If you could run a youth program (i.e. Boy Scouts, Cadets, and etc.)

[Adrian Ţepeş]

What would you do in it? What would be the purpose?

[Nemmerle]

Oh, I'd teach all the stuff that you don't get taught in school. -

Abstract reasoning skills and habits, probability, communication skills for actual teamwork rather than just putting people in a team and expecting it to happen by fucking magic. And we'd do it all through games, allowing people to specialise in particular strands of thinking. And we'd run projects that people could put on their CVs. And we'd have detective games and teach people think about major life decisions in terms of an investigation.

Basically we'd make people smart, like they should be. Because school completely fucks people over in that regard and it's really really horrible for people.

And we'd figure out some way of making money while we were at it so that we could keep expanding, because so many little programs just end up going under because they're funded by some well meaning, but otherwise quite naive, grant and then die.

[Schofield]

Basically what Nemmerle said but I'd also focus a lot on not raping and murdering children's creativity. There's so much for people to do, but school is still stuck in the "needs to produce manufacturers" era. Schools shouldn't be preparing kids for college and university; schools should be preparing them for LIFE.

I've had this conversation with teachers before, they all agree with me.

[Mr. Matt]

I'd give lectures about how life in the adult world sucks, explain why they should give up all of their dreams because they will never happen, and maybe finish off with a few effective suicide techniques in case some of them are too devastated. Those who remain will receive goody bags containing hard liquor.

In all seriousness, something to prepare young people for the reality of life would be good. They spend all their time at school being told that they will be able to accomplish anything, and I swear that the reason so many of them end up as pointless, drug-addled dole dossers is because they've had to learn that this isn't true the hard way.

[Ryojin]

Originally Posted by Adrian Ţepeş

What would you do in it? What would be the purpose?

I wouldn't run one. I'm not great with kids (Except my niece) and I don't even have my own life together. If I were forced to do something, though, I'd rather co-run something like what Nem mentioned*. I would be much better at working to help the kids if I didn't have to deal with them directly at all.

I dunno how it is in other parts of the world, or even other parts of the country, but when I got something wrong in school, it was never treated as an opportunity to improve. It was treated as an example of stupidity, even if the wrong answer wasn't exactly illogical or stupid. That kind of attitude towards wrong answers made kids not even want to try. I'm just glad that I didn't get wrong answers most of the time, but I saw the effect it had on others. Even worse was when the one with the wrong answer was just told that they were wrong, and nothing more. No help to come to the right answer, or showing how the wrong answer came to be.

It isn't just what you do, it is also how you do it.





* Fun fact: I was actually taught that kind of stuff in grade school. Sure, it wasn't a class that many people were able to take, but still, it was available. It is unfortunate that due to unrelated issues in my life, I had to quit it.

[MrFancypants]

I'm pretty sure many of the problems related to schooling will be resolved in the next couple of years. I can already go online now and choose from an immense number of completly free high quality online courses. There will be more of that and eventually there will be standardized tests you can take everywhere for a small fee.

As for youth clubs, I don't think I would enjoy teaching groups of kids. In my opinion individual mentorship is better. Wouldn't be surprised if the group-teaching methods we have today will be replaced by AIs within the next few decades.

[Red Menace]

My own private paramilitary.

[Asheekay]

Will teach them how to be better people, not smarter or wealthier people. When to forgive and when to punish. What to protect and what to let waste. What to remember and what to forget. So that collectively they make a better world (at least a better community) than only becoming more wealthy or more strong individuals as the schools prepare them to be.

[Commissar MercZ]

My background being as it is, I'm sure I'll get investigated by Peter King for running an Islamofascist indoctrination camp.

Otherwise I don't know what mine'd be appreciatively different in what is taught- some good skills, behavior, etc. Maybe a better focus on some more academic things like math and science, but then it'd turn into a sorry knock-off of NASA space camp or something.

[Nemmerle]

Originally Posted by MrFancypants

I'm pretty sure many of the problems related to schooling will be resolved in the next couple of years. I can already go online now and choose from an immense number of completly free high quality online courses. There will be more of that and eventually there will be standardized tests you can take everywhere for a small fee.

I'm... not seeing it. Yes there are a number of online courses. But I'd hesitate to call many of them high-quality. Most of them are agonisingly slow youtube videos that explain things in questionable accuracy and with little attempt to put things into a variety of forms that different students can understand.

They've taken the lecture and parrot-teaching model from universities and duplicated it onto a new medium. And while providing wider access to information, that's also a step back in the quality of the education - at least compared to the better schools.

Like the Khan academy stuff. I cannot bring myself to sit through one of that guy's lectures, they're horrible.

There is good content out there - and thankfully some of it's even written down rather than in some bloody video format - but I'm not seeing it attaining a great degree of prominence yet.