What is school for?
Since 2011 Hank has held that school should teach people how to learn and give them a problem-solving toolkit, and he warns against treating education as job training. John says public schooling serves the whole society, and from 2011 to 2023 he has said its point is to understand the universe and your place in it.
Axis: a public good: citizens and thinkers ... job training / credentials
Concept: education
Positions by date: 19 records in 19 videos. The position was refined (2010, 2011, 2015), never reversed, in these records.
John
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-01-13 | refine | John says a liberal arts education teaches you what to think about; critical reading, like math, helps him learn what's interesting and grapple with an unjust world. → refers to It Hurts In My Toof: The 2010 Rules | Froghoppin' with Gatsby 00:03:17 |
| 2011-05-18 | refine | John holds that math and literature are both studied to learn a language and to understand our place in the universe, against the hard-soft continuum. | The Education Continuum WARNER CHILCOTTED 00:01:34 |
| 2012-02-07 | restate | In the Crash Course preview John says the test that matters measures whether you are an informed, engaged, productive citizen, and lasts your whole life. | 10 Misconceptions Debunked! 00:03:11 |
| 2012-08-07 | restate | John: schools exist for everyone's benefit; he pays school taxes because he is better off in a well-educated world, and public education is an investment, not charity. | An Open Letter to Students Returning to School 00:02:33 |
| 2016-04-12 | restate | Recalling earlier videos, John says publicly funded learning exists primarily not for parents or even students but for the benefit of the social order. | On the Banning of Looking for Alaska 00:02:23 |
| 2016-05-03 | restate | John tells high school students that doing well on tests is great but is not the point of life or of education; tests measure understanding somewhat inefficiently. | No Fumar 00:01:38 |
| 2019-02-19 | restate | John says school can feel like it is about tests, grades and constant worry, but its point is to understand the universe better, and physics can help with that. | Battling Apathy and Searching for Meaning on Question Tuesday 00:01:27 |
| 2023-01-31 | restate | John says he never understood that the point of school is not a degree or meeting expectations but to better understand the universe and your place in it. | I'm Going Back to College? 00:00:58 |
Hank
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009-07-15 | first on record | Hank says he truly believes the US school system is degrading quickly and thinks it could learn from Hogwarts. | This Isn't Hogwarts! A Harry Potter Song 00:03:02 |
| 2011-05-16 | refine | Hank holds that the most graduates can hope is to have been taught how to learn; graduation ends one structure, not learning. | Grab It By The Testicle 00:00:49 |
| 2015-01-16 | refine | Hank says education is building and applying a problem-solving toolkit; school that crams facts for tests fails at it, and identical toolkits glut the job market. | Is School Broken? (Also...ANNOUNCEMENTS OF IMPORT) 00:00:44 |
| 2015-02-20 | restate | Hank argues STEM should not be sold to teenagers as the only route to a good job; learning should be driven by interest, and the most interesting toolkit combines science and engineering with the liberal arts. | Why Are Fewer People Studying Science and Engineering? 00:02:24 |
| 2015-06-12 | restate | Hank says colleges should provide enrichment and education rather than sell an experience, so students leave knowing more about the world and themselves. | Why is College So Expensive? 00:04:21 |
| 2017-05-26 | restate | Hank tells graduates they didn't go to school to learn how to get a job but to learn, and they did: they know more now. | Some Rough Advice for the "Real World" 00:02:45 |
| 2017-07-21 | restate | The description says Hank has always thought sex ed and statistics should be one course: nothing better shows how vital statistics is to everyday life. | On Condom Failure video description |
| 2017-08-11 | restate | Hank says life is not a job training program: we are not in college, or on Earth, to get jobs. | Life is not a Job Training Program 00:01:45 |
| 2020-09-04 | restate | Hank says math is a game we play in our minds, yet teaching has gone from inviting play to demanding remembered equations used to judge who gets to go to college. | Go Play! 00:03:15 |
| 2020-11-13 | restate | Hank says the story itself does a ton of work: education gives lenses to understand the world, often stories, and shared lenses (knowledge, values, worldviews) that help us live, work and communicate together. | How We Teach: Individualist Stories 00:01:56 |
| 2022-02-11 | restate | Hank says textbook teaching treats knowing as being as important as understanding, or more, and that is wrong: understanding is more important than knowing. | Knowing is not Understanding - Pluto and the P4A 00:00:29 |
Background
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-01-04 | background | John says math turned out hugely useful to adults; government invests in education because it helps to have citizens who can do long division. (playful) | It Hurts In My Toof: The 2010 Rules 00:00:29 |
| 2015-05-22 | background | Hank says school should have taught him practical things like doing his taxes rather than quadratic equations and cursive. (playful) | 15 Rants in Four Minutes 00:03:22 |
Timeline notes
- John: first recorded event is refine (earlier stance may be outside 2007–2026 or unrecorded)