Mountain climb metaphor of schooling
This text is part of: "I would never send my kids to school" by Piotr Wozniak (2017)
Education is a mountain to climb
The mountain climb metaphor is helpful to understand why the concept of schooling is so pervasive despite being highly harmful. The metaphor explains that we cannot improve upon optimization without using optimization tools. The metaphor extends to many areas of life. It extends to many ailments that torment humankind today.
A popular saying says "hindsight is 20/20". However, there is a monumental snag in the process when we reach goals via optimization, and then attempt to lead others to reproduce the feat. Using hindsight, we are tempted to improve upon the trajectory without doing the actual computation that would verify the new trajectory's viability.
In schooling, adults have a distorted version of their own learning path. From the mountaintop it all seems so easy: first the alphabet and counting, then reading and simple calculations, and then a simple straight path to wisdom (see also: Crystallization metaphor). This approach nearly never works as intended. In case of schooling, it causes unnecessary torment, and time-wasting all around the world.
A child's brain is different than an adult's brain. For neurobiological reasons, the adult has no way of remembering the difference. The adult cannot empathize with a child's learning process, and must step away to let it run naturally. The shortcuts proposed by adults are counterproductive. The first thing we should learn at school or in life are the wonders of the world. In terms of the curriculum, chemistry should precede the alphabet, physics should precede counting sequences, biology should precede reading. We turn it all upside down, and then poison the chalice by making it all compulsory. In a mix with authoritarian parenting, this is a path to the loss of love of learning, hate of school, hate of people, bullying, depression, drugs, mental disorders, and more. Kids without freedom make as much progress as inmates in a tough prison: instead of re-socializing, they get worse.
Two key optimization errors of schooling
Many educators have shallow intuitions about why the school system does not work. However, without a good insight into mathematical optimization, it is hard to precisely nail the problem. Moreover, we need a good understanding of how conceptual computation shapes the concept network of the brain. Only then it becomes apparent that passive schooling undermines human intelligence and future progress of mankind.
In terms of optimization and conceptual computation, the two key errors of schooling can be expressed in terms of the mountain climb metaphor:
- you cannot optimize a trajectory without efficient optimization criteria. In the optimization of learning, the learn drive system determines the effective trajectory. You cannot climb the mountain on a straight line. You need to look under your feet
- in conceptual computation, a pre-determined trajectory prevents abstract compression of models. With the exposure to the evolving reality, the brain forms new generalizations. New abstractions form new shortcuts to understanding the reality. Children should not follow adults to the top of the mountain because there are always new higher mountains to climb. Failure to reach new mountaintops forms an existential threat to humanity
Hindsight is not 20/20
In terms of schooling, "hindsight is blurry while appearing to be 20/20". It comes from a typical illusion that affects the post-factum perception of neural optimization, or optimization in general. It comes from the curse of knowledge. All things that used to be difficult in the past, now may seem simple.
Early instruction is the degradation of the beauty of the world to the basic abstract ingredients that are unpalatable to young minds. The ABCs should be a natural consequence of exploratory learning. The kids can quickly discover the empowering value of reading. The elation of first reading is most delicious when it comes from self-discovery. It is nearly impossible to enter the world of computer games without a good number sense. Math is sweetest when it is used as a tool on the way to a great goal. Only math connoisseurs can love math for the math sake. Usually, it takes decades to become a connoisseur.
The never-ending drive to begin academic instruction at ever earlier ages is simply cruel.
Mountain climb example
Cultivating childhood passions
The Mountain climb metaphor of schooling explains how the optimization of education can lead to a blind path of inefficient learning.
The picture below illustrates an exemplary emergence of the illusion of the benefits of schooling. All high achievement in the area of human creativity begin with a passion. The most productive passions begin early in life. The education system has an adverse affect on childhood passions (see: Childhood passions). In addition to destroying the love of learning, the impact of schooling on early passions might be one of the worst side effects of the Prussian education system.
The example flowchart of passionate and prolific learning begins at the time of watching a Spielberg's movie "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" in the early childhood. As of that point, passions and interests spread dendritically and culminate with a PhD in astrophysics. As of that point, graduates are usually free to explore, and their further success depends on knowledge, talent, opportunities, etc. I posit that the survival of childhood passions may be the most important ingredient in further high achievement.
Figure: Childhood passions may meander from an ET movie, via YouTube and planets, to various branches of science. They may culminate in a PhD in astrophysics and a career in science. It is important to note that the goal at the top of the mountain may be impossible to determine today. It may not even have its name. The future will tell. On the way to the top, the child may pick up the alphabet, reading skills, algebra, and other necessary basics. The road to knowledge is based on exploratory learning. The joy starts in childhood and, ideally, continues well into the retirement age
Spielberg's movie may initiate interest in the biological aspects of the extraterrestrial life. This in turn may spark interest in life on Mars. Mars may then extend to an interest in other planets. In modern era, a child can quickly cultivate a passion for planets with YouTube. Through the YouTube recommendation system, it is easy to branch out into many directions, including the interest in general biology and the ABC of physics.
Mixing reality with fiction is a norm at this stage. This confusion is predominantly harmless. Interest in the signs of zodiac might be an example. All contradictions are resolved in the process of neural generalization. This occurs spontaneously. This is part of knowledge crystallization.
