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James_Miller comments on Open Thread April 11 - April 17, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion
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My 11-year-old son had homework on how to be more compassionate. Rather than doing the homework he decided to donate (and tell the teacher that he was donating) $25 to the against Malaria foundation.
I wonder if the teacher knows the term "category error".
A: "How would you improve your rationality?"
B: "I've just sent $25 to IBM."
Lots of school is propaganda and the goal of the assignment was undoubtedly to get the children to do more to help others throughout the children's lives. So giving the money was more about directly accomplishing the ends of the assignment. If we want to be more cynical, the goal of the assignment was to signal virtue, and by giving money my son accomplished this better than if he completed the assignment the normal way.
While that's part of the goal of the assignment it likely wasn't the only goal. If he was supposed to write an essay on the topic of "how to be more compassionate" he was likely also supposed to train essay writing.
Did it work? While I would give him full credit, I can easily imagine many teachers not approving.
The teacher apparently didn't like it, and found it disrespectful. Overall, however, she is a good teacher.
Debatably. There was a scene in the movie "A beautiful mind" where Nash walks into a class and closes the windows because of noise. One of his student's protests because it was so hot and he says he needs to be able to think without noise. Another student goes to the window and asks the workers outside to not make so much noise for 45mins while they have the lesson so they can keep the windows open.
as a pivotal moment in the movie it was fun, Nash replies, "sometimes there is more than one solution to any given problem".
This seems like what your son has done (found another solution to the problem). So long as he understands that. He is doing well.
Your son will do well. Bloody school. Bloody homework.