Single Pushback Discussions

If you're a parent and your kid wants something, common preference finding usually doesn't mean you have a long discussion. Most things kids want are small and immediate, and can be done faster than a big discussion.

If you think it's a good idea, just do it. If you think it's a bad idea, say this:
I'd rather not do that because [short reason]. If you still want me to, then I will.
Optionally, you might say briefly what you could do instead. Especially if it's a bigger issue, rather than a really little one. But only if you think your kid would want to hear it.

This way, there won't be a long discussion. There won't be a big back and forth. This strictly limits how much your disagreement delays your kid getting what he wants. It keeps transaction costs low.

But the kid does get advice. He does find out why the thing he's asking for might not be good. You wouldn't just want to do whatever he asked without sharing your useful knowledge about it. But you don't want to block him from getting what he wants by arguing a lot.

Suppose your kid wants something and you're busy. Don't ask if it'd be ok to wait 20 minutes, and then he says he's not sure, and then you ask if 10 minutes would be ok. Then you're getting into a discussion that takes too long and is too unclear how your kid can get what he wants (now, if necessary).

Instead, say something like this:
I'm busy. Can you wait 20 minutes? Otherwise I'll stop and do it now.
This keeps it simple. You make one short objection. You give the kid some clear and immediate options. He can have what he wants right now with no further discussion. Or if he doesn't mind waiting, then you can finish what you were doing.

It's important to say stuff like this because the kid may prefer your alternative option. Sometimes he won't mind waiting. You wouldn't want to drop what you were doing every single time, even if the kid could have waited half the time. It's better for both of you if he sometimes prefers for you to finish, when it won't be a problem for him. But you also don't want to put a big obstacle between your kid and getting the help he's asking for.

A reason child may prefer to wait is that parental help is a limited resource. The child will benefit by using it efficiently. Interrupting the parent will use up a bit of the parent's energy, and it'll take some extra time to switch tasks and switch back (like to find his place again, and remember the context, if he was reading). In general, parent will be able to help more with other things if he's got fewer demands on him.

In the examples, the parent does a single pushback on what the kid wants. This gives one opportunity for the kid to get new information (parent currently in the middle of something) or criticism (a reason it's a bad idea), and then change his mind. That's good because it allows for improvement, and without it a worse outcome would happen frequently. But multiple pushbacks is frequently too many and burdens the kid. A single pushback is a good amount to use for most everyday events.

If child agrees to wait, he may change his mind, or parent may be busy longer than expected. If child comes back and asks a second time, parent should help immediately. Don't repeat that you're busy or make a second request for child to wait. This keeps it to a single pushback for the issue and makes it safer for child to agree to wait.

Every single pushback or back-and-forth or layer of negotiation is a big deal. People don't have enough respect for how much that needs to be minimized. You can discuss back and forth more when your kid wants to, that's fine when everyone's interested in doing it. But there are going to be a lot of times when he doesn't want to.

Notice how these statements are structured to limit the amount of times the parent and kid go back and forth talking. Kid makes request. Parent does one pushback. Kid chooses to either get his request immediately or accept the pushback. That's it. And the parent clearly states these options to the kid, so he knows he can get what he wants, right now, without any further arguing or pushback. The kid does not have to argue back against the parent. And the kid does not have to have a discussion where the parent speaks several times.

The kid is welcome to ask for a larger discussion if he wants. He might ask if there's any other options, or can the parent explain more. He might ask a question about what the parent said. He should be told, in general, that he has options like that. But don't state those options every time. Stating two options is enough for small everyday events – with one option being the kid's initial preference, and the other being the parent's alternative suggestion.

Parents should get good at making appealing alternative suggestions without having to question and argue with the kid for 10 minutes and then have 5 tries at telling him alternatives. Parent needs to get skillful at this to reduce the burden on the kid.

It's important the parent be happy. So parents should also get good at being happy to help their kid. And get good at being interruptible during most activities. And get good at thinking, "I got to say why I thought it wasn't the best idea. I got to express myself. But my kid still disagreed, so it must be important to him, and I better help."

