Comments on: A dreadful hoax!

By: Anton Dyudin

Anton Dyudin — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 21:35:00 +0000

I am 17, graduated HS last year and am now taking a thoroughly involuntary gap year, and wow does this resonate with me.

By: aikimoe

aikimoe — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 07:27:00 +0000

They are valuable tools for certain people. They are worthless wastes of time for other people, no matter how they’re implemented. This is public education’s biggest challenge, to treat students like individuals with their own learning styles that have nothing to do with age and which too frequently make grading and grade levels counter-productive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

By: *uckabees

*uckabees — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 18:37:00 +0000

You just got turned on to this video?? Pretty sure this might have been posted on BB before too… I know at least Alan has.

By: drokhole

drokhole — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 07:01:00 +0000

Holy shit, Alan Watts!!! Love it! Here’s another great one:

Life is a Dance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29atSZKbmS4

And, for the intrepid explorer, my Alan Watts dedicated YouTubes channel(s):

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6F3AC2A90A026ED8&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7gB0IA1jXx49aApqJWKDR5knzOuO7Hcg&feature=mh_lolz

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7gB0IA1jXx5S24hnFT1j9CF_ou-4x9As&feature=mh_lolz

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 06:54:00 +0000

Right, but school IS a part of life as well and treating that part of your life as a “practice run” isn’t a terribly good idea. Once again, I think you missed his point.

By: Nicola Mary

Nicola Mary — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 06:54:00 +0000

Having just started working at an insurance company last week, and being 60% through my graduate degree, this really hit home :S !

By: nixiebunny

nixiebunny — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 06:19:00 +0000

I would thoroughly enjoy being a third-world maker.

By: teufelsdrochk

teufelsdrochk — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 02:43:00 +0000

Yay! I get to be the guy who posts this wonderful Alan Watts / melodysheep mashup:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXmz605GAnc

can’t get enough of this…

By: Carl Witthoft

Carl Witthoft — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 01:00:00 +0000

I didn’t say it was. There’s a lot more things that happen than just school when you’re a child. Most of it involves learning. That’s why we have things like parents to take care of us until we’re ready to join the orchestra.

By: EH

EH — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:59:00 +0000

I know what the video is saying, silly, but that sentence is well beyond even phonetext garblage.

By: eldritch

eldritch — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:15:00 +0000

The ensō at the end credits struck me dumb. I’m not entirely sure I can explain why, given the esoteric concept of an ensō.

By: swankgd

swankgd — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:12:00 +0000

I spent my entire pre-college education in the LAUSD, one of the most maligned systems in the country, and I came out with what I consider to have been an excellent education. I attribute that in large part to the fact that my expectations were set correctly.

To be fair, my parents were part of the system, both career LAUSD educators. So I guess you can say that gave me an advantage. However, in practice, the only way that “advantage” manifested itself was in the fact that they knew what the real point of the system was and how to work within it to my best advantage. They never got me “special” treatment, they simply taught me how to get the most out of showing up to school every day.

The GOAL of education is to teach students how to think and solve problems within various subject fields. The TOOL of education is curriculum (the text books, the homework, the tests).

Somewhere along the way, the TOOL got mistaken for the GOAL. In that regard I agree with this little audio essay. Tailoring education around teaching kids to pass standardized exams is a failing proposition.

But I think Watts goes too far in maligning the very concept of tests, grading and grade levels. While they are currently being implemented poorly, those are valuable tools when used in service of the correct goal (assessing and tracking progress towards the acquisition of critical thinking skills), rather than treated as the goal themselves.

By: Kimmo

Kimmo — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 23:37:00 +0000

Bam.

By: Kimmo

Kimmo — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 23:31:00 +0000

For everyone as lucky as you, there’d have to be at least a dozen folks who’ve never had the opportunity to get stuck into something that fun.

Being a first-world maker is a rare privilege.

By: Patrick McGorrill

Patrick McGorrill — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:51:00 +0000

I am sure Watts would laugh it off and be glad to find someone experiencing life as a symphony, if he were alive.

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:43:00 +0000

I think a far better musical analogy would be that school (but not ALL of your childhood) is like practicing your instrument

I think you missed his point entirely. Life isn’t a “practice run” and life doesn’t begin “after school”.

This might help you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSpqObhK4Rw

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:36:00 +0000

I don’t blame the schools here. It is up to parents

Maybe it’s up to both? Both are a part of society, after all.

By: pickledbeatnik

pickledbeatnik — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:12:00 +0000

That “South Park style” comes from the fact that this is part of a series the creators of South Park did before South Park.

