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How to discuss purpose of education


FreyaO
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My 7-yo navigates towards big questions. I know she's been thinking about death for at least a couple of years and she recently asked "what makes some violent?". She's been asking in various ways "what is the purpose of education" - not in these words, but that's the essence. Various teachers in B&M schools tried the "learning is fun" approach unsuccessfully, because if something is fun then she expects to be able to decide when, if, how and how much of it she should do (and the answer would be rarely and not much). I'm not sure how to approach this. She will understand and accept the validity of practical, career-related reasons, but they are hardly inspiring for a young child. I'm probably not describing this well: I suspect she is looking for meaning, something valuable and big to aspire to, while having the life experience of a 7-yo. Seeing the big picture makes her so much more cooperative and life so much easier and smoother for everyone. 

Has anyone had any similar discussions?
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We've had similar conversations here.  It always comes down to happiness and satisfaction.  Think of it this way, when a child is a baby, they only get milk.  A diet of just milk would not work for a lifetime.  Our needs and abilities change as we grow.  And the more different foods we eat, the more we expand what we think about taste and our world.

Education is like that.  A diet of just the fun or the mundane doesn't satisfy our changing needs.  As we grow, we want to know more, be able to do more, to think about more things.  We want to understand our world around us.  Sometimes we find something we are passionate about and move more in that direction, letting our education propel us to a fulfilling career where we can use that education.  So our society makes sure we learn a little about most things at each new stage in our lives, until we come to a point where we decide how to use that education.

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If your daughter wants an alternative reason to "learning is fun" or "to prepare for college" or whatever Westerners suggest, she might enjoy an Eastern cultural reason for education.  I just read a book about the Asian/Confucian motivation for learning in this book:  https://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Foundations-Learning-East-West/dp/0521160626  and I can't STOP THINKING about the ideas presented here.    Once you get me started talking about this book I can not stop. 

Alternatively or as a prelude you can listen to the 7 episodes of the Education Bookcast, starting with episode #116a.   If you do, please tell me what you think.  

It may be a stretch for an average 7 year old to digest, but it might work as a read aloud, particularly if your student is dissatisfied with the Greek/Socratic motivation for learning.  

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Thank you, everyone.

HomeAgain, I've had the "making sense of the world" argument in my mind, but I like the idea of putting into a framework of growth.

Rosie, will give that a try 🙂

Daijobu, thank you for the suggestions - I will give the podcast a try for myself. 

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Is your child in school? If not, you don't have to make learning something that 'has to be done.' She can decide when, where and how much she wants do. This is really a homeschool philosophy thing.  In our homeschool, we learned together and had no independent assignments. In fact, we had no assignments at all, because I just didn't structure education as an assignment sort of thing. We read together, we explored together, we asked questions together. It was joyous and definitely not like 'school'. There are many ways to teach a child. 

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I am not clear on whether your DD is in school or whether you are homeschooling. But in general, for a 7 y/o, here are a few specific examples you could discuss (I am leaving out anything career related):

One purpose of education is to understand how the world works and to be able to make decisions for yourself and your family.
You need to learn how to learn so you can look things up that you don't know, can find out if somebody is telling you something that isn't true, can detect when something does not make logical sense. 
You need to understand how the body works so you can keep yourself healthy.
You need to understand how plants and animals live and how they interact in ecological systems so you can garden, appreciate nature, be an informed citizen who can vote to protect the resources.
You need to understand physics and chemistry so you know why the moon does not fall down, which household devices use a lot of electricity, why not to mix certain chemicals, how a microwave and a radio work, how to build a contraption with a lever, what matter is made of...
You need to study history and politics to understand how people developed certain customs, why the countries have their borders, how different people do things differently, what problems humans have dealt with in the past and how they tried to solve them.
You need to study English so you can write letters and reports and communicate what you have to say, and can read beautiful books and stories. 
You need to learn foreign languages so you can appreciate other cultures, speak with friends who speak another language.

You can also use examples from history: imagine people in the middle ages who did not understand that the sun in an eclipse is just gone for a bit and who worry it may never ever come back. Or how people didn't know that germs caused diseases and thus could not effectively keep healthy. 

These are all great thigs to discuss.

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Lewelma, she was in school for pre-K to 1st, hence there are some, not very positive, attitudes towards learning. To a large degree, she sees it as a chore. She gets very engaged with books, documentaries, museum visits, etc, but sitting down to produce some output is not welcomed. 

Starting homeschooling in Sept for 2nd grade. Our state does require a quite lenghty list of subjects  to be taught for a duration equivalent more or less to PS schedules. I understand this is not strictly monitored and there is flexibility in interpretation, but I do have to take it into account. I am also  probably myself not able to visualize how I can create something totally distinct from 'school'.  

