Specialty lock-in is good

[lamefun]

The school system is good in that it provides young people with achievable short-term goals. There are some fields where you need to learn a lot of boring stuff first and only then you can apply it for something meaningful. That's why we need a school system, where young people choose their ways and then are locked in them and it's good for them, because if they were allowed just to follow their interests, they would always change the subjects they learn and never achieve anything.

http://www.theminimalists.com/cal/
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/29/opinio...index.html

Specialty lock-in has benefits:

1. Students who learn X and then decided switch to Y waste time and money: time that they spent on X is wasted.
2. Some students would keep jumping between interests without ever achieving anything. Speciality lock-in allows them to succeed.

It may however have an unfortunate effect: maybe people think passion to be something pre-determined and fixed because they can't cope with the other possibility: if passion isn't pre-determined and fixed, they won't be able to pursue their interest if they choose something that seems interesting to them at first but then lose interest, still being locked in a specialty they don't truly like.

Of course benefits of specialty lock-in outweigh the drawbacks.

[SoulRiser]

This assumption of lock-in being good, depends on a few things.

The definition of 'success'.
The concept of 'achievement' and how it relates to learning stuff.
The idea that time spent learning anything is ever a waste of time.

All of these things will differ from person to person, and no person should be able to limit people's choices about how they learn stuff, or what they may learn about.

[AtheistLGBTQAnarchist]

This is basically saying to stick with what you want to like go to the moon when you're 5 an when you're 12 an want to be a doctor you're told that you should just go to the moon.

[Heil_Kaiba8921]

shouldn't it be spelled *specialty?

AgayA...I was the best doctor in my neighborhood when i was 12

[lamefun]

(01-25-2013 09:10 AM)SoulRiser Wrote:  The concept of 'achievement' and how it relates to learning stuff.

Locked-up education helps children to maintain interest. Think of 'achievement' as of feedback. For example, in electronics, programming and music feedback is almost instant: you can create a simple wire a simple circuit, program a simple program, play a simple music piece almost right away and then gradually improve. But there are things where it's not possible, like surgery, plane piloting. Advanced simulators may have resolved this issue already, but this might have made locked-up education necessary at least in the past.

Locked-up education also helps children to recover from failures. For example, you set out to make a RC plane model, start making it without any prior knowledge or experience. You do and it won't fly. Many children would completely give up on RC planes in this situation. It takes a lot of self-discipline and determination that is close to obsession that many children lack to recover from such a failure. Locked-up education however prohibits children to try things that are too far beyond their skills and fail too miserably. Of course it allows failures, but their impact is carefully calculated to teach children to recover from failures whilst not runing their interest. Locked-up education can also force a child to continue despite having lost interest, since it might return when the child makes a successful achievement.

(01-25-2013 09:10 AM)SoulRiser Wrote:  The definition of 'success'.

All of these things will differ from person to person, and no person should be able to limit people's choices about how they learn stuff, or what they may learn about.

There are still people who will constantly job-hop and will never reach the happiness and quality of life they could have reached if they were locked in their specialties.

(01-25-2013 10:00 AM)AtheistLGBTQAnarchist Wrote:  This is basically saying to stick with what you want to like go to the moon when you're 5 an when you're 12 an want to be a doctor you're told that you should just go to the moon.

No, absolutely not, educational institutions should only present reasonable specialties.

It's more like if you want to become a salesman when you're 17 and when you're 19 and are getting a salesman education you suddenly want to become a surgeon and told that you can't because it's too late to change your choice, because the money that was so far spent on educating you to become a salesman would be wasted.

(01-25-2013 10:37 AM)Heil_Kaiba8921 Wrote:  shouldn't it be spelled *specialty?

Fixed, thanks.

[Ky]

If students are anything like me, they would suffer from being locked into a decision they made years ago. I change my mind on a regular basis, and have many interests, in all of which I possess talent and practiced skill. One solitary thought could change my future - I could become a great many things, and, confident that God will look out for my needs, will eventually settle on one (or, more likely, multiple) successful endeavors. This lock-in thing would only serve as an impediment.

Besides, being locked into something ties in with compulsory schooling, something I hate with a passion.

[SoulRiser]

Quote:There are still people who will constantly job-hop and will never reach the happiness and quality of life they could have reached if they were locked in their specialties.

What?

So you think people who like variety are unhappy? What if they LIKE doing lots of different things and DON'T WANT to have the same routine all the time?

You're just being silly. Different people prefer things in different ways, and people should have the option to change their minds if they want to. Forcing anyone against their will to stick with something they don't want anymore, is just stupid.

And besides, why do you care what other people do? If they choose to "never reach the happiness and quality of life they could have reached if they were locked in their specialties", then it's really none of your business, is it?