Posted on 08/19/2008 1:01:58 PM PDT by jazusamo
When amateurs outperform professionals, there is something wrong with that profession.
If ordinary people, with no medical training, could perform surgery in their kitchens with steak knives, and get results that were better than those of surgeons in hospital operating rooms, the whole medical profession would be discredited.
Yet it is common for ordinary parents, with no training in education, to homeschool their children and consistently produce better academic results than those of children educated by teachers with Master's degrees and in schools spending upwards of $10,000 a year per student— which is to say, more than a million dollars to educate ten kids from K through 12.
Nevertheless, we continue to take seriously the pretensions of educators who fail to educate, but who put on airs of having "professional" expertise beyond the understanding of mere parents.
One of the most widespread and dramatic examples of amateurs outperforming professionals has been in economies that have had central planning directed by highly educated people, advised by experts and having at their disposal vast amounts of statistical data, not available and probably not understandable, by ordinary citizens.
Great things were expected from centrally planned economies. Their early failings were brushed aside as "the growing pains" of "a new society."
But, when centrally planned economies lagged behind free market economies for decade after decade, eventually even socialist and communist governments began to free their economies from many, if not most, of the government controls under central planning.
Almost invariably, these economies then took off with much higher economic growth rates— China and India being the most prominent examples.
But look at the implications of the failure of central planning and the success of letting "the market"— that is, millions of people who are nowhere close to being experts— make the decisions as to what is to be produced and by whom.
How can it be that people with postgraduate degrees, people backed by the power of government and drawing on experts of all sorts, failed to do as well as masses of people of the sort routinely disdained by intellectuals?
What could be the reason? And does that reason apply in other contexts besides the economy?
One easy to understand reason is that central planners in the days of the Soviet Union had to set over 24 million prices. Nobody is capable of setting and changing 24 million prices in a way that will direct resources and output in an efficient manner.
For that, each of the 24 million prices would have to be weighed and set against each of the other 24 million prices. in order to provide incentives for resources to go where they were most in demand by producers and output to go where it was most in demand by consumers.
In a market economy, however, nobody has to take on such an impossible task. Each producer and each consumer need only be concerned with the relatively few prices relevant to their own decisions, with coordination of the economy being left to supply and demand.
In short, amateurs were able to outperform professionals in the economy because the amateurs did not take on tasks beyond the capability of any human being or any manageable group of human beings.
Put differently, "expertise" includes only a small band of knowledge out of the vast spectrum of knowledge required for dealing with many real world complications.
Nothing is easier than for experts with that small band of knowledge to imagine that they are so much wiser than others. Central planning is only the most demonstrable failure of such thinking. The disasters from other kinds of social engineering involve much the same problem.
Surgeons succeed because they stick to surgery. But if we were to put surgeons in control of commodity speculation, criminal justice and rocket science, they would probably fail as disastrously as central planners.
I certainly agree the central planners motive may be bad, but even if their motive is good, they are not the experts compared to your knowlege about your situation or millions of other situations and their situations.
Thanks cic, excellent post.
My kids don’t talk back or threaten to sue me. They know better.
That is not the case in most inner city, public schools.
Control of the environment has as much to do with learning as the structure and application of the curriculum.
Don’t forget the fact that most people who say stuff like “all the homeschoolers I met are weird” are usually drawing from a pool of their crazy sister-in-law and that weird lady down the street. Contrary to popular belief, homeschool graduates do not have a big red H tattooed on their forehead.
If you met me, or my husband, or my homeschooled coworker, in a business setting you would probably not guess we had been homeschooled. If you took your dog to my homeschooled sister-in-law for treatment or had my homeschooled sister teaching your freshman kid World History 101, you probably wouldn’t know.
Sure I was a little weird as a kid - way into reading and science fiction, not too interested in clothes or boys, but I attribute that to my personality. Being homeschooled allowed me to indulge my likes rather than hiding them. School is an unfriendly place to be the chubby girl who doesn’t wear makeup and reads Heinlein and wrecks the math curve. I’m glad my parents made the sacrifices to ensure that didn’t happen to me.
You're right. He rules!
He sure does and consistently with many many different subjects.
I kinda agree, but political correctness has really wrecked public education.
In addition, social changes have dramatically changed the teacher pool. Once teaching was a popular career for intelligent woman who wanted a job with mommy hours. Now, the put the kids into daycare. Bad for the kids, the family and society.
Sure I was a little weird as a kid - way into reading and science fiction, not too interested in clothes or boys, but I attribute that to my personality. Being homeschooled allowed me to indulge my likes rather than hiding them. School is an unfriendly place to be the chubby girl who doesn’t wear makeup and reads Heinlein and wrecks the math curve. I’m glad my parents made the sacrifices to ensure that didn’t happen to me.
That's not weird; that's you being all that God made you to be, and walking tall with that, JenB! :)
Excellent points—and they need repeating as long as the stigma is applied.
No class, race, or gender, has a monopoly on weirdness or social deficiency. It occurs across the board. Social misfits abound in public school. To single out a class for a deficiency is uncivil brutality calculated to demean.
However, I did wish to address SBprone's point.
And to do so, I tell you that when my eldest was about 3 years old, I did look into homeschooling. I attended a social event at a park. Very, very nice people. What I saw then was a group of highly civilized, academically oriented families. At the same time, elsewhere at this public park, was a group of pub-ed schoolers using the park for an activity; call it "recess". This group was racuous, not very civil, fairly wild, more into fun, being cool, racing the wind. My husband I decided that night to try pub ed. Why? We wanted our daughter "mainstreamed". We wanted her to find her bearings inside a "microcosm" of the society at large.
Well, some have already heard the rest of my adventures in this regard, as to how my daughter came to be homeschooled very soon after her onset in pub ed.
The real issue, which made us decide: Is our daughter actually getting an education.
We began homeschooling. Not at all in isolation, not at all to "hide" from the microcosm of the public "at large".
We knew that a "child should be trained from the get-go" in how they should live. And going the pub ed path in the location we were living was a sure way to ensure chaos and trouble and little to no education. Just lots of fun, indoctrination, fitting in, conflict resolution, gangs, foul language, mispelling, no science, little math.....
Inside the pub ed classroom was one whole "recess".
I, for one, didn't take offense to SBprone's words: I wished to address it, on the level, with what my own experiences have been. SBprone found homeschoolers with a "wierdness" factor. Homeschooling takes place 24-7: It's a lifestyle. Fully getting into any location and experience. Being vital and aware of one's full surroundings.
Pub Ed: Another lifestyle, largely involving going for what one wants, ignoring all other the factors around, and having a good time.
I really didn't think the "weirdness" factor had much to do with homeschooling kids, actually.
Absolutely all the homeschooling families I know, knew, still know, have few to no problems with sibling rivalry. And what rivalry does exist is at very civil and appropriate levels. The same, I cannot say for pub ed kids. Pub ed kids bring their "other world" inside the home with them. They have a bad day at school, everyone at home gets to experience it, too.
This just doesn't happen in homeschooling families. The goal is clear - education, civility, becoming life-long learners.
great article
There is a "social" element to learning - group play, group dynamics, learning how to behave among peers.
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