 

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3 minutes ago, FreyaO said:

Lewelma, she was in school for pre-K to 1st, hence there are some, not very positive, attitudes towards learning. To a large degree, she sees it as a chore. She gets very engaged with books, documentaries, museum visits, etc, but sitting down to produce some output is not welcomed. 

Starting homeschooling in Sept for 2nd grade. Our state does require a quite lenghty list of subjects  to be taught for a duration equivalent more or less to PS schedules. I understand this is not strictly monitored and there is flexibility in interpretation, but I do have to take it into account. I am also  probably myself not able to visualize how I can create something totally distinct from 'school'.  

 

You may want to look at the wording of your state law.  Here we have the choice of "the equivalent of XXX hours" or "meet or exceed XXX hours" when writing our plans.

It makes a difference.  My child can complete the equivalent of a 2 hour public school language arts lesson in 45 minutes. He has met the lesson objective.  When I create our plans in Skedtrack, I put the recommended time for each lesson (if there is one) or an average between the two.

That said, you never have to do what a curriculum tells you to do.  You can look at the objectives, go online, and google activities for those objectives.  You can work in all sorts of different ways to have output and focused learning time that make learning seem more natural and mentor-guided, not lectured in.

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My area requires "as regularly and as well as school" and requires the 6 learning areas (math, science, english, etc). I had a 2 hour in-house assessment when my kid was 8, and had to produce a 10 page paper documenting what we had accomplished in the prior 2 years. So yes, been there. 

For second grade, you don't need to do seat work really at all.  You can do oral math and play shop and play games and you will absolutely not fall behind 2nd grade content. For writing, get out a book like "games for writing" and play writing games. We did stuff like taking turns writing one sentence in an ongoing story, where each of us tried to make the story make a u turn that the other had to respond to. I also remember my older writing me little riddles and hiding them around the house so that I had to find some object 20 steps later. You can do oral narrations to get a kid used to composing without requiring the seat time. There is just so much possible. Obviously, history and science can be done outside and in museums or really anywhere. 

This is really a homeschool philosophy thing. I simply would not make learning into a chore. Totally not in my philosophy. Learning is beautiful and fun, and I wanted my kids to want to learn rather than being forced to learn. For a child that has been impacted by 2 years of school to now have no interest, means that you need to give her a chance to re-find her love of learning. It could take a full year.

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According to my reading of Jin Li, the Asian motivation for learning is not to satisfy one's curiosity and learn about the world around us.  It is to be a better human: with more learning one can become a better steward of your family, a better citizen of your community, a better leader of your empire.  In short, one takes on the mantle of pursuing education at any and all levels for students of any ability from the most superior students to the least, to be a good person.  It's almost as if conversely, refusing education is tantamount to being a bad person.  (At least that's my takeaway.)  Education is not just the domain of the smartest citizens, it should be pursued by everyone at all levels.  Even the slowest student gains from their slower progress.

The communal nature of Asian society benefits from an educated citizenry at all levels.  And everyone is on board with this as a culture: parents, teachers, children, from an early age.   Students take an oath to pursue education even if it becomes difficult, and at personal cost.  Since we as a society benefit, there is (contrary to Western stereotypical understanding) less competition, less of a feeling of a zero sum game in education.  If you and I are student-colleagues, then your success in the classroom is my success as well.  Which is why we support each other's learning.  

It was truly mind-blowing for me to learn this, and I wish I had this understanding when my kids were younger.   it would have influenced and likely changed the way I spoke to them about learning.  

      

Edited by daijobu
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14 hours ago, daijobu said:

According to my reading of Jin Li, the Asian motivation for learning is not to satisfy one's curiosity and learn about the world around us.  It is to be a better human: with more learning one can become a better steward of your family, a better citizen of your community, a better leader of your empire.  In short, one takes on the mantle of pursuing education at any and all levels for students of any ability from the most superior students to the least, to be a good person.  It's almost as if conversely, refusing education is tantamount to being a bad person.  (At least that's my takeaway.)  Education is not just the domain of the smartest citizens, it should be pursued by everyone at all levels.  Even the slowest student gains from their slower progress.

The communal nature of Asian society benefits from an educated citizenry at all levels.  And everyone is on board with this as a culture: parents, teachers, children, from an early age.   Students take an oath to pursue education even if it becomes difficult, and at personal cost.  Since we as a society benefit, there is (contrary to Western stereotypical understanding) less competition, less of a feeling of a zero sum game in education.  If you and I are student-colleagues, then your success in the classroom is my success as well.  Which is why we support each other's learning.  

