You mean without learning. The ‘education’ presented in this article is schooled education, not learning. People do learn in schools, but they do so despite being there, not because of it.
Yes, I disagree that education isn't good for learning though.
Sure there could be perverse incentives here and there that make the education system look bad, and it's definitely not perfect, and sure there's some unspoken learnings that teach people how to behave in society , but I'd argue that being at school is one of the most effective ways to make humans learn. How would you learn everything learned from age ~5 to 18 without teachers and peers?
Everything I learnt from age 5 to 18? Very close to nothing — and I was a good student who graduated to one of the best universities in the country. I could read before I arrived at school, and I only started to educate myself when I left. I could learn more in six months than I learnt in ten years in school — no exaggeration. Generally it is only the intensely schooled, who have done all their learning within its confines, who make completely absurd claims about the efficacy of institutional education. People who can do many things very well usually understand how destructive schooling is of genuine growth. Again, kids do learn in school, but it is despite being there, not because of it.
School is not one of the most effective ways to make humans learn. It is one of the LEAST effective ways. I will give you an example.
I know a decent amount of linear algebra now. I took a linear algebra course in college; I retained almost none of it. I remember learning something about SVDs and eigenvectors; I don't remember how to do an SVD.
So how did I learn any linear algebra? I had to learn it in graduate school, where I was trying to model evolution as a Markov process. I looked up some stuff in Numerical Recipes, wrote some C classes implementing matrix exponentiation and other such things. That stuck.
What you're describing is that you remembered something much better if you have a use for it. It doesn't mean school isn't effective.
How can you tell that undergrad knowledge didn't help you when you "looked up stuff in numerical recipes". In other words: would your younger self in high school be able to understand the stuff in Numerical Recipes, and able to write some C(++?) classes.
I know I wouldn't, and that undergrad education taught me some strong basics that would let me do it now. The end of class stuff where you take a toy example of how to use your learned basics such as calculating the SVD is just an attempt at giving some "real world" example which exercises the basics, and an attempt at grading you on this, and that can of little usefulness long term yeah, but the core concepts are useful if you pursue your education/career in a scientific path that requires those.
>In other words: would your younger self in high school be able to understand the stuff in Numerical Recipes, and able to write some C(++?) classes.
Yes, because my younger self used to read math books on the side for fun. This is also how I learned C.
While it is true that you may absorb some basic stuff from schooling, it is VERY thin. I was by all accounts an exemplary student, and I still retained a small fraction of what I learned. Meanwhile all of the real-world stuff I learned is still mostly there.
We would do much better to figure out how to integrate young people into real life earlier, like we used to - apprentice => journeyman => master. But we can't tolerate that, because adults need to be "maximizing productivity" or some garbage, and don't have time to train kids.
On ranting. From the introduction to the book this article is taken from:
What follows is a polemic, or as defenders of the system would have it, a ‘rant’. Polemics express negative QUALITIES. It is generally best to ‘let the facts speak for themselves’, but there are some aspects of reality which facts cannot speak for. At various points in this book I refer, for example, to the ‘nightmare’ of the system. To those who do not experience system-life as a nightmare (usually people in nice jobs), it will look as if I am ‘ranting’ — an accusation that I tend to take as a compliment — see https://libcom.org/history/shadow-glorious-though-strange-go...
