Childerens education that respects their intelligence

Kids are naturally curious. They get frustrated when an adult won't explain something or comes up with an obvious lie because they can't be bothered to answer questions properly. Maybe their questions are even answered with an 'it just does' or 'because I said so' or 'because that's how it works'. The reason I say 'kids' and not 'humans' is because curiosity is all too often stamped out of them by their parents and their school before they even get to be teenagers. I want to preserve that sense of curiosity in children en masse, if they keep it past about 15 (I know I'm just pulling numbers out of my ass, I don't know of any studies into the subject) then they're pretty much set for life. One way I want to go about this is by creating educational documentaries for them that explain complicated subjects in an easy to understand way, making things 'as simple as possible but no simpler' about subjects that answer big questions. I'm a physicist so my mind immediately goes there for the most interesting and curiosity preserving subject, but we could create a network of different creators with the same mind set for different subjects. The films should also encourage kids to discover answers themselves. >Problems Problem A: Getting kids to actually watch them It used to be that crappy parents would just sit their offspring in front of a TV, which would've given some opportunity to jumps them with something good if we could get them on the channels, but now they just sit them in front of a colourful YouTube adfarm leaving no window of opportunity to get kids who's parents don't actively seek out educational films. This bias is unacceptable. We cannot abandon children because of their careless parents. Some American etc. parents might even actively stop their children learning about science. Problem B: Production I do not have the time or money to make a good quality film. I would never ask for donations for it as it is possible it would never get done anyway. It would not pay for itself because it will be distributed for free online. I do not have access to equipment or professionals. I have some filmmaking experience but I couldn't possibly do everything myself. Problem C: Permissions Ideally I would like to visit places like NASA and CERN. I have absolutely no idea how to get permissions to film in that sort of place if you don't already work there. I don't even have a passport so getting there in the first place is going to suĉk.

>>3040 I agree that we need a children's education which doesn't treat them like idiots, but your way to accomplish this seems pretty naive to me. This is something that has to be made by the State, not by an individual. In theory, school should forge curious kids, even if in fact it often fails. A bunch of films wouldn't help much, and probably there are already tons. I think probably a reform that makes normal schools more like the ones that follow Montessori or Stainer's methods, or similar to the finnish model of education (never tried any of those, but i heard they accomplish great results) can be an idea, but it becomes a political problem, where we as individuals aren't able to do much (i'm talking about school from an european prospective, so i'm assuming it's public) . Probably the best you can do is find some techie lainons and make with them a site which explains computers/programmig/physics/thefuckyouwant in a simple way suitable for childrens. Maybe if you manage to get in contact IRL (but this applies only for european lainons) with them you can even request EU funds to make the site. But this is very complex and i dunno if there are enough people wanting to do it, even lainons in my city according to zeemap don't want to talk with me cause autism, so it probably would be almost impossible to manage to organize something so big.

>>3040 Hey physics bro You don't explicitly say it here but i've been thinking about this too. Since I was a kid I hated school and now I know why. It's absolutely unnatural. If you've ever dealt with a complex problem that you couldn't solve then you might know that thinking about it while moving (biking, jogging, walking etc) can help you out, especially if you get to discuss with your peers before the activity. This contrasts starkly with how schools work, where you must sit motionless for hours. Which is not only bad for your body, it is bad for your mind, as it makes us sleepy or restless. I like your vision, friend. I wish you luck and I hope you take into account that if you go with nature (children want to be active, play and run) instead of going against it, then you will see stronger results. g'day

>>3041 I completely agree that we need reform of the education system, but some input from the individual can't hurt in the meantime, and I doubt we'll be seeing positive change any time soon. The reason I want to make films rather than a site is that unless the child is already interested in the subject they will not be motivated to read about it, while watching a film is more passive giving them a chance to get into it. Besides, I know how to make films fun and engaging but I do not excel at pure writing. I do live in Europe, but, er, not the good part. Even if we stay in the EU they'll probably be too bitter to fund any private protects in my country. >>3045 Thank you. You are a cool guy. I love you.

