The hottest Curriculum Substack posts right now

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Top Education Topics

A Third Way for the Humanities

Justin E. H. Smith's Hinternet • 8156 implied HN points • 08 Mar 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Universities have hollowed out traditional humanities: economic pressures, corporate influence, and technologies like AI have pushed departments toward market‑driven, business‑school models that prevent professors from teaching deep humanistic formation.
  2. The main intellectual responses—shrill “myth‑busting” critique and crude nationalist “myth‑making”—both miss the point and produce narrow, self‑defeating approaches that break the humanities’ broad, comparative, and democratic purpose.
  3. The real remedy is to build parallel, independent initiatives and community institutions that treat the humanities as a practice of self‑cultivation and collective study of cultural traditions, not merely as credentialing or corporate training.

Advanced Math for Kids: Geometry and Algebra Are Secretly the Same

Kids Who Love Math • 83 implied HN points • 24 Mar 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Algebra can describe geometry: coordinates give points, equations like y = x make lines, and formulas like x^2 + y^2 = 25 make circles.
  2. Geometry and algebra are two languages for the same ideas, so switching between pictures and equations helps you understand and solve problems in physics, graphics, and engineering.
  3. A simple hands-on way to see this is to plug numbers into equations and plot the points so kids can watch shapes like parabolas and circles appear and build intuition.

the war on the talented and gifted

bad cattitude • 177 implied HN points • 14 Mar 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Public schools have moved to a lowest-common-denominator model that removed gifted programs and ability-based pacing, which warehouses students and crushes the curiosity of high-achievers.
  2. Structural choices—de-leveling, social promotion, centralized funding, rising behavior issues, weaker teacher pipelines, and shifting student demographics—create incentives that block real, high-quality instruction.
  3. The remedy is to restore ability tracking, discipline, ESL support, and true gifted options or adopt market solutions like vouchers, and fast-growing AI-based individualized learning will make alternatives irresistible if schools don’t adapt.

Quantifying Curriculum Degradation: Evidence from the University of Chicago

Heterodox STEM • 192 implied HN points • 15 Mar 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. A keyword-based method can flag courses as engaging with progressive ideas or the Western canon, and while this approach is blunt and prone to errors or manipulation, it is useful for tracking changes over time and comparing institutions.
  2. At the University of Chicago (2012–2025) the share of courses matching progressive keywords rose from about 12.7% to 28.3% while canon-related courses stayed near 12%, so progressive signals now outpace canon signals especially in humanities and social sciences and even show up in STEM.
  3. A public Curriculum Content Index built from catalogs, syllabi, and enrollment could give families, donors, and policymakers transparent comparisons across universities, but such an index should be treated as a noisy first pass and not as a basis for micromanaging curricula or replacing careful evaluation.

AI Can't Fix Student Engagement

After Babel • 1412 implied HN points • 04 Mar 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Too many students are disengaged from school; only about one in three are highly engaged, and that lack of engagement undermines real learning and long-term outcomes.
  2. Engagement falls into four modes—Passenger, Achiever, Resister, and Explorer—with Explorer mode (curiosity plus agency) as the goal because it supports initiative, deep learning, and resilience.
  3. Parents and schools can move kids toward Explorer mode with concrete actions: model curiosity, give students choice and authentic projects, protect extracurriculars, manage tech, and use tools or workshops to make engagement visible and supported.
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The Scholar vs. the Professional

In My Tribe • 759 implied HN points • 27 Feb 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. There is a real tension between the leisurely, curiosity-driven scholar and the busy, goal-oriented professional, and universities are being pulled to serve both roles.
  2. The rise of the "professional scholar" — who chases grants, publications, and metrics — can distort true scholarship and weaken ties to the world outside academia.
  3. Trying to make students both scholars and builders at the same time risks short-changing each and causing burnout; sequencing dedicated periods for study and for professional immersion may work better.