It was truly mind-blowing for me to learn this, and I wish I had this understanding when my kids were younger.   it would have influenced and likely changed the way I spoke to them about learning.  

      

That’s fascinating. You have piqued my interest and I may look up the book and podcast you mentioned.

I’m 2nd gen Asian and still have strong ties to the Asian community. I don’t really ever recall being inculcated with this idea of learning for the sake of the family or community. I’d be curious to hear from other boardies of Asian descent. 

The educational culture in Asian society can be extremely cut throat and competitive. I just hung out with a 1st gen friend who described her educational experience (she emigrated for post-graduate studies) and it was a more cut throat than what I hear about in the U.S.

So the book sounds like an idealized, almost “pastoral” and nostalgic view of Asian educational culture. But I should probably read the book first 😂 before I say anything else! 

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8 minutes ago, WTM said:

I’m 2nd gen Asian and still have strong ties to the Asian community. I don’t really ever recall being inculcated with this idea of learning for the sake of the family or community. I’d be curious to hear from other boardies of Asian descent. 

The educational culture in Asian society can be extremely cut throat and competitive. I just hung out with a 1st gen friend who described her educational experience (she emigrated for post-graduate studies) and it was a more cut throat than what I hear about in the U.S.

It is the confucian ideals. You (general) diligently study to your own capabilities so that you would hopefully be a thinking/learned person (versus foolish) and contribute to society in whatever ways.

Educational culture in asian societies tend to be cut throat if the parents aren’t wealthy. If you are 富二代 (loosely translate to adult children of wealthy parents), you have a strong financial backing and don’t need to worry about making it in the academic system. I am sure Li Ka-shing‘s children and grandchildren don’t need to worry about grades or college applications.

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You might consider looking at The Graves of Academe (Richard Mitchell). It may be too much for your 7 year old, but it will give you a different way to think about it, and perhaps you can bring those ideas into your discussion with your daughter. 


His writing style is also very entertaining.

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11 hours ago, WTM said:

That’s fascinating. You have piqued my interest and I may look up the book and podcast you mentioned.

I’m 2nd gen Asian and still have strong ties to the Asian community. I don’t really ever recall being inculcated with this idea of learning for the sake of the family or community. I’d be curious to hear from other boardies of Asian descent. 

The educational culture in Asian society can be extremely cut throat and competitive. I just hung out with a 1st gen friend who described her educational experience (she emigrated for post-graduate studies) and it was a more cut throat than what I hear about in the U.S.

So the book sounds like an idealized, almost “pastoral” and nostalgic view of Asian educational culture. But I should probably read the book first 😂 before I say anything else! 

My other Asian friends also denied this was a thing for them.  I hope you do read it and let me know what you think.  It makes the Western approach seem almost comically naive, while the Asian approach is so community-minded.  The podcast is an excellent summary.  

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@WTM@daijobu maybe simple real life example would be:

many females in my parents’ generation were not sent to school. Elementary school education was not compulsory then. So whenever my neighbor gets a letter or a fax, she has to wait anxiously for her husband and kids to come home to read to her. After her husband passed and her children were all working and married, she would sometimes knock on our door and ask us to help read as well as write the reply.  
My MIL would ask her husband or children to accompany her to medical appointments because her reading ability is limited though she had a few years of elementary school education.

My aunt entered elementary school late and grade skip so she did 2nd, 4th and 6th grade. She did her own self study after that.  She doesn’t need help with reading or writing. My country of origin made elementary school education compulsory for children born in and after 1996. 

Of the three ladies above, only my aunt is able to fully read the election ballot and understand the ballot measures. Now with text to speech, my MIL and neighbor could listen to ballot measures being read. However they still need to double check with someone else about the wordings on the voting card. 
 

Now the compulsory education age had been raised to 10th grade in my country of origin. Still the generation that received at least a 6th grade education is able to read the government forms, read their own medical bills, file their own taxes, read election materials, read the terms & conditions of banks without needing or waiting for someone else’s help. That relieves some burden from society and hopefully help them be better voters. My maternal grandma when she left China was able to read and write with a basic vocabulary so she was able to do a lot more stuff by herself. 

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23 hours ago, WTM said:

That’s fascinating. You have piqued my interest and I may look up the book and podcast you mentioned.

I’m 2nd gen Asian and still have strong ties to the Asian community. I don’t really ever recall being inculcated with this idea of learning for the sake of the family or community. I’d be curious to hear from other boardies of Asian descent. 

The educational culture in Asian society can be extremely cut throat and competitive. I just hung out with a 1st gen friend who described her educational experience (she emigrated for post-graduate studies) and it was a more cut throat than what I hear about in the U.S.

