Random thought about schools
Jul. 20th, 2006 08:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nancylebovI just read Michael Burstein's Telepresence, and it's adequately written but seriously annoying. The security problem could be solved with a simple hardware solution that I'll put in comments.
Possibly as a result of being annoyed with that, and possibly because I don't like public school worship, I started thinking about everything else I didn't like about the story, and ended up with a question.
One of the rants is about how awful rich people who pay for private schools are, but the telepresence system (protrayed as a very good thing) was first developed and tested in them.
I've never heard of any work done to figure out what's the most valuable about private schools. A lot of money and effort goes into them, and it might make sense to ask graduates what, in retrospect, was most useful for them, or to ask students who've been to public and private schools about the good and bad points.
It's not that I think private schools are necessarily better, but they are frequently in a position to try new things.
Possibly as a result of being annoyed with that, and possibly because I don't like public school worship, I started thinking about everything else I didn't like about the story, and ended up with a question.
One of the rants is about how awful rich people who pay for private schools are, but the telepresence system (protrayed as a very good thing) was first developed and tested in them.
I've never heard of any work done to figure out what's the most valuable about private schools. A lot of money and effort goes into them, and it might make sense to ask graduates what, in retrospect, was most useful for them, or to ask students who've been to public and private schools about the good and bad points.
It's not that I think private schools are necessarily better, but they are frequently in a position to try new things.