>>3067 do you have a specific project in mind? Making educational videos is something I would like to do as well. My areas of knowledge are basic programming and mathematics.

>>3136 All I know at the moment is that they are going to be live action documentaries focusing on physics/cosmology. I would really like to do some on natural history as well but I don't think I'm qualified to teach that.

Well the thing is you mention youtube being an issue when youtube already has dozens of channels that explain things like physics math and science in a way many can understand, such as numberphile is one that comes to mind. Or that video who I cant remember its by explaining higher dimensions. I dont know what a few indie documentaries are going to solve unless published on a platform like youtube. Not to mention a good youtube educational video runs about 10 minutes, while a documentary runs like an hour sometimes. A kid is far more likely to retain interest watching 10 minute after 10 minute video then an hour long documentary. More than anything I feel the issue is this "a teacher can teach anything so long as they know how to teach" attitude. First things first an idiot can get a teaching credential, its rarely obtained by someone qualified pre college. Id argue its far more important that someone have a masters in math, physics whatever they may be teaching then have a teaching credential. The other good thing this brings is more teachers, which means teachers can have more one on one time with students. Pay may be less, but ideally teaching would become a side job, and less of "teaching" and more of mentoring. The person teaching has real experience with their field, and less students. There is the counter that someone can know their soykaf but be terrible at teaching it. However id far rather have it that someone is knowledgeable and passionate about what they teach then be good at teaching it. Their more respectable attitude and passion will excite more students to pull the information out of them if they arent top teachers, which is another good skill for kids (seeking out information and learning things from people rather than just being talked at). If they are really bad theyl get fired, rather than this teaching business where they just get transferred to another school to be someone elses problem because its impossible to fire them due to tenure. tl:dr i think we should remove teachers alltogether. Require someone have a bachelors or masters in their field they wish to teach, and there would be some job training like any other job where they learn the teaching requirements and material they must cover.

>>3180 I didn't mean youtube was the issue, I meant the drivel stupid parents put on for their kids that happens to be on youtube because its convenient. I also did not mean to imply that this would be a solution for the world or anything like that, I just meant they could help individuals.

Did you choose films just because of YouTube? Isn't the passivity that's inevitable with films part of the problem?

>>3040 >'it just does' or 'because I said so' Many say this when they don't actually know the answer to the question, or realize how the answer may be unknowable. An example is how, in Contact (the book), the main character asks how we know that pi continues infinitely, and that answer ("It just does") is given

This reminds me of "Het Klokhuis" on Dutch television. They make 6 episodes of 15 minutes every week and they're already doing it for like 27 years. It's funded by government subsidies and broadcast on public (unencrypted) televison. Here's an episode on evolution for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zba5IJzZDXU Kids watch it because: 1) It's fun to watch for kids. It has some funny sketches or sometimes songs in between the more serious information. 2) Parents watch it with them because it's also enjoyable to watch for parents. (much unlike Dora the Explorer) 3) It is programmed on TV right after sesame street and the news report for kids. This can't hold up when society shifts to the youtube adfarm though. A low-budget way to produce content like this is to take some of the episodes and translate/dub them to English. This would have copyright issues but we can either get permission or do it anonymously. Problem A is still to be solved though.

>>3187 >I didn't mean youtube was the issue, I meant the drivel stupid parents put on for their kids that happens to be on youtube because its convenient. In that case, I think the difference might be that while many parents considered it relatively safe to trust a child with a television and the ability to flip through channels to something that interests them, it's much harder to trust browsing the internet arbitrarily to not result in running into some bad content. Especially when even on Youtube, the same site they're using to get videos to show their children, it's only a matter of scrolling down to the comments section to find a load of absolute garbage. Maybe it'd make sense to go the route of making a locked-down browser that whitelists a set of sites channels and a home page with a directory of links to them, promoting it as a child's entertainment app? Maybe using a degrees-of-separation system to also allow visiting sites that are directly linked from a site that was manually listed to avoid too many dead links.

