If you know about education and want to write about it, I’m just letting you know you should go for it. There’s an audience. That Principles of Learning jam I put out Wednesday got me a lot of inbound. Which I never would have predicted. It was an exercise in organizing my thoughts on a topic I find inexhaustibly interesting — learning faster and more efficiently. If I wasn’t loving building moontower.ai, I’d be pulling on that thread harder.
[If you are operating at the intersection of machine learning and human learning and want to connect hit me up. I have a close friend at the tip of that spear who I’d be asking for a job if I wasn’t being feral.]
Anyway, parents wanna know about this stuff based on my email inbound. Just sayin.
In that vein, I’m going to share a response I sent to someone who recently enrolled their 7th grader in Math Academy. The parent is concerned that by going faster (even in a selective private school that the child is already in) that boredom could become an issue.
I’ll be honest. I hadn’t considered that angle. But it’s a totally legitimate one considering that MA’s Justin Skycak addresses it directly in:
The Greatest Educational Life Hack: Learning Math Ahead of Time (5 min read)
Justin frames it in terms of risk and reward. That’s a valid approach. But for some kids, it’s still too conservative. Pre-learning is the ultimate option on having doors open that simply won’t any other way because you are compressing time.
In one of Paul Graham’s best essays, How To Make Wealth, he talks about the decision to join a startup in such terms. In Startup = Growth it’s spelled out — “raising money lets you choose your growth rate”. If the kid enjoys going faster, let ‘er rip, they aren’t aware of the option your giving them but they might thank you later.
[I wish I could make copies of myself to do all the stuff I want to do but at the same time, I consciously don’t want to burn the candle at both ends right now. There are doors that are closed because I didn’t go faster when the cost of going faster from a family POV was lower. But I wasn’t inspired to go faster then. Anyway, I’m not writing for therapy here, but if I’m projecting my own illusions you should at least have the disclaimer. ]
I suspect the downside is not especially sensitive to pre-learning anyway. Even if a motivated or math-inclined kid didn’t pre-learn they’re gonna be bored. The teacher will introduce a topic, the kid will get it immediately and still need to wait for others to catch up.
Something I tell my kids, and I don’t express it any type of subversive tone but just as a matter of fact…you can’t let the pace of school dictate what you think is a normal pace. School is built for everyone, but if you are good at sports you wouldn’t expect to move at the pace of the average kid in your class. You’d have a coach and play “up” or on a club team.
The subconscious message we pick up everywhere, especially in school, is that there’s a correct pace. But the error bars around that pace are massive. We know our children so deferring to what’s best for the average when we have specific info (whether they need more help or more stimulation) is wasting info. As always, it’s sound decision-making hygiene to consider the outside view but adjust it for your circumstances.
One last caveat — if I found out my bored kid was working on his fantasy football model underneath this textbook at school because he was bored my reflex would be “Sweet, show me what you got so far. But also you better get an A+.”