I think that schools should teach people how to think. But I also think schools should teach students useful skills in an efficient manner. I think an entire school system designed to force students to figure out the entirety of physics by themselves would result in a very very long physics program that isn't necessarily for the best.
There's another unfortunate truth that Less Wronger's may have a hard time with: most people, even smart people, just don't like to think. They find it annoying. At best, they enjoy thinking about specific types of things. I don't know how much of this has to do with the way schools work and how much has to do with sheer brain chemistry. But I think enforcing a "everyone must figure things out on their own" system would disproportionately reward Less Wrong-ish people in the same way that the current system rewards obedient people. It still doesn't necessarily give everyone what they need.
I think an ideal system would spend elementary and middle school teaching students the basics of critical thinking and exposing them to a lot of different ideas so they can figure out what their interests are. By high school, kids should be doing work studies that teach them the skills that are actually going to help them get a career (with a few elective courses that let them continue to experiment if necessary). Some of those careers will require thinking. Others won't.
But I think enforcing a "everyone must figure things out on their own" system would disproportionately reward Less Wrong-ish people in the same way that the current system rewards obedient people. It still doesn't necessarily give everyone what they need.
Indeed.
I'm reminded of what Yvain wrote in Generalizing From One Example:
...I only really discovered this in my last job as a school teacher. There's a lot of data on teaching methods that students enjoy and learn from. I had some of these methods...inflicted...on me during my school days, and
Today's post, Two More Things to Unlearn from School, was originally published on 12 July 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
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