It's important for the parent to remember that if he negotiated with his kid more, it'd interrupt what he was doing anyway. Or if he argued with his kid more about a decision (e.g. whether kid can stay up late tonight), then he's making it harder for the kid to be his own person. Parents need to stop having agendas they are trying to push on their kids, and instead understand their role as helpers. Parents should only pushback more than once if they really, truly think the kid will regard it as helpful and thank them for it (right now, not later).

This will not solve every problem parents have. If kid wants a yacht (which is unusual), parent can't just say "I think that's too expensive, but if you still want it I'll buy you one." But it will help with a lot of small interactions.

If you don't know dozens of concrete, practical parenting interactions like this, you could be a much better parent.

And if you didn't know this one, try to understand that you still don't know it after you read this post. It's not going to just instantly work in your life. You might be able to immediately do something better than you used to do. But you're not done yet. Remember it, try it out, see what goes wrong, ask some questions about it, make some adjustments, etc. Then you'll form a real, thorough understanding.

You can find out ideas like this by discussing your parenting and getting tips from other people. And other people can point out some problems you didn't see with your parenting (and you can point out some of theirs, since you'll have different perspectives). And you can ask for ideas like this to help with your life, instead of passively waiting for me to post them unprompted. Take some initiative to get better parenting knowledge!

If you already have some really useful parenting knowledge like this, share it. Other people need it and can offer you refinements. If you have none, your parenting could be way better! Start actively seeking out more knowledge right away!

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (2)

Skepticism vs. Infallibilism vs. Critical Rationalism

skeptics have the idea you can't be sure of anything. maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. men can't have knowledge, it's kinda hopeless to figure things out.

this is weird because how did they figure it out?

then their opponents, the infallibilists, say they are sure of things.

but sometimes the stuff they are sure about turns out wrong later

both sides have the same hidden idea: that ideas should be proved or established or supported to make them sure or more sure.

and one side is saying we can do that, and the other side says it doesn't work so we're screwed.

the majority think we can be sure. because people do have knowledge. we build computers that work. we figured out how to make airplanes and bicycles.

but the doubters have some good points. there are logical reasons that the sureness stuff doesn't work. no one has ever been able to answer those logical arguments.

another approach is that we don't need to be sure. we can make an iPhone without being sure of anything, and it can still work. sureness was the wrong thing to look for. we should be looking for other stuff instead. so the whole debate was missing the point.

everyone was stuck on this issue for over 2000 years. Karl Popper got it unstuck like 50 years ago.

being sure is like trying to say "this idea is good because..." and then it scores points for every argument you give. people then compare how much sureness or points different ideas have.

the alternative is to look for problems with your ideas. try to figure out what's bad about them. if you can't find any problems, it's a good idea to use for now.

we don't have to be sure, but we can improve our ideas. if we see a problem and make a change to fix it, now we have a better idea than before. we don't know if it's true. we don't know if it has a bunch more problems. but we learned something. we made progress.

if an idea has a problem that isn't fixed, then we shouldn't use it no matter how sure anyone is. sureness isn't relevant.

and if there's no problems anyone knows of, then why wouldn't you use it? there's no objections. so sureness doesn't matter here either.

Example

so there's a cow farmer, and he says he's sure he has 3 cows. but a skeptic says "how do you know you have 3 cows? you can't be sure of anything. maybe you've been hallucinating and have goats"

the cow farmer is saying how sure he is when actually he shouldn't be sure. maybe he DID hallucinate. or lots of other things. there's ways he could be wrong. it's POSSIBLE.

it turns out some wolves ate one of the cows last night, and he didn't check yet. so actually he has 2 cows. he was wrong. he shouldn't have been so SURE.

the skeptic is dumb too b/c he just doubts everything. except not really. it's kinda random. he didn't point out that maybe the cow farmer didn't exist and he (the skeptic) was hallucinating. he didn't worry that maybe he hallucinated his dinner.