So the book sounds like an idealized, almost “pastoral” and nostalgic view of Asian educational culture. But I should probably read the book first 😂 before I say anything else! 

My parents told me the goal for education was to get a job which gets me money which I'll need to survive. My parents didn't think I was smart and thought I was lazy so, they never pushed me to be the actual best but the best that I can be. By the time I was in elementary school my parents were proponents of teamwork and building up the whole community, however they felt that was in contrary to how a lot of their friends felt. As people of Hong Kong they felt like "our people" could do more to support one another as opposed to being so cut throat educationally and professionally. Asia is a big continent consisting of a lot of countries and cultures and they definitely feel like other Asians were better about this. 

42 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

Now the compulsory education age had been raised to 10th grade in my country of origin. Still the generation that received at least a 6th grade education is able to read the government forms, read their own medical bills, file their own taxes, read election materials, read the terms & conditions of banks without needing or waiting for someone else’s help. That relieves some burden from society and hopefully help them be better voters. My maternal grandma when she left China was able to read and write with a basic vocabulary so she was able to do a lot more stuff by herself. 

 Didn't China "change" their language so more of their citizens could be literate (introduced pinyin and simplified Chinese)? I want to say they started introducing simplified Chinese in the 50's. 

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4 minutes ago, Clarita said:

Didn't China "change" their language so more of their citizens could be literate (introduced pinyin and simplified Chinese)? I want to say they started introducing simplified Chinese in the 50's. 

My grandparents and my husband’s grandparents left China before the first world war. My in-laws however cling to cantonese and doesn’t speak chinese unless the other party doesn’t speak cantonese. FIL knows how to read and write Chinese as well as read basic English because of work.

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32 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

My grandparents and my husband’s grandparents left China before the first world war. My in-laws however cling to cantonese and doesn’t speak chinese unless the other party doesn’t speak cantonese. FIL knows how to read and write Chinese as well as read basic English because of work.

I don't have a lot of grandparents to gauge the generation before my parents. My grandmother seem to be literate enough to do life, since her husband was a sailor she was decently independent. My dad and his siblings were orphans. My parents know how to speak English, Cantonese and Mandarin. My dad for work and my mom is very social (she will learn whatever language/communication is necessary to have friends).

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28 minutes ago, regentrude said:

Wasn't that also the idea behind the Enlightenment in Western Europe? 

Yes, isn't this what Plato was basically saying in The Republic? (except that he believed only certain types of people were cut out for higher learning - the philosophers).

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On 8/10/2022 at 8:06 PM, daijobu said:

According to my reading of Jin Li, the Asian motivation for learning is not to satisfy one's curiosity and learn about the world around us.  It is to be a better human: with more learning one can become a better steward of your family, a better citizen of your community, a better leader of your empire. 

The more I read this the more I feel like this is what education means for me. 

I have always been curious and I would sacrifice and become educated just to learn about things, but there are a lot of people that I've met who aren't curious. That always bothered me because I feel like they should continue to pursue education and continue to learn more, but I can never answer that question of why with them. I find this conversation harder with adults than with kids. 

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7 hours ago, regentrude said:

Wasn't that also the idea behind the Enlightenment in Western Europe? 

You know, I'm not well-versed in enlightenment philosophy, so all I know is what I read by Jin Li.  

7 hours ago, WTM said:

Yes, isn't this what Plato was basically saying in The Republic? (except that he believed only certain types of people were cut out for higher learning - the philosophers).

Jin Li does discuss this as a distinction between Western attitude toward education.  The Eastern version has everyone learning at whatever level they are at, not just the elites at the highest level.  

 

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On 8/11/2022 at 10:06 PM, daijobu said:

.  I hope you do read it and let me know what you think.  It makes the Western approach seem almost comically naive, while the Asian approach is so community-minded.  The podcast is an excellent summary.  

I’ve only listened to the first episode so far, but I am so impressed with his chinese. His pronunciation is quite good.

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I've always told my kids that the world is full of problems that need to be solved - everyday things like 'What foods should I feed somebody who can't take in a lot of sugars?' and big picture problems like 'How do we make sure that everybody has clean drinking water?' and complex problems like 'How do we help people with dementia?'.  The more that you know, the more you can be helpful in solving problems.  Obviously most people have a job that only focuses on one issue, but you don't know where life will take you so it's better to be prepared, or at least have yourself in a position to be able to learn what you need to know.  This conversation started simply in elementary school, but my high schooler is starting to see the benefits of it - like, if you are an engineer, it's essential to understand your role in making the widget but it's even better if you understand how it will be used since there might be different ways to do and you want to best serve the end goal of the project.  So, a computer scientist who also understands data analysis or biology might be better able to write code that extracts the relevent information since they understand what all might be useful.  

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