How I Learned to Love Reading

The Honest Broker • 10838 implied HN points • 09 Jan 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Leisure reading among teens has collapsed in recent years, and that decline is alarming to teachers and parents.
  2. Loving reading matters more than any teaching method or test score; if a child doesn’t develop affection for books, instruction alone won’t stick.
  3. Warm early experiences—like being read to by a caring adult—can create a lasting love of books, so parents and educators should try to recreate those moments.

Examination Systems

David Friedman’s Substack • 350 implied HN points • 14 Mar 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Imperial China chose most officials through brutally competitive exams that tested knowledge of Confucian texts, poetic forms, and essay styles rather than practical administrative skills.
  2. Those exams probably served as a form of indoctrination, instilling Confucian duties and loyalty in elites and spreading those beliefs widely since many people studied even if few passed.
  3. Modern college degrees work similarly by requiring years of study in subjects often unrelated to specific jobs, so degrees can function as signals or ways of inculcating habits and values rather than just teaching directly useful skills.

Neanderthals, Morality, Ivy League Criticism

Rob Henderson's Newsletter • 1117 implied HN points • 04 Mar 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Graduates can legitimately criticize elite colleges without being labeled hypocrites; defenders often attack the critics instead of addressing the substantive problems, which discourages informed dissent.
  2. Moral behavior is driven more by emotions and intuitions than by abstract philosophical reasoning, so moral psychology (including theories like Haidt’s and Gray’s) explains everyday judgments and how traits, sex differences, and development shape morality and happiness.
  3. Recent findings include sex-biased Neanderthal–modern-human interbreeding patterns, evidence that social stigma deters crime more effectively than threats of distant harsh punishment, and a link between openness and crystallized (accumulated) intelligence rather than fluid reasoning.

Why College Students Can't Read Books

Erick Erickson's Confessions of a Political Junkie • 1119 implied HN points • 09 Oct 24
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Many college freshmen have never read a whole book, which surprises their professors. This shows a gap in reading experience among students entering college.
  2. Curricula like Common Core focus more on articles and excerpts rather than full books. This might not prepare students well for the demands of college reading.
  3. There is a lot of discussion about why this is happening, but Common Core isn't often mentioned as a reason. It suggests that the structure of education could be contributing to the problem.

Maybe Parents Are Just Misinvesting

Bet On It • 679 implied HN points • 02 Mar 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. After basic stability is ensured, most common parental investments (extra activities, enrichment, busywork) add almost no extra benefit. Only extreme rescue from neglect or truly exceptional, specialized effort produces large gains.
  2. Small, immediate rewards tied to demonstrated mastery (for example, paying for 100% scores on Khan Academy units) can drastically speed learning and cut costs compared with typical schooling. Short daily practice, immediate feedback, and deadline incentives produced multi-grade progress in the example given.
  3. Ordinary parents can get big returns by swapping low-value time and money sinks for simple high-ROI tactics like focused practice, frequent assessment, immediate feedback, and demand-side incentives. Basic literacy and numeracy can often be taught far faster and cheaper than commonly assumed.

Homeschooling Isn’t for Everyone

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 1210 implied HN points • 23 Feb 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Taking children out of school can put their education at real risk, creating gaps in basic knowledge and skills.
  2. When parents use extreme or unconventional methods, homeschooling can lead to physical, emotional, or developmental harm for the child.
  3. Homeschooling is often associated with isolation, undereducation, and cultlike family dynamics, so it isn’t the right fit for every family or child.

Advanced Math for Kids: Numbers and Functions Follow The Same Rules

Kids Who Love Math • 587 implied HN points • 06 Mar 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Numbers and functions follow the same basic rules: you can add them and scale them, order and grouping don’t matter, there is a zero, and every element has an opposite.
  2. When different things obey the same rules they share a structure, so math becomes about spotting patterns and analogies across different systems.
  3. You can explore this with kids by trying different functions and operations (like f(x)=x^2 or g(x)=3x) so they see the same rules hold in a hands-on way.

