Thread

Tutoring company tells parents to save their money and 'use AI instead'

142 points · 233 comments · theanonymousone

upupupandaway · 1790265861 · focus · HN ↗
A friend of mine put his kid into a school called Alpha [1]. It has no teachers, only guides (?), who are well paid grads but not formally teachers. Kids go in in the morning, do two hours of computer study with an AI program, and the guide only steps in if the kid has a question or doubt the system cannot answer.
Then there's recess and afternoon is all taken up with "Life Skills" classes such as entrepreneurship and the likes.
Kids are tested weekly and progress through grades at will. For example, his kid would officially be in 3rd grade, but she's doing 3rd reading, 5th grade math, and 4th grade writing. She can easily test 3rd grade topics now.
I am ambiguous about this model. Love the "learn as much as you want" even if it means learning 2, 3 grades ahead, but the no-teacher rule and so much computer use seems a little strange. Also if the kid is not extremely self-motivated, they will be left by the side of the road by the school.
[1] - <a href="https://alpha.school/" rel="nofollow">https://alpha.school/
Edit: It's 40k a year.
1. piltdownman · 1790266709 · focus · HN ↗
  In terms of 3rd level accession and standardised testing I'd imagine they boast great statistics, and that the students are self-evident in communicating a degree of confidence and holistic education beyond their traditionally educated peers.
  However, I would fear that the issue with home-schooling would manifest: that the rarified atmosphere would render them incapable of engaging or coping with the brutal reality of binary-minded Authority figures and hierarchical social constructs in their work and life in the 'real world'.
  To writ, some of the most important lessons I learnt in school were to do with the concept of 'fairness', my own ability for emotional regulation, navigation of social hierarchies, and the symbols and signifiers of popular culture. The curriculum as a whole came a distant second.
  N.B. Public (read:Private) schools in the UK are about £30k a year. Boarding schools hit about 50k in the UK/Ireland. 'New Age' or International schools for the children of diplomats and HNW ex-pats like Nord Anglia or similar go from about €/£20k upwards. 40k a year isn't outrageous in context, even outside of America.
  1. piloto_ciego · 1790268308 · focus · HN ↗
    Then I think you probably learned the wrong lessons.
    The lesson you should have learned would be that we should tear down the "brutal reality of binary-minded Authority figures and hierarchical social constructs." We only tolerate these things as "normal" because people go through their lives not actively trying to tear them down and break them.
    csa · 1790279675 · focus · HN ↗
    > Then I think you probably learned the wrong lessons.
    > The lesson you should have learned would be that we should tear down the "brutal reality of binary-minded Authority figures and hierarchical social constructs." We only tolerate these things as "normal" because people go through their lives not actively trying to tear them down and break them.
    I was a product of an environment like that (magnet school with a lot of unstructured time and good access to resources), and it didn’t take me very long to run into the Binary Authoritarian Figures’ version of “you and what army?”, and they were largely correct.
    There are ways to undermine parts of the establishment, sometimes even at scale, but the process is not always obvious or easy to access.
    piloto_ciego · 1790283912 · focus · HN ↗
    So you gave up when it got hard? That’s kind of what I read out of that.
    csa · 1790285786 · focus · HN ↗
    > So you gave up when it got hard? That’s kind of what I read out of that.
    That’s a very uncharitable reading.
    I have made my mark in the world by exploiting the Achilles’ heels of “authority figures” (which is usually just some form of a lack of empathy). I have caused a few to fall, I’ve made others reform, and I’m just an annoyance to many others. I have trained others to do the same.
    That said, I could get whacked out of existence figuratively or literally if I crossed the wrong person or group.
    There are others like me, but (as I mentioned before) we aren’t always easy to find.
    I know the above may seem grandiose, but I’ve had a chip on my shoulder about these “authority figures” since I was a kid. I’ve done something about it, but I also didn’t choose to bang my head against a wall and call it progress.
    piloto_ciego · 1790305521 · focus · HN ↗
    I think that's exactly what it reads as... I'm not trying to be a dick but, "I'll remember this and <authority-figure> will get his or her just rewards" is... I don't know, like I said, it reads like "well I ran up against a wall so I decided to give up and wait for a different wall."
    Uncharitable, maybe. But, yeah, you should definitely stand up for yourself more.
    csa · 1790311104 · focus · HN ↗
    Two points of unsolicited advice:
    1. You may want to work on your reading comprehension skills.
    2. You would probably benefit from being more curious and less certain.
    piloto_ciego · 1790312390 · focus · HN ↗
    One point of unsolicited advice:
    Making yourself feel better about giving up does not constitute actually doing anything.
  2. csa · 1790279796 · focus · HN ↗
    > However, I would fear that the issue with home-schooling would manifest: that the rarified atmosphere would render them incapable of engaging or coping with the brutal reality of binary-minded Authority figures and hierarchical social constructs in their work and life in the 'real world'.
    Having been to a school like that, I agree with you. I had to learn those lessons quickly.
    I largely opted out of being in the middle of that world, but I am still adjacent to it due to its ubiquitousness.
  3. BeetleB · 1790286343 · focus · HN ↗
    > However, I would fear that the issue with home-schooling would manifest: that the rarified atmosphere would render them incapable of engaging or coping with the brutal reality of binary-minded Authority figures and hierarchical social constructs in their work and life in the 'real world'.
    This keeps coming up every time, and it's always pointed out that there is scant evidence supporting this view at a large scale.
    Every motivated parent I know who homeschooled his kid didn't deal with these problems.
    And plenty of those who went to a traditional school did. They aren't even outliers. I'm sure anyone who went to a regular school can think of kids in their class who exhibited the problems you mentioned.
    No doubt, plenty of homeschooled kids do as well. Just as you have a distribution for regular schooled kids, you'll get a distribution for homeschooled kids. Claims that the distributions for the latter are skewed in the "wrong" direction are never presented with evidence.
    > To writ, some of the most important lessons I learnt in school were to do with the concept of 'fairness', my own ability for emotional regulation, navigation of social hierarchies, and the symbols and signifiers of popular culture. The curriculum as a whole came a distant second.
    I went to a regular school, and none of what you say applied to me. The curriculum/instruction came first, and learned little of the former. I'm sure I'll find classmates who'll say the opposite. This sounds like a classic case of post-hoc attributions.
    graemep · 1790288543 · focus · HN ↗
    Its a weird stereotype of home education that people with no, or limited, experience have of it. It is far better preparation for the "real world" than schools are.
    chasd00 · 1790292419 · focus · HN ↗
    As a parent of two teenagers in public magnet HS (one of which is top 10 in the US) I still say homeschooling is by far the best and what my wife and I would have done if it was an option.
    Home school is best, private school if you can, public school if you must.

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