the skeptic didn't know the wolves attacked. he didn't have any information that there weren't 3 cows.

he wasn't saying something useful. there wasn't any way the cow farmer should act differently once he finds out the skeptic's idea.

so the guy who was sure was risking being wrong. he can't be SURE there were no hallucinations or wolves. but the skeptic is bringing up hallucinations without seeing any LSD lying around, without seeing any goats outside, without any reason to suspect a hallucination in this case.

this whole thing is silly and is pretty much how everyone thinks.

the cow farmer should say:
i'm not sure i have 3 cows. but i think i do. i saw 3 cows yesterday, and the day before. my family and i harvest their milk and it fills up the right number of bottles for 3 cows. it takes my son 3 times longer to clean up their poop than when we had 1 cow. they eat pizza like normal cows, not sushi like goats always want.

do you have any argument i'm hallucinating? do you know something i don't, which should change my view? do you have a criticism of the idea that i have 3 cows? not a reason it isn't guaranteed, but a reason it's actually wrong?
this way he's explaining why he thinks he has 3 cows, and asking for new information or criticism that would let him change his mind to a better idea.

if the skeptic doesn't have any info or criticism like that, then 3 cows is the best guess (idea). even if the wolves attacked and they don't know that, it was still the best guess given the information available.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (2)

Short Sighted

I have an idea about why people are short-sighted.

it's often seen as kinda just being a bad person. this bad thing that doesn't make sense and isn't in one's self-interest, and people should just stop doing it.

but i thought of a reason it'd happen and way it makes sense. i think this helps explain it.

my theory is people chronically fail to get their preferences met, especially longer term ones. when they try to plan ahead, it doesn't work. this is due to lack of skill. eventually, after many failures, they stop trusting their ability to get good things later. they stop having any confidence that planning for the future will end up working out well.

so they try to get short term preferences met. because it's the only way they get preferences met at all. due to lack of skill.

given the context, being short sighted makes sense. if u only have the skill to get short range preferences met, it makes sense to pursue them and not pursue other types of preferences you're not able to succeed with.

just trying to think more long term wouldn't solve this problem. it wouldn't make them have skill. so the standard advice people get about being short sighted won't work. what's really needed is to improve their skill at managing longer term projects. they need to gradually build up the ability to plan further ahead successfully.

building it up by working on slightly longer range preferences is one of the ways to work on this. keep increasing the time a little bit. plan 20min ahead. then 25min. then 30min. etc. get a track record of success and confidence, and build up the time to longer times. this isn't a full solution though. some of the problems will be related to specific topics, not the amount of time involved.

Edit: added text emphasizing lack of skill point.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (2)

Benevolent Universe

The Early Ayn Rand, in a story preface by Peikoff:
“Good Copy” reminds us of another crucial aspect of Ayn Rand’s philosophy: her view that suffering is an exception, not the rule of life. The rule, she held, should not be pain or even heroic endurance, but gaiety and lighthearted joy in living. It is on this premise that “Good Copy” was written.

... Their objection was not to the story’s flaws but to its essential spirit. “It is so unserious,” the criticism went. “It doesn’t deal with big issues like your novels; it has no profound passions, no immortal struggles, no philosophic meaning.”

Miss Rand replied, in effect: “It deals with only one ‘big issue,’ the biggest of all: can man live on earth or not?”

She went on to explain that malevolence—the feeling that man by nature is doomed to suffering and defeat—is all-pervasive in our era; that even those who claim to reject such a viewpoint tend to feel, today, that the pursuit of values must be a painful, teeth-clenched crusade, a holy but grim struggle against evil. This attitude, she said, ascribes far too much power to evil. Evil, she held, is essentially impotent (see Atlas Shrugged); the universe is not set against man, but is “benevolent.” This means that man’s values (if based on reason) are achievable here and in this life; and therefore happiness is not to be regarded as a freak accident, but, metaphysically, as the normal, the natural, the to-be-expected.

