by cdwhite on 2/26/23, 12:35 PM with 81 comments
by amarant on 2/26/23, 1:58 PM
My best theory is there wasn't much in the very rural area where I grew up. There wasn't much of anything other than nature to be fair, so that kinda makes sense I guess...
by somewhereoutth on 2/26/23, 1:48 PM
Perhaps maker spaces are born of a similar ethos, though of course very stem driven.
Unfortunately it seems that as formal education has become more institutionalised and more necessary as a marker for employability, doing anything remotely 'bookish' in your free time has become almost definitively 'uncool'. A shame.
by tqi on 2/26/23, 4:06 PM
I wonder if this quote is still something we believe is correct. Implied here is that "learning" and "sharing what they know" are unqualified good. But I think there is lots of that on the internet these days... much of it bad. But then who gets to decide what is or isn't the right kind of learning in this model?
by yobbo on 2/26/23, 2:11 PM
It is possible to get subsidised rooms/studios through "study circles" for music or theatre (for example), under certain conditions for accountability.
"Folk high school" is equivalent to community college.
by jacquesm on 2/26/23, 1:58 PM
You could debate it but I would find it hard to find better uses of that money if it is spent on those would otherwise not be able to afford such things.
by gumby on 2/26/23, 2:02 PM
Dang, the link is just a ripoff repost; could you fix the URL to be the original above?
I saw the same thing (“this is a link post”) earlier this week and only now realize it wasn’t a one off.
by pengstrom on 2/26/23, 2:08 PM
by graycat on 2/26/23, 6:11 PM
The idea of the study groups getting the participants polished on the social aspects of life sounds good.
For STEM, let's see: First, here at Hacker News, what fraction of the readers got good at writing code in C/C++ before they had any formal classroom instruction from an established education system, high school, college, etc.? I anticipate, a big fraction.
Lesson: In learning C/C++, and a lot of closely related topics, say, quick sort, maybe matrix inversion, the beginnings of using relational data base as "the key, the whole key, nothing but the key", some of the details of virtual memory as Zuck spouted out as he walked out of class in the movie The Social Network, commonly that learning has been done by people mostly on their own.
Next, a college prof has to keep up and hopefully push ahead, but there's essentially no formal education classroom instruction for doing that. So, the prof has to do that on his (her, here and below) own.
Lesson: Self teaching is fundamental right to the top of the education system. Soooo, self teaching is not incidental, strange, etc.
For graduate study in the STEM fields, been there, done that. Fact of life: The university, department, profs, etc. can provide a lot of guidance and direction, often crucial since otherwise a student might waste time wandering in poor directions, but, bluntly, the student needs lots of hours of self study outside of class.
Lesson: Soooo, even in a program in formal education, a lot of self teaching is crucial.
Broadly in US society, there is a lot of self learning: E.g., a good chef who has a terrific lasagna, pizza, Italian rum cake, coconut cream pie, ..., likely learned how to do that mostly on their own or, say, from an employer who learned it on their own, likely not from some formal classroom education. Same for lots of jobs -- auto repair, plumbing, roofing, brick laying, many aspects of farming, parenting, ....
Lesson: Self teaching is crucial in our whole society, and a lot of people are good at it.
by xpe on 2/26/23, 2:57 PM
Here is one starting point: "Small Facts and Large Issues: The Anthropology of Contemporary Scandinavian Society" : https://www.jstor.org/stable/2155886 ... I haven't read it yet. I like the anthropological point of view though.
by bazoom42 on 2/26/23, 1:56 PM
Is this really true? The liked wikipedia page does not seem to support that.
by thomastjeffery on 2/26/23, 10:02 PM
Today, in the US and much of the western world as a whole, we are missing something I have seen described as "the third place". This is defined as any social setting that isn't the "first place" (home), or the "second place" (work).
Wikipedia introduces the "third place" with examples: "churches, cafes, clubs, public libraries, gyms, bookstores, stoops and parks". I disagree with most, if not all of these as true examples of the third place.
Churches have explicit missions; whether they be charity, evangelism, or even to vaguely unite a community: there is always a goal in mind, and an expectation to work toward that goal. So despite their extracurricular position, these are the second place: work. I would include clubs and gyms for the same reason.
Cafes and bars are businesses. Even if you can casually visit them, you are expected to buy something. The experience of cafes and bars may be very close to a third place, but they are effectively taxed: without buying drinks, the business fails. That introduces a deliberate purpose to the space that, in practice, recreates the same social dynamics present in churches, clubs, and gyms.
Libraries allow you to choose your goals, but you are expected to do so quietly and alone. Engaging those around you in casual conversation is rude, and even against the rules! Libraries also provide space for extracurricular groups, like clubs, but that interaction is explicit: it doesn't start organically. So we end up again with the same "second place" social dynamic!
So what about public parks? Surely a public park can fill the void: after all, that's explicitly what they are there for! And yet, in my experience, this doesn't happen. People use parks for their utility: to exercise, walk their dogs, or play with friends. They are effectively an extension of the "first place": home.
I can't think of a single physical location in the Untied States where the average person can freely visit, and expect to be talked to. Such an interaction is so unfamiliar, it is implicitly discouraged: an unspoken rule. Sure, there are those who are willing to break that rule, but when I see it play out, I see the average person react with discomfort and annoyance. After all, they were just minding their own business: such is the American dream.
The third place is dead, not only in the physical (by not existing as a place), but also in the ethereal (by not existing in our social expectations). Even if we want it, we are missing the narrative: the story: the blueprint: detailing how and where it could exist in our lives. That alone is the very reason we so desperately need it.
by dragoncrab on 2/26/23, 1:42 PM
by Animats on 2/26/23, 10:43 PM
That's worth thinking about.
by null_object on 2/26/23, 2:31 PM
This sort of article is just window-dressing for what it’s really like to live in this mostly restricted and limited land, out in the boondocks.
Swedes living abroad probably actually believe this nostalgic fiction of their homeland.