By: Sean Sakamoto

Sean Sakamoto — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:10:00 +0000

I think this is the baby boomer version. They promised us we could be anything we wanted, and when we got there, it wasn’t everything they promised it would be. The Gen X version is: They promised we could be anything we wanted, and when we graduated with a ton of debt, we couldn’t find a job.

By: Boundegar

Boundegar — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:55:00 +0000

I am sure Watts would be deeply hurt by your evaluation, if he was alive.

By: GlyphGryph

GlyphGryph — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:44:00 +0000

The gamer term “grind” pretty much refers (classically, anyway) to exactly what this video describes, but in game terms. Playing pacman is not grind, even if want to get a high score. Because the entire time, you are playing the game and (hopefully) enjoying yourself.

The same is true, usually, for unlocks in Smash Brothers – they happen as a result and reward for overcoming gameplay challenges. OR you can grind for them.

Say, for example, one of the characters is unlocked after a large number of multiplayer battles OR completing the campaign. The most time-efficient way to achieve the unlock is to spend two hours starting a battle with a fake friend, immediately jumping off the edge so you die and the battle ends. Completing the campaign, however, would take at least 3. Now, you’d really enjoy the campaign, but you really want to unlock that guy…

But by choosing the 2-hour option, you’ve subverted the reason you got the game in the first place (to have fun), and the very thing the reward was trying to reinforce – actually playing with friends and enjoying it!

That’s grind – focusing on an (often meaningless in context) goal at the expense of the bits that are actually worthwhile, when the point is to be actually playing the game.

By: jimh

jimh — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:35:00 +0000

Me too! Knew it was him as soon as I heard the first bit…

By: jimh

jimh — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:33:00 +0000

It’s an excellent question! And one that the system seems designed to discourage. We allow society, parents, peers, and countless others to define our goals all the time. If only we were told early on that the goal might be as simple as enjoying our very short lives. You sound like one of the lucky ones, or perhaps more enlightened!

By: jimh

jimh — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:28:00 +0000

It means enjoy the journey. (Because, it’s all journey.) Focusing on the happiness that will come in some future set of circumstances deprives us of the opportunity to truly enjoy our lives.

By: Carl Witthoft

Carl Witthoft — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:23:00 +0000

IMHO this guy is completely full of shit. I knew perfectly well why I was in school (at least once I hit high school): I wanted to learn enough to be able to function more or less independently. I wanted to learn enough to be able to do my own work in physics and science in general.
I think a far better musical analogy would be that school (but not ALL of your childhood) is like practicing your instrument so you are able to contribute positively to the symphonic works that will be part of your adulthood.

By: technogeekagain

technogeekagain — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:57:00 +0000

Doesn’t work for me. I did all the schoolwork because it was fun to learn how to do most of those things and I could see value in the others. I’m in my profession because it’s something I discovered that I enjoy doing. (You spend a huge share of your life at your job; it had BETTER be something you are happy doing, or at least not unhappy. “Working for the weekend” is a last resort.)

If you’ve been working toward a goal someone else set for you… why?

By: cjporkchop

cjporkchop — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:33:00 +0000

“I was that kind of student that did well in school without much effort and was constantly told how smart I was.

It was the biggest mistake they made. I was unprepared for the amount of work a university curriculum”

Sort of the same for me. I grew up being told how smart I was, and got by just fine without studying in most classes, but then I stopped doing most homework and that brought my grades down.

I think I was pretty much trained that “I’m smart, and I didn’t have to work in grade school or middle school, so therefore I shouldn’t have to work in high school or college.” And if something *did* require work, that threatened my belief that I was smart, so I’d avoid it.

I blame my parents and my early schools for instilling these modes of thought. But also myself, of course.

This article on NPR is perfect at showing what’s wrong with the typical American way of perceiving things that are difficult–

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/12/164793058/struggle-for-smarts-how-eastern-and-western-cultures-tackle-learning

By: EH

EH — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:33:00 +0000

“the video is mostly neutral about that, and merely points out that its the idea of focusing on a goal that comes “later” isn’t the idea”

What does this sentence mean?

By: chellberty

chellberty — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:32:00 +0000

Video origin plus there are more of these animations and they were animated by the south park guys. http://www.freshminds.com/animation/alan_watts_theater.html

By: wysinwyg

wysinwyg — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:10:00 +0000

No, “grinding” by definition is not hard work. It is dull, tedious work but usually quite easy to do.