>>3361 this Interaction and "playing with the concepts" is part of learning process. People don't learn by having lectures in college, they learn by asking questions about the topic and playing with ideas presented from various angles.

>>3041 >This is something that has to be made by the State, not by an individual. I wholeheartedly disagree. While it is too large a task for an individual in the strictest sense (perhaps maybe "independent group" would be a better term than "individual"), I absolutely do not believe in entrusting the education of future generations to the State. The result of the State's school systems are, I think, exactly why this thread was made. The State created the public school system specifically to produce obedient, conformant citizens, to erase individuality and free thinking in children, to stop them from asking questions and start them doing as they are told. This is the Prussian model that is now so widespread in the west. We could attempt to reform the public school system. We might even be successful, to a degree; we may be able to abolish some policies and enact some others that, on the surface, go a great way towards achieving our goal. But, we will never be able to transform the public school system to a suitable degree. No matter how much we prune and guide the branches, the system's roots are sunk deep into principles diametrically opposed to our goals. No, the public school system will never, ever be what we want it to be. It is, I think, critical to render the public school system obsolete and impotent as expeditiously as is humanly possible. For as long as the State has its fingers in childrens' minds, those children will never grow to be truly free thinkers. The state, desperate for its own longevity, indoctrinates all who it can reach. Putting the minds of future generations of children outside of the reach of those indoctrinating forces is of the utmost importance. The only way to achieve that goal is to provide alternative, superior education to those children. Educational resources free of the State's meddling must be made available.

>>3735 Who else is going to do it? For-profit education is obviously a very bad idea, and volunteer networks are extremely unlikely to grow big enough to be a viable alternative to public schooling. You can "reach millions" with online platforms but that will never replace face-to-face teaching, especially for young children. Unless you are planning to overthrow capitalism or something I don't think any other organization has the power to reform education in a way that would actually benefit children. Hell, it's very possible that even the state doesn't have it anymore as it's being gutted by megacorporations. They -- Alphabet, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, all the big players -- are already working on the "next generation" of education based on surveillance, data mining and aggressive behaviour control. What is going to be our response?

>>3737 First of all, there are many, many cases of volunteer education having great effect in areas where public schooling is not available. I will not claim that it has the ability to replace the public school system in a modern, developed society. I will, however, say that the power of volunteers in certain roles (and the availability of volunteers to fill those roles) should not be underestimated. More importantly, though, you seem to be forgetting an option. Private, not-for-profit education has a very long and successful history. There are no greedy fatcat overlords - if that's how you like to picture capitalists - degrading the product for their own gain yet at the same time the faculty and staff are paid, are not volunteers. The operation of the school is funded through a combination of tuition and a donation-funded (and investment-grown) endowment. In recent history, this option has unfortunately been practically, though not intentionally, reserved for children of financially well-off families as a result of the barrier that the tuition costs present to lower-income families. When given the choice between the state schools, paid for with everybody else's money (and therefore "free" for the child's family), and the private schools for which the family must pay with their own money, the choice is usually (in the absence of significant financial aid, typically merit-based) quite simple. The obvious solution to this blockade is to fight to free up the money that the state collects for its schools and allow it to be used to fund the child's education at whichever institution the child's family feels is most suitable and appropriate. Of course, the "teachers" at the state schools will fight such a change with tooth and nail; they are loath to see students escape their indoctrination; more significantly, they loathe the existence of competition, as it means that they may need to improve the quality of their own offering. That is, though, the beauty of the strategy: in addition to providing higher-quality options, the low-quality state options will also be improved (or rendered obsolete and supplanted completely). In such a fashion, education that is almost entirely outside of the state's indoctrinating influence can be provided at a price point that is affordable to the families of most, if not all children. In regards to the document that you posted, I can't say that I agree with all of it. While it does raise some valid concerns, by and large it has a strong air of luddite fearmongering. Frankly, modern technology has great potential to improve students' learning experiences, especially in rural areas where good teachers (or, for that matter, any teachers at all) are few and far between. (As one example, the high school that I attended offered a course in computational biology taught remotely by a researcher at a laboratory of (inter?)national renown.) Digital data collection absolutely can be used to identify a student's strengths and weaknesses, allowing an educational experience to be better tailored to suit that individual child. Of course, we must be very wary of how that data is being shared (it should not be shared at all outside of the academic environment) and the student's parents absolutely must be informed of how the system works before deciding to involve their child. Obviously this is only progress to a certain extent - technology should be used to supplement the traditional classroom, not to supplant it - but I think that to reject all of the technology that has recently become available is naive and amounts to shooting ourselves in the foot. Ultimately, though, the paramount point is choice. Parents should have an array of choices available for their child. They should not be limited to just one practical option, be it state-run, volunteer-run, not-for-profit, corporate, religious, or anything else.