The Damage Done by Accreditors

Heterodox STEM • 490 implied HN points • 04 Mar 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Accreditation bodies (like CACREP) can dictate not just standards but the ideological content of training programs, using “professional dispositions” to evaluate students’ beliefs and values.
  2. When programs enforce identity-based frameworks as a gatekeeping tool, students can be blocked from licensure, suffer emotional and financial harm, and the profession risks turning therapy into activism that erodes trust.
  3. Because accreditation is tied to federal funding, universities have strong incentives to comply, so real change will likely require new laws, accountability measures, and organized advocacy to protect student rights and free expression.

Top Links 1022 NY public school maths. Unhistorical economics. Comprehension debt & Magic Flute.

Chartbook • 443 implied HN points • 23 Feb 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. New York’s public school math scores are very low, showing many students are struggling with basic math.
  2. The phrase 'unhistorical economics' criticizes approaches that ignore historical context, warning this can lead to flawed economic analysis.
  3. 'Comprehension debt' refers to accumulating gaps in understanding that make future learning harder, and references like The Magic Flute are used to show how cultural knowledge and comprehension interact.

The Hinternet Foundation

Justin E. H. Smith's Hinternet • 933 implied HN points • 08 Feb 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. A new nonprofit has been launched to protect and promote humanistic creativity in an AI-driven world, acting as a sober, programmatic counterpart to a more playful publication.
  2. In 2026 the group will run small, selective programs — an online summer school, paid fall courses, and a Paris summit — with limited spots, application deadlines, and modest fees.
  3. The initiative responds to a perceived failure of universities by building para-academic communities, adapting technology rather than rejecting it, and using boutique publishing and courses to sustain humanistic inquiry.

Should comparative economics still exist?

Global Inequality and More 3.0 • 1374 implied HN points • 25 Jan 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Some argue economics should focus only on today’s capitalism and drop comparative-system study because alternative systems no longer exist in practice.
  2. Teaching other systems like socialism reveals a very different logic of income distribution—politically set wages, mostly proportional taxes, transfers tied to age or family status, and little private capital income—which helps broaden how we think about inequality.
  3. Including a short unit on comparative systems costs little class time but may attract limited student interest, so teachers must decide whether to teach to meet demand or to broaden students’ horizons and create new interest.

Why I Don’t Homeschool

The Analog Family • 1458 implied HN points • 19 Aug 24
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. The public school system in Ontario can be good enough for many families. It offers physical activities, creative learning, and outdoor experiences, unlike some more extreme examples seen elsewhere.
  2. The author loves her job and doesn't want to pause her career for homeschooling. She feels it's important to balance work and family life while still providing education.
  3. Education is about more than just school. The author believes in filling learning gaps with real-life experiences, discussions, and activities at home, emphasizing ongoing education outside of the classroom.

How is teaching going?

In My Tribe • 364 implied HN points • 11 Feb 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Seminar-style paper discussions don't fit less-prepared freshmen, so classes often turn into lectures; assigning core concepts and short written answers before class would establish a common baseline for discussion.
  2. AI can be used effectively for grading and feedback, as practice exams with AI grading matched instructor judgments; building an AI teaching assistant for intro courses is feasible but would take several months to a year of development.
  3. Student engagement is limited by competing commitments and time constraints, so active projects have produced mixed results and early morning classes reduce participation.

Education Links, 2/18/2026

In My Tribe • 227 implied HN points • 18 Feb 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Blurring high school, college, and career can give students real work experience, college courses, and employer-valued credentials before they graduate, making schooling more directly relevant to careers.
  2. Using metrics like cost per graduate or return on investment lets policymakers compare programs and see which models produce more graduates for the money, guiding funding and design decisions.
  3. Dollar-focused metrics miss important non-monetary benefits—like lifelong enrichment from arts—and overlook the value of creativity and combining skills, so education should also cultivate personal growth and skill-stacking.