Philosophically, in short, the deepest essence of man’s life is not grave, crisis-ridden solemnity, but lighthearted cheerfulness.
This particularly stood out to me:
even those who claim to reject such a viewpoint [malevolent universe] tend to feel, today, that the pursuit of values must be a painful, teeth-clenched crusade, a holy but grim struggle against evil.
lots of people are scared of embracing FI/reason/etc, they think of it like a holy but painful struggle. that's so very wrong. there's nothing to be afraid of. values do have a chance in this world. try for it.

reminds me of The Virtue of Selfishness, "How Does One Lead a Rational Life in an Irrational Society?":
And then, on some gray, middle-aged morning, such a man realizes suddenly that he has betrayed all the values he had loved in his distant spring, and wonders how it happened, and slams his mind shut to the answer, by telling himself hastily that the fear he had felt in his worst, most shameful moments was right and that values have no chance in this world. [my emphasis]
values do have a chance. and like the tramp who steals a ride on Dagny's train says in Atlas Shrugged, make a try for it:
I think that it's a sin to sit down and let your life go, without making a try for it.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (10)

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (105)

Blocked by @Krauserpua

I saw some really awful tweets, unfollowed @Krauserpua, and voiced my objections. He blocked me for daring to criticize his advocacy of cruel violence and ugly irrationalism. Fuck him. I think ideas like his are worth standing up to, so here's his tweets (in red), my replies, and a few bonus comments.
If you don't want to look like a whore, don't act like one. http://tinyurl.com/pnf2g3l
unfollowed this asshole for this nasty victim shaming. he makes SJWs look like they have a point.
The article he linked is about minors being victims of revenge porn, then being told to go fuck themselves by revenge porn help hotlines, and sometimes by their teachers/schools, too.

This borders on legitimization of under-18 porn, and all he wants to do is blame the underage victims who had their rights violated.
If we'd just let HIV run it's course, we'd have corrected about 50% of the problems in the West.
unfollowed this asshole who wishes death on gays. he makes SJWs look like they have a point.
we solve problems with ideas, not death.

you are an anti-scholar and a thug.
What kind of person thinks that a bunch of people he doesn't like being dead is how to make the world a better place?
If you illegally jump the border, you shouldn't have any protection under the law. Including from assault, rape and murder.
unfollowed this asshole who is pro-murder. WTF. he makes shitlibs look like they have a point.
If you miss your flight and overstay a visa, should everyone be allowed to murder you, too?

And what happened to due process? Shouldn't they at least get a trial before they are raped for their alleged crimes?
"You are blocked from following @Krauserpua and viewing @Krauserpua's Tweets. Learn more"

someone sure couldn't take criticism...
I expected to be ignored. I did not expect to be blocked. What a thin skin he has for a guy who advocates raping and murdering people for a non-violent crime.

This is a guy who advocates changes to medical research policy for the express purpose of more homosexuals dying than Hitler managed to murder. For his own twitter description, he wrote "Horrible bastard" (that's the whole thing). But he can't take being called an asshole and being unfollowed.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (13)

Ann Coulter's Worst Article

The Problem Isn't Guns or White Men [all emphasis mine] is the worst Ann Coulter writing I've seen (and I've read a lot of articles, plus all her books). I think most of her writing is really good, so this stood out to me.
Since the deinstitutionalization movement of the 1960s, civil commitment in the United States almost always requires a finding of dangerousness -- both imminent and physical -- as determined by a judge.
Coulter wants to take away the freedom of people whom she considers dangerous in a non-imminent, non-physical way.

For non-imminent, I understand what that means. It means there's no immediate danger, but there's fear a person might be dangerous in some way at some future date. That sounds to me like it applies to everyone. The future is not predictable like this – at least not well enough to ruin someone's life and lock them up without a jury trial.

This is an ridiculous standard for jailing someone – not just for a crime they didn't commit, but for an imaginary crime that may or may not happen one day.

