformity within the hoplite phalanx.
The only culture to overcome tribalism in a meaningful sense was Christianity-influenced European society. If literacy had anything to do with it, it was due not just to reading, but to WHAT they were reading (e.g. Genesis, Sermon on the Mount, etc.).
""I think it’s fine for economists to recognize the importance of sociology. I just wish that they could do it without turning into sociologists."
When I think of Adam Smith, I don't know what the quoted words mean.
I think he means the sociology profession writ large--i.e. generally Marxist in approach and lax in its methodology. At least, this is how I read Arnold's view on this topic over the last 5 years or so.
Maybe but I'm not aware of a significant contingent of Marxist economists.
Yeah my comment was as coherent as I would have liked it to be.
"I think it’s fine for economists to recognize the importance of sociology. I just wish that they could do it without turning into sociologists."
I think it is great that economic principles are being used to better understand sociology, whether it is economists doing it or not.
"But don’t go looking for papers relevant to economic topics that are important these days, such as industrial policy, antitrust policy, the impact of AI, or tech in general."
To the extent this is true, it is unfortunate.
I think what those links illustrate is sociologists recognizing that their field is considered a joke and thus trying to pass off their work as belonging to economics, which still (perhaps undeservedly) holds a higher reputation.
Maybe psychologists will now start pretending to be sociologists.
And the girls who major in marketing will be the psychologists.
That would leave child development to go into the marketing slot.
I'm not saying they were first but the economics dive into sociology took off after early work by Kahneman and Tversky, who are psychologists. Maybe Thaler contributed to it taking off too. Either way, I don't think it had anything to do with sociology being a joke.
Note: I'm assuming you mean a lot of research in sociology is a joke, note sociology itself.
“But I think that the larger point is that school is more about babysitting than learning (Null Hypothesis) is correct. It is very expensive babysitting at that.“
So, was Arnold a babysitter or a teacher for the 14+ years that he spent volunteering at a local school? I wonder what his LinkedIn profile says? Hmmm…null hypothesis.
I taught AP Drivers Education at the high school level for many years in Texas. There was no babysitting involved. Instead, I frequently used the Socratic method to question my student’s commonly held beliefs about driving here in Texas so that we could better explore the best options. Here is a smattering:
1) why do you think that backing your car into the parking spot is somehow superior to just pulling straight in? What are the possible upsides and downsides while everyone else waits around for you to get that backup just right? Do rear view cameras (which are now installed on pretty much all vehicle) change your beliefs?
2) when driving through the parking lot at the local Wally World, why do you think it’s best to ignore the lane markers and just drive willy nilly to your parking spot?
3) when making a right turn at a red light, why might it be useful to actually stop before proceeding? Would a quick scan for crossing pedestrians ever possibly make sense?
4) why might it be prudent to give bicyclists more than 2 feet of space when passing them on the left?
5) is driving at or below the speed limit in the fast lane on the freeway always the best approach? What other possible strategies could be employed?
My student’s minds were continually blown by such questions of their commonly held beliefs, which led to big improvements in driver performance and etiquette.
The backers-in (Mother has sometimes been one) puzzle me. I know they must feel “it is easier to get out”. But that seems more than offset by how much harder it is to get in.
FWIW my neighbor faithfully backs in and says it will be harder to steal his catalytic converter this way.
To state the comically obvious, here was a class with an easy answer to the usually unanswerable question, "When will I ever use this?'
Shortly after I moved to TX from CA I got super curious about auto fatalities per capita by state. I wasn’t remotely surprised to discover that CA was significantly safer than TX. They cannot even mark off construction zones correctly down here and it’s a lot more laissez faire overall. Mississippi wins first prize though.
https://www.bankrate.com/insurance/car/car-crash-statistics/
AP Drivers' Ed? Like advanced placement? I didn't know that existed.
I believe Arnold would say he was mostly a babysitter. He has been talking about the null hypothesis in education for years. See, e.g.: https://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/high-school-education/.
Actions > words. I’m not particularly interested in what Arnold says about his time at the school so much as how he acted in his volunteer capacity. Was he phoning it in as a babysitter or was it something else entirely? Here’s the link to help in that determination:
https://www.arnoldkling.com/apstats/index.html
Ah, I see. I don't know how he acted--I wasn't there. So I have been relying on his words. I seem to recall him saying somewhere that he tried his best to teach but in the end viewed himself as merely a babysitter. I could be misremembering.
Also, it is possible that Arnold both intended to teach well, and in fact did teach well, but the net effect was still that of a babysitter. If that was the case, it would greatly strengthen the null hypothesis argument.