Columbia’s Modern Arab Studies Chair Contenders Have One Thing in Common: Hating Israel

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 343 implied HN points • 12 Feb 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Columbia is overhauling its Middle Eastern studies programs and replacing the Modern Arab Studies chair after losing federal funding and reaching a settlement.
  2. Several top candidates and committee members have publicly taken strongly critical positions toward Israel, including framing violent events as responses to Israeli policies, which raises concerns about ideological bias.
  3. Despite university promises to ensure "balanced" curricula, the candidates' views suggest the program may stay politically slanted, fueling accusations and institutional consequences.

Corporate Soap Opera at UATX

In My Tribe • 531 implied HN points • 17 Jan 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Personality and ego conflicts get amplified into supposed principled battles. Many disputes are more about people than deep ideological differences.
  2. The school’s challenges go beyond DEI to include debates over AI, curriculum, and earlier rushed commitments. A lack of shared priorities means individuals launch initiatives that often collide.
  3. Stronger internal processes and some bureaucracy are needed to manage trade-offs and reduce drama. A change in leadership may have made the place better positioned to improve things.

Tyler Cowen's AI Campus

In My Tribe • 531 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Higher education can be reshaped around AI: students pair with mentors while AI designs syllabi, lessons, and assessments, and a big part of current teaching should focus on learning how to work with AI during this fast-changing transition.
  2. Small, AI-built apps and free-form natural-language interfaces can replace clunky courseware, letting users ask plain questions like “When is my next paper due?” and get immediate answers, and these tools can be prototyped very quickly.
  3. Policy teaching should be comparative and skeptical: markets sometimes fail but governments also fail due to information limits and perverse incentives, so solutions should weigh Pigovian-style fixes against Coasean bargaining, community governance, and constitutional design.

Two ordinary Kiwis go toe-to-toe with their local school over inappropriate gender-identity and sexuality content in the curriculum.

A B’Old Woman • 479 implied HN points • 02 Aug 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Curriculum
  1. Parents are concerned about certain gender and sexuality topics in their kids' school curriculum. They feel the content is inappropriate for children.
  2. Two parents, Blair and Karen, are actively fighting against this content and have formed a support group called PAGE NZ. This group helps others share their concerns and experiences.
  3. Not all schools use the same content from the guidelines, but those that do face strong pushback from parents trying to protect their kids.

University Civics Centers: what is the point?

In My Tribe • 258 implied HN points • 22 Jan 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. State-funded civics centers are being created to teach citizenship and foundational texts, but their purpose is unclear: are they meant to reform universities or to educate citizens for self-government?
  2. Nonviolent, disciplined protest and reliance on courts are presented as more effective and constructive ways to protect rights and persuade the public, while violent direct action risks turning movements into public-order problems.
  3. Many civics centers are bureaucratic and face trade-offs with other priorities; focused events like teach-ins could be valuable, but students are overextended and institutions need to consolidate and prioritize initiatives.

The UATX Brand

In My Tribe • 410 implied HN points • 03 Jan 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. UATX presents itself as a traditional, non-ideological liberal arts school focused on Great Books and in-person learning, but many outsiders mainly see it as a right-wing counter-institution.
  2. The institution is caught between three conflicting identities — a rigorous classical college, a conservative ideological project, or a political movement — and trying to be all three at once looks unsustainable.
  3. AI advisers recommend a pivot to a 'Practical Liberal Arts' combining a Great Books core with project-based, industry-linked concentrations and transparent outcomes, but the free-tuition, donor-dependent funding model could make the school prioritize donors over students.

Does Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) improve academic outcomes?