For non-physical, I don't really know what Coulter is talking about. Is she saying that in addition to locking people up who are potentially dangerous in the sense of physical violence, we should also lock up people we're concerned are mentally ill enough to commit wire fraud? I disagree.

The danger Coulter repeatedly brings up in the article is mass murder. But she's using it to advocate initiating force against people who are dangerous in some non-physical way which isn't mass murder. She doesn't even mention which non-physical dangers she wants people to lose their freedom over. That's dishonest.
Most of the rest of the world has more reasonable standards -- you might almost call them "common sense" -- allowing family, friends and even acquaintances to petition for involuntarily commitment, with the final decision made by doctors.
The idea is: acquaintances plus doctors can have anyone locked up. Remember the idea of innocent until proven guilty? Remember the idea of a jury of your peers? Remember due process? Forget all that. Doctors, some of whom work for the government, are going to be judge, jury, and imprisoner. Sound fun? Sound like reasonable common sense?
The result of our laissez-faire approach to dangerous psychotics...
Why not force Democrats to defend the right of the dangerous mentally ill not to take their medicine?
Democrats won't be able to help themselves, but to instantly close ranks and defend dangerous psychotics...
Remember that when Coulter writes "dangerous" in these sentences, she means "non-imminently or non-physically dangerous". Otherwise the current laws would cover it.

She's complaining about a laissez-faire approach to people who aren't dangerous right now. But if there's no problem right now, leaving it alone makes more sense than locking someone in a thoughtcrime jail and then forcibly drugging them, without a trial, doesn't it?

Make no mistake about it. Involuntary commitment in a mental hospital is imprisonment the same as in a jail. Just without the defense lawyer, and without all the safeguards against abuse that our court system contains. This is an dangerous attack on liberty.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (333)

Ray Girn, The Self Made Child: Maria Montessori's Philosophy of Education

Ray Girn, The Self Made Child: Maria Montessori's Philosophy of Education

(these are paraphrases after the > unless in quotes, because it's from audio and he chose not to offer a transcript for better discussion.)

> (5min) presents a concept of reason and says purpose of education is to impart this to child so he can be a reason-using adult.

i disagree. there's no conception here of the child disagreeing, or of error-correction of the parent/educator's conception of reason. there's no concept of it being the child's life, and his decision what ideas to accept. the parent should offer these things, but rely on persuasion. the goal should be to help the child, not to decide before the child is born what ideas the child should have in his head when he's 20 and then figure out how to get that result. that kind of predetermined and not-open-to-disagreement parental agenda ends up meaning trampling all over the child as an autonomous individual with a mind and rights.


> advocates parents using force to limit TV, and takes that for granted as right. puts it in the same category of as helping child not get run over by a car or die from guzzling lighter fluid.

note the key difference: the child does want to watch TV, but does not want to be hit by a car or be poisoned by lighter fluid. the child is not actually trying to commit suicide and doesn't want that. but does want TV. so the examples are completely different. but Girn mixes them together as the same thing, as cases where he thinks parental force is clearly OK.


> says you can't compel THOUGHTS (as opposed to using compulsion for ACTIONS like drinking poison), can't force a child to have certain ideas, like how you shouldn't force people to read Atlas Shrugged

ok


> Montessori idea is, instead of freedom, to offer the child prepared freedom – design an environment to channel and leverage child's nature (instead of using compulsion)

yeah, it's all manipulation for the predetermined parental agenda. no fallibilism, no error correction of parent's agenda, no full freedom for child, just (this is common today) trying to find ways to control child without it being force.

> (14min) quote "the child will receive a lesson from the adult, a demonstration of (this is probably a 2.5 or 3 yo child) this activity, and then will be left free to kinda explore and repeat at his leisure"

notice how the child is explicitly free AFTER the lesson – NOT free about whether he wants this lesson. that's not an accident of wording, it's the child being compelled. he goes on to say things like "children work through activities like these" – it's decided in advance before the child is born and he doesn't have a choice. that is force.