Importantly, all those interests in astronomy and physics can and should occur at preliterate stage and can also contribute to the interest in symbols. This way, instead of the usual curricular approach of early school that begins with the alphabet and counting, the child may being with the interest in star types such as G2V or M3V. This can lead to better knowledge of the letters of the alphabet, and later reading. In democratic schools with no curriculum reading can emerge at 3 or at 10 depending on the child and his interests. It is always a resultant of a competition and synergy between multiple interests. Knowledge of physics and biology can be based on a good understanding of scientific models. Those can, for example, be cultivated with the assistance of PhET simulations.
In children with rich interests, passions can quickly cover many areas of the typical high school curriculum. The coverage may be highly superficial in terms of the specific material. However, only the actual long-term knowledge matters in the comparison. With that in mind, knowledge of homeschoolers and unschoolers is usually vastly superior in terms of stability and coherence. This is the kind of knowledge that boasts a high degree of applicability. This is the knowledge that makes the difference in life. Our exemplary student with the ultimate PhD in astrophysics will retain her childhood passions and pursue a career, e.g. in science, with zeal and joy.
Replicating passions at school
The problem may begin when curriculum designers try to trace backwards the development of an expert in astrophysics. It is instantly tempting to skip the ET movie, exoplanets, and ban signs of zodiac as superstitious. YouTube may not be included as it is full of potential distractions. Monothematic focus is the key to the method and a straight path to boredom. First months at school are spent on drilling the letters of the alphabet: 3 days per letter. It is easy to deprive the curriculum from all vestiges of extraneous material that could spark new passions. High volume of learning, high interference, high degree of coercive learning, can quickly lead to the loss of the learn drive via learned helplessness. Some kids may still enjoy long days devoted to learning the alphabet (e.g. through the talents of the early teacher). Few will retain their love for mathematics by the age of 10. Most will hate their schooling experience by the time they are 15. There will always be some time reserved for movies, but the experience can easily be ruined by a tired brain: "You can watch that movie once your homework is done!". Some of the high school graduates may still opt for a career in astrophysics. However, without a true passion, this kind of joyless pursuit in bound to result in fewer breakthrough achievements.
Figure: When coercive learning based on a curriculum attempts to replicate a success of a child who follows its passions to a PhD in astrophysics, exploratory learning is diminished. It is replaced with linear learning devoid of passion. Knowledge loses on coherence. Comprehension is poor. Poor stability undermines the longevity of knowledge. Career in science is hardly possible. When such career is undertaken, it may be joyless and low on creative fruits
Parody of the future
If the evolution of the school system proceeds at the present rate in the present direction, we will soon teach newborns to read books about the art of walking. This will ensure they master the theory of walking before the practice of walking. Overtime, we might even defer actual walking to later ages, or even adulthood. This is what we seem to be doing with independence and creative thinking. We defer all the challenges to the time beyond college. And then we send kids out to the world to sink at the deep end of the pool.
Free learning is not a path
I received some feedback about the mountain climb metaphor via e-mail:
The claim about the superiority of teaching over self-directed learning at younger ages is a myth that can only be promulgated by those who do not observe children do their own expertly research (appropriate for their cognitive level)(see: Self-learning builds the best cognitive toolset). That harmful myth is used to argue for the importance of schooling. The mountain climb metaphor is aimed at abolishing that myth in the simplest possible terms. The metaphor does not imply that there is a path to the mountain top that can somehow magically be determined by adults or experts. That path does not exist. Free learning is not a path but an optimization strategy. It is a way to compute the path concurrently as part of the exploratory learning process. When a climber goes up the mountain, he has no idea which way he will take. However, he knows what kind of obstacles he can tackle, and which shortcuts are feasible. The climber is free to choose. In contrast, passive schooling predetermines the path for the student a priori. Daniel Willingham posseses rich and extensive knowledge of learning strategies, however, his effort to incrementally improve schooling towards some mythical perfection will slow down the arrival of the true reform. Willingham's effort is reminiscent of good communists who worked hard trying to improve the workings of the Soviet economy for seven decades. See: Modern schooling is like Soviet economy
Figure: Unschoolers justifiably resist scrutiny. It is inherently hard to answer questions such as "What did you learn?". If learning is passionately blind, it is hard to verbalize goals and effects. The unschooler instinctively knows she is on the right path. However, the rest of the world may remain unconvinced. The benchmarks do not exists, and well-schooled populations fail to appreciate the power of free learning. The picture helps to illustrate the problem. In an illustrative two dimensional knowledge space, a schooled pupil pushed by the pressures of the school drive is dragged along a linear pathway from its present status of knowledge A to a predetermined goal at B (blue pathway). The process is slow and ineffective. The student gradually develops a dislike of school and a dislike of learning. In contrast, a passionate unschooler follows unpredictable pathways in red (see: Mountain climb metaphor of schooling). The learning is highly effective and pleasurable (see: Pleasure of learning). The total mass of knowledge illustrated by the length of the entangled red pathway is huge (in comparison to schooling). The love of learning keeps growing in proportion to the size of the knowledge tree. A pupil will pass the school benchmark test adjusted to the goal B. An unschooler may fail. He would destroy all competition if someone cared to design an "interest benchmark" (in green). While most of the world worships achieving predefined goals (B) for a predefined society, we keep failing to explore the natural learning instinct (the learn drive). In the process, we build unhappy societies