The Science of Learning • 219 implied HN points • 12 Aug 24
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) helps students with their emotions and relationships but it's unclear if it boosts academic performance. Some studies show positive impacts, while others do not.
  2. Different schools use SEL in varied ways, making it tough to gauge its true effectiveness. This inconsistency leads to mixed results in research about SEL's benefits.
  3. There's no strong evidence that SEL reduces the achievement gap or promotes equity in education. More focused studies are needed to really understand SEL's long-term effects.

When to Graduate from College?

In My Tribe • 303 implied HN points • 28 Dec 25
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. AI may reduce the market value of formal credentials and shift hiring toward demonstrable skills, so the traditional diploma and a May graduation feel less climactic.
  2. Graduation should be flexible and based on readiness to work rather than a fixed number of credits; students might graduate when they start a job, join government, or launch a business.
  3. Colleges need to connect students with employers and adapt courses from day one, using a network-based model that emphasizes practical skills and connections over credentials.

Open Thread 388

Astral Codex Ten • 2477 implied HN points • 30 Jun 25
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. The Alpha School received mixed reviews, with some people sharing positive experiences while others had negative ones, often discussing issues related to admissions and tuition costs.
  2. There's a discussion about whether schools could shorten their curriculum to just two hours a day and still be effective, which raises questions about the current school system's structure.
  3. A reader is seeking professionals with FDA regulatory experience to provide feedback on a new tool for life science labs. This shows there's a need for better solutions in regulatory documentation.

Donald Trump vs. Academia: A War on Science or a Loss of Trust?

Heterodox STEM • 355 implied HN points • 16 Dec 25
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Public trust in science depends more on shared values and perceived neutrality than on education, and when topics become politicized people often assume scientists are biased and stop trusting them.
  2. Academia has become ideologically one-sided and built large administrative structures like diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that many see as promoting activism over open inquiry and silencing dissent.
  3. Some scientists are pushing back by speaking out, cutting ties with politicized institutions or publishers, and calling for reform or new institutions because they fear silence will erode the integrity of science.

Picturing my students

In My Tribe • 243 implied HN points • 26 Dec 25
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. The instructor has 34 students across three sections and used student photos plus an AI-built flash-card app to try to learn names, though the images had to be extracted manually first.
  2. AI coding tools are shifting from expecting professional toolchain knowledge to enabling "vibe-coding," letting amateurs create usable software without downloading or configuring complex developer environments.
  3. Students should learn vibe-coding, document their process with AI tools, and keep up with rapid AI coding progress so they aren’t handicapped entering organizations today.

Seizing the moment

Becoming Noble • 2093 implied HN points • 19 Jan 24
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. The education system can be seen as a risk to freedom, as it conditions individuals to align with the state and managerial control.
  2. State-supported education aims to disconnect the young from traditional loyalties and mold them into supporters of the regime through certification.
  3. Challenging the current educational system's suppression of independent learning is crucial to combat bureaucratic expansion and foster self-governance.

Query to Self: Is It, This Semester Worth Incorporating in My Classes My Introductory Digression on: "The Liberal Arts, Education, & 'AI'"?

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 146 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. The liberal arts originally meant practical skills that let people without land or inherited power navigate and survive in a complex, literate society.
  2. Those arts form a modern curriculum for people whose main asset is their mind, preparing them to use knowledge as their primary form of capital.
  3. With AI becoming part of our shared intelligence, education should teach students to use AI to deepen their connection to humanity’s knowledge instead of letting it quietly hollow out human judgment and autonomy.

Fun, Not Fear: Rebuilding University Assessment for the Machine-Learning Era, & Going Beyond to Modes of Research-Analytical Practice

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 222 implied HN points • 29 Dec 25
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Use outside-the-class work plus short face-to-face interviews or check-ins to assess students, because oral exams stress-test real understanding and make grading fair even when students have powerful ML tools at hand.
  2. Teach students to use modern advanced machine-learning models as intellectual force multipliers by training them in the seven labors—survey, identify live issues, hone questions, research, analyze, store, and persuade—and by emphasizing provenance, triangulation, and small analytic scaffolds so tools accelerate thinking without replacing it.
  3. Recenter higher education on play and craft: make learning fun and practical by practicing prompting, debugging, oral explanation, and producing reusable artifacts, and budget the extra instructor time needed to do this well.