> nothing in the mind that doesn't come from the senses

emphasis on training senses


> various activities, like blocks and number rods

the numbers stuff is trying to connect sound, symbol, amount. the activity itself sounds just kinda painfully awful and unpleasant, something i would have hated. there's an element of taste here and some people would like it better, but it's not presented as this thing for 20% or even 50% of kids, it's presented as what the kids do at Montessori. (i'm sure they have some choice if they hate one particular activity, but i think they get offered a bunch of activities which, in certain ways, are all similar, are all coming from the same kind of design philosophy. choice is limited and someone who doesn't like one activity of this style could easily dislike most of them).

these activities aren't open ended. they are designed to have a single outcome, and if child does it a different way that he thinks is better, he gets corrected. it's not like real life where you're doing exploration and coming up with your own goals and it can lead to other things. it's all predetermined and setup to go a specific way, like people at regular school doing the science experiment in the textbook in order to get the already-known result they are told to get, rather than as part of following their interests.

like my friend's kid tried to make a train out of blocks at a Montessori school, and then got corrected cuz that wasn't how the blocks were supposed to be used. that's mean. and it's not just some aberration at that school, it fits the Montessori way of thinking. the audio lecture was just saying how the activities are self-correcting, the toys are designed to only work one way and if the child does something else it doesn't work. meaning the adult already has in mind his mind a specific way the stuff should be used, that's the intended point he's trying to ensure happens. so of course that kinda perspective isn't friendly to deviance or innovation. the whole prepared environment thing is trying to do things like take away distractions, and decide which things a child should learn, that's the whole design here, not to let the child pursue his own interests and goals (like making a train out of blocks instead of learning the adult's lesson).



> curriculum not offered by teacher but embedded in world the child explores

this is dishonest. the teacher set up the curriculum in an indirect way, then pretends it's just child exploring the world.

and it's so controlled. the child doesn't get any non-Montessori toys, isn't allowed to have other stuff he might want like iPads or legos. so then the child, given only Montessori stuff, ends up doing some of it, rather than nothing. then parents see that as evidence the kid likes the stuff.



> (22min) materials are selected by what's enticing to child, what child directly needs, what child indirectly needs to gain something else, and then they're all set in order. then it plays this clip of Maria Montessori saying the choice of what to do is up to the child and the teacher is in the background.

but the teacher is deciding what teacher thinks child needs to accomplish teacher's agenda that was set before child was born. teacher is deciding what teacher thinks entices children (not what they actually find enticing like more TV watching). teacher is totally controlling the child's environment to control the child, and this is all on purpose, and then at the same time teacher is claiming to merely be in the background.


> (23min) Maria Montessori says b/c the curriculum is embedded in the materials, whatever the child chooses he ends up working on the curriculum

so you see the child has no choice, it's work on the curriculum or work on the curriculum. he's heavily controlled.

then Maria Montessori elaborates that even that isn't enough control. for example, if the child chooses geography stuff over and over, then she'll come up and push math on him in a way where she doesn't feel like a thug but she makes sure to get her way...

> freedom for child to engage in reasonable forms of activity, not anarchy

so it's: you have freedom as long as you don't deviate too much. you can disagree as long as it's within the scope of what the authority considers a reasonable disagreement and allows, but nothing more.


> (29min) ground rules

> can't interrupt unless you follow a politeness procedure

> only may use materials if you receive the presentation (b4 that, off limits)

and if the child wants to use a material but not receive the lecture? then the RULES are enforced by FORCE, right? gentle force if possible – trying to guide the child, ask him to stop, put subtle pressures on him. (just like the government doesn't send armed men to collect taxes, they just mail you some forms to start with, most people never see the guns)

(concretely, what they frequently actually do is kick kids out of the school to dodge the issue. if the kid is noisy, doesn't obey some rules about what materials he can use, stuff like that, and their pressure doesn't work, then the kid can just get kicked out, which is pretty common.)


