[TriLUG] OT: Education

[Scott Chilcote]

Jon Carnes wrote:
> I think it clearly shows that those folks who most willing and anxious
> to work hard don't have time to spend learning "old ideas" in school.
> They are too busy inventing their own light bulbs.
> 
> ... And they have learned the secret that success is built on the
> shoulders of thousands of attempts (not thousands of books read).
> 
> School is a very traditional way of learning, but the entrepreneur
> doesn't have the patience for that pace, and the knowledge they want to
> learn is more rapidly gained by doing.

Good Lawd, this bothers me.

How do you know what an "old idea" is, unless you find out where people 
have already been?  I wish I was 25% as smart as some of the folks who 
came up with a lot of the antiquated notions we take for granted. 
Recall the saying "people who ignore history are doomed to repeat it"...?

I can't imagine an entrepreneurially minded person making progress in 
any of today's scientific fields without referring to the vast body of 
accumulated knowledge we have for guidance.  There may be a handful of 
people who succeed without it, but I'd compare them to the handful of 
people who win multi-millions in state lotteries.  A vast sea of tickets 
are bought for every individual winner.

I think the statement above confuses the term "traditional" with 
concepts that at first seem similar, such as "best practices" or 
"successful approaches" - means of learning that have not only worked 
well, but have been continually improved over decades.  If you look at 
how a successful school like MIT produces scientists now, you'll find it 
looks nothing like what universities were doing twenty years ago.

There are some people who are so clever and intelligent they can teach 
themselves more effectively, but they already know who they are.  For 
everyone else, I strongly recommend taking a serious look before casting 
higher education aside with visions of "Unseen University".

--
Scott C.