The School Bell Rings: Time for Class

Musings on Markets • 1778 implied HN points • 11 Jan 24
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Learning finance can be accessible! You don’t need a fancy background, just some curiosity and a bit of effort.
  2. Understanding the basics, like how money flows in businesses and what financial terms mean, is super important. It sets you up for success in finance classes.
  3. There are different ways to learn. You can choose free online classes or paid ones, depending on what fits your time and budget best.

Zachary Patterson: University ‘decolonization’ is a threat to academic freedom

Heterodox STEM • 384 implied HN points • 23 Nov 25
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Universities are adopting decolonization plans that aim to decentre Eurocentric knowledge and cultivate a stated “critical consciousness” across programs, drawing on critical theory and post‑colonial ideas.
  2. Academic freedom and political neutrality are important for universities to act as truth‑seeking institutions, and when a university takes political positions it can make faculty feel less free to teach, research, or comment on opposing views.
  3. Decolonization efforts are presented as rooted in thinkers like Paulo Freire and Frantz Fanon and are portrayed as a neo‑Marxist or radical political approach that could impose an agenda on curriculum, risk public trust, and jeopardize funding.

How Math Textbooks Are Written (and How to Choose One)

Kids Who Love Math • 335 implied HN points • 21 Nov 25
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Choose math books written by passionate individuals. These authors really care about making math enjoyable and understandable for kids.
  2. Avoid textbooks written by committees because they often lack clarity and focus. They try to cover too many topics and can make learning feel overwhelming.
  3. Look for books that prioritize deep thinking and problem-solving. The right book should inspire a love for math and be well-structured for motivated learners.

On Earning Trust: The Case for the Social Sciences

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 199 implied HN points • 13 Dec 25
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Universities must earn public trust by being institutionally trustworthy: fix internal monocultures and focus teaching on real, demonstrable skills that give students access to useful knowledge.
  2. The true ‘super‑intelligence’ is the five‑millennia corpus of human ideas, and modern text‑processing systems are valuable mainly as translators or front ends to curated knowledge rather than infallible oracles.
  3. Education should train people to connect to, interpret, and extend the collective human mind by teaching durable methods, literacies, Popperian testability, and epistemic humility while updating practical skills for new media.

Is Internal Reform of Academia Possible?

Unsafe Science • 183 implied HN points • 14 Dec 25
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Academia is seriously skewed by left-wing ideological capture that affects theory, methods, hiring, teaching, funding, and publishing. That bias leads to censorship, politicized journals, and distorted scholarship.
  2. Many insiders block reform through denial, deflection, and a ‘now is not the time’ or ‘can’t do’ mentality, and some reformers weaken efforts by worrying about optics or jargon instead of acting. Common excuses include claiming reform is a right-wing plot, minimizing the problem, or endlessly debating terms.
  3. Internal reform is possible but difficult and requires sustained, practical action like working groups, viewpoint-diversity initiatives, and firm pushback against obstructionary rhetoric. Progress will be slow and needs a mix of patient inside efforts, outside pressure, and educating skeptics with evidence.

Reading, Writing, and Racism: The Three R’s of Philly Public Schools

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 1270 implied HN points • 10 Jun 25
🚌 Education Curriculum
  1. Philadelphia's public schools have a history curriculum that encourages students to think critically about oppression. This may simplify complex historical events into a clear 'oppressed versus oppressor' narrative.
  2. One part of the curriculum asks students to consider what it takes to overthrow oppression, but it doesn't explore all the details from the historical period it covers.
  3. Teachers have some freedom to choose whether or not to follow this curriculum, but the existence of such a framework raises concerns about how history is being taught in schools.