> talks about uninterrupted time

actually there is a preset schedule which interrupts the children, even if they don't want to be interrupted, a few times a day. (how? what if child doesn't obey? you take it from there)

> says how adult is guide, comes in now and then (yes, during "uninterrupted" 3 hour work period), not directing the process, shows a learning period video

this is dishonest. the adult is controlling everything indirectly. does less directly. then talks about not directing things because his control is indirect. it's just a rationalization of control, and they keep talking about it like it isn't control.


> (41min) says how child is learning to be free in this citadel of knowledge where nothing is accidental, it's all lovingly selected. rich knowledge designed for purpose of "allowed" child to learn how to live well.

how to live well according to parent's concept of living well, which child is not free to disagree with.

> (44min) says to prevent 10 year old from playing video games all day or drinking a bottle of whiskey

prevent by force. why do those particular things justify force? what's so bad about video games? it's just convention, it's saying stuff lots of people believe, not doing philosophy. and there's an element of whatever children like is assumed to be bad: http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/video_games_a_unique_educational_environment

> says something about engendering curiosity

Girn has this concept that the child kinda sucks. he has to be carefully controlled to get good. he doesn't have curiosity at birth, you have to find some way to make him curious. he's not rational, you make him rational.

this contradicts my understanding of Atlas Shrugged where John Galt is a **normal man**, and the reason other people aren't like that is because they are broken. you don't have to do something special to get a John Galt, you just have to not break the kid. but Montessori isn't about making sure not to break the kid, it's trying to do all this special stuff.


> (48min) wonders how much education should emphasize transmission of integrated body of knowledge, deep knowledge of the "Western canon". Girn is unsure

> if child won't learn it voluntarily, it's our problem as educators (to figure out how to get him to learn it voluntarily). says stuff about cultures of learning, respect for intellect, role models, inspiration, resources, materials, lessons which give motivation

as long as the end result is predetermined and inflexible, no amount of trying to make it voluntary will ever make it actually voluntary.


> classical education prioritizes gaining knowledge, loses importance of it and applications

> progressive education ignores that child needs knowledge

> Girn advocates third way between classical and progressive. mentions that child is left "completely free"

i think it's notable this "third way" doesn't reject the existing continuum and reconceive of education, it's just, by his own account, in the middle, trying to get the good stuff from two different schools of coercive education.

> (60min) what about consent? Girn knows it's important but hasn't been able to figure out how it affects these topics.

sigh. yes, consent is a big deal when you're trying really hard to control human beings. if they'd respect consent at all times, they couldn't do lots of what they do.

10 year olds don't *consent* to be forcibly prevented from playing video games they want to play. kids don't *consent* to being forcibly prevented from watching TV they want to watch. kids don't *consent* to having access only to Montessori materials, not iPads. Kids don't *consent* to being forced to have to do a presentation thing before using some materials even if they'd rather use those materials now.


> (65min) questioner asks about explicit training in mind self management, and generally about updating Montessori to teach newer stuff. Girn says they do some stuff like that

the whole premise is the educator deciding what the child does, rather than offering things to child that child might want and can make a choice about. it's authoritarian.


> (68min) question about whether/how to teach Objectivism. Girn says he doesn't really have an answer. says if kid is exploring it on their own then they can do a bunch, but if you're imposing it be more conservative.

so, you can impose some stuff on child, at all, ever. he's fine with that.

at the beginning it was like everyone agreeing not to make Atlas Shrugged required reading. but here he is being OK with imposing some Objectivism on kids, if you're like careful or something he hasn't worked out clearly.

> (76min) Girn says how some people have Montessori preschool, then regular school, then at University it's like Montessori again with choice.

given my view of universities, this is damning.



big picture: the whole thing is how to control the child while also thinking you aren't a thug. there's lots of stuff like this today because many, many parents want both of those things. but they contradict and this whole thing is irrational – it assumes the educator is right, doesn't concern itself with disagreements or with any error-correction of educator's ideas, and it doesn't respect the child as a real person.

Elliot Temple | Permalink | Messages (21)