school can never compensate for parents. if we want better children we need better adults.

>>3766 You do realize that there is a good chunk of children without parents?

>>3766 You can't teach an old dog new tricks. If we want better adults in the future then we need to raise better children now.

>>3766 >>3768 https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/children/cb11-117.html https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/2016/comm/cb16-192_fla_graphic.pdf http://www.sos-usa.org/our-impact/childrens-statistics https://www.unicef.org/media/media_45279.html Just to add on my statement, blaming just the parents is ludicrous, especially when there are millions of children who don't have them.

>>3742 I swear you're from U.S.A. or some other country where education is mainly private and public school is soykaf. Public school is not a state instrument for propaganda. My history and philosophy teacher, for instance, is stalinist (something that in my country is not easily accepted) but despite this she works. In my school we even have a Holocaust denier, and in a near one there is a teacher who has been in a terrorist group (a very radical, against the state one) and has passed many years in prison. Obviously the major part of the teachers are more "normal" but what i'm trying to say is that with such a wide range of different opinions is very difficult to be brainwashed. The state itself has more than a single soul. The public school system is composed by many different teachers' syndicates, each one influenced by many different people with many different political opinions and so on. Even if the teachers of a school share all the same political stance (and it's almost impossible), there is still the influence of the students' movements, the parents, etc. to stop a student from being completely brainwashed. Brainwashing by public school becames possible only when the whole country is already brainwashed (see U.S.A. where, as far as i know, there are only two parties which are basically the same, almost no syndicates, young people usually don't care about politics and so on)

>>3742 There is no point in choosing when all the possibilities are fundamentally the same with the only difference being the branding.

>>3774 I am, in fact, from the USA, where education is mainly state-run. State schools, at least here, are literally indoctrination centers - look up the Prussian education system. Fun stuff. >>3776 That is exactly my point. We need better options from which to choose. The state cannot and will not provide those options for us.

>>3777 how about you just adopt a decent political system instead?

>>3777 The USA is a jingoist third-world tier syokafhole. The soykaf going on there doesn't really apply to the more civilized parts of the world.

>>3782 I bet you are one of those europoors with your communist education and filthy uncut pingas. Charter schools are way better because you have proper corporations running them and they need to be good to make a profit which is why we have all the good colleges and all your people come here trying to get into our colleges because our system works better.(Please remember to always argue in good faith and avoid using personal attacks in future.)

>>3781 >>3782 Yes, let's throw away centuries of progress so that we can adopt a "decent" political system like all those European countries have that give no respect to individual rights. I'm so sorry that I enjoy being able to say what I want without worrying about the sharia gestapo arresting me for offending someone. I'm sorry that I enjoy being able to purchase and carry the tools necessary to protect myself. I'm sorry that our government is actually required to respect due process. I see the error of my ways and will be abandoning my freedom momentarily. FFS Lains, we were having a decent conversation before you showed up. Let's have an actual discussion of the topic at hand, responding based upon the merits of the ideas floated by other posters. Can we? Please?

>>3785 For profit education is the worst idea ever. It denies quality education from those who need it the most. It's the exact opposite of what OP wants to achieve. I'm glad you finally admitted that you are a clueless Market Fundamentalist, though.

>>3789 >It denies quality education from those who need it the most I'm not who you're replying to, but see my earlier point >>3742 - we need to get the state to pay for education that the state does not control.