This video talks about high school curriculum design issues; advocating greater focus on concrete life skills and less of a focus on classes with “intangible” value like history or more advanced mathematics. If I recall correctly, he doesn’t say anything about science class, which I think there’s a lot to criticize there too. A lot of common counter-arguments to his point do not seem scientific. The argument that history teaches critical thinking for instance is very popular, but there’s no good definition of critical thinking and research seems to be all over the place. I generally agree that education should provide more direct value. The commentary I saw on it kept bringing up the issue of standardized testing which is unrelated. I don’t hold much hope out for improvements when the average person can’t even stay on topic.
Paul Graham writes that studying fields with hard, solved problems (eg mathematics) is useful, because it gives you practice solving hard problems and the approaches and habits of mind that you develop solving those problems are useful when you set out to tackle new (technical) problems. This claim seems at least plausible to me and seems to line up with me personal experience, but you seem like a person who might know why I shouldn’t believe this, so I ask, is there any reason I should doubt that the problem-solving approaches and habits of mind I develop studying mathematics won’t help me as I run into novel technical problems?
Let me make a simple parsimonious assertion: knowledge acquisition is limited to the precise information acquired with zero secondary benefits to any other areas of the brain. Furthermore, unless practiced regularly this information will most likely not be retained.
While such an assertion is in all likelihood not true, in the absence of evidence, it is more likely to be true than a more complex theory of how knowledge is acquired and retained.
Now, if I was to put Paul Graham’s argument into precise, scientific terms, it would be:
Holding time constant, time spent on more difficult problems is more likely to produce measurable improvements in fluid intelligence than time spent on simpler problems.
Or possibly: holding time constant, time spent on more difficult problems is more likely to produce measurable improvements in conscientiousness than time spent on simpler problems.
I’ll stick with the first definition for simplicity.
But increasing fluid intelligence is a hard thing to do. This famous study argues that solving working memory tasks increases fluid intelligence however this meta-analysis argues that the evidence in this area is still inconsistent. Even if working memory tasks do generate increases there is still the problem of whether it’s better to solve a few really difficult tasks or lots of easy tasks or somewhere in between. Then there is the issue of how long this increase is retained. Is it something like exercise where benefits mostly disappear within 6 months? And even if working memory tasks do increase fluid intelligence, that doesn’t mean difficult math problems increase fluid intelligence.
My own impression is that the best way to increase intelligence is by just reading a lot. As evidence, this study found that reading was the best predictor of increased success on a standardized test. The next highest predictor was being social. Studying had a positive, but non-significant impact. This was an observational study so the usual caveat of correlation may not be causation applies.
I believe that reading more complex literature up to a certain point is probably better than simpler literature, but I don’t have evidence of this. I’m also not sure of what that certain point is where complexity is too great.
YouTube rap video’s might not be the best focal point to have a discussion about high school curriculum design issues.
. I generally agree that education should provide more direct value.
Do you think that anybody designing curriculas wouldn’t want them to provide more direct value everything being equal?
I don’t hold much hope out for improvements when the average person can’t even stay on topic.
School curriculum’s don’t get designed by the average person, what makes you think that the average person ability to stay on topic matters for the issue?
This video talks about high school curriculum design issues; advocating greater focus on concrete life skills and less of a focus on classes with “intangible” value like history or more advanced mathematics. If I recall correctly, he doesn’t say anything about science class, which I think there’s a lot to criticize there too. A lot of common counter-arguments to his point do not seem scientific. The argument that history teaches critical thinking for instance is very popular, but there’s no good definition of critical thinking and research seems to be all over the place. I generally agree that education should provide more direct value. The commentary I saw on it kept bringing up the issue of standardized testing which is unrelated. I don’t hold much hope out for improvements when the average person can’t even stay on topic.
Paul Graham writes that studying fields with hard, solved problems (eg mathematics) is useful, because it gives you practice solving hard problems and the approaches and habits of mind that you develop solving those problems are useful when you set out to tackle new (technical) problems. This claim seems at least plausible to me and seems to line up with me personal experience, but you seem like a person who might know why I shouldn’t believe this, so I ask, is there any reason I should doubt that the problem-solving approaches and habits of mind I develop studying mathematics won’t help me as I run into novel technical problems?
Simple: Where’s the evidence?
Let me make a simple parsimonious assertion: knowledge acquisition is limited to the precise information acquired with zero secondary benefits to any other areas of the brain. Furthermore, unless practiced regularly this information will most likely not be retained.
While such an assertion is in all likelihood not true, in the absence of evidence, it is more likely to be true than a more complex theory of how knowledge is acquired and retained.
Now, if I was to put Paul Graham’s argument into precise, scientific terms, it would be:
Holding time constant, time spent on more difficult problems is more likely to produce measurable improvements in fluid intelligence than time spent on simpler problems.
Or possibly: holding time constant, time spent on more difficult problems is more likely to produce measurable improvements in conscientiousness than time spent on simpler problems.
I’ll stick with the first definition for simplicity.
But increasing fluid intelligence is a hard thing to do. This famous study argues that solving working memory tasks increases fluid intelligence however this meta-analysis argues that the evidence in this area is still inconsistent. Even if working memory tasks do generate increases there is still the problem of whether it’s better to solve a few really difficult tasks or lots of easy tasks or somewhere in between. Then there is the issue of how long this increase is retained. Is it something like exercise where benefits mostly disappear within 6 months? And even if working memory tasks do increase fluid intelligence, that doesn’t mean difficult math problems increase fluid intelligence.
My own impression is that the best way to increase intelligence is by just reading a lot. As evidence, this study found that reading was the best predictor of increased success on a standardized test. The next highest predictor was being social. Studying had a positive, but non-significant impact. This was an observational study so the usual caveat of correlation may not be causation applies.
I believe that reading more complex literature up to a certain point is probably better than simpler literature, but I don’t have evidence of this. I’m also not sure of what that certain point is where complexity is too great.
YouTube rap video’s might not be the best focal point to have a discussion about high school curriculum design issues.
Do you think that anybody designing curriculas wouldn’t want them to provide more direct value everything being equal?
School curriculum’s don’t get designed by the average person, what makes you think that the average person ability to stay on topic matters for the issue?