Realizing entertainment driven content is not an education is not insightful and does not warrant the dichotomy that actual education should be 'not fun'.
Rants on social media are an easy outlet for frustration and should not be conflated with insightful opinion piece journalism.
He caveats this in the post, so he's not really dichotomizing.
IIUC, he implores educators to optimize for productive "workout" rather than fun. From my point of view, "workouts" must be rewarding on average, but need not be fun.
I think it’s a useful bit of commentary. It’s a nudge. I think there’s plenty of entertainment-driven content that masquerades as educational. Andrej is giving a rule of thumb to help people identify when they’re being lulled into an entertainment trap while thinking they’re doing something worthwhile (not that an occasional escape isn’t worthwhile). I think his veggie straw analogy is a good one, and I’m filing it away for reuse.
It's not bad advice. But it is also not insightful and might be harmful. No one should be worried that they're having too much fun when they are learning.
I can't think of a single instance of learning a subject that mattered where I would describe as "having fun". Let alone too much fun.
Only on games which are fun themselves I could describe them as a fun experience, but they don't really require deep learning. The ones that do, will often stop being fun too.
It's very easy to enjoy the first stages of learning and have fun with it, but to really learn something, you have to get past that phase. Then it's much more about repetition and grit, than it is about fun.
Here's my take: "Learning is not supposed to be fun."
"Not supposed to be fun" has a clear meaning. "It doesn't have to be actively not fun" doesn't have a meaning. No one ever says "actively not fun". It's a cop out to pretend like he's not presenting a false dichotomy, and I can see right through it.
Comments
Realizing entertainment driven content is not an education is not insightful and does not warrant the dichotomy that actual education should be 'not fun'.
Rants on social media are an easy outlet for frustration and should not be conflated with insightful opinion piece journalism.
He caveats this in the post, so he's not really dichotomizing.
IIUC, he implores educators to optimize for productive "workout" rather than fun. From my point of view, "workouts" must be rewarding on average, but need not be fun.
I think it’s a useful bit of commentary. It’s a nudge. I think there’s plenty of entertainment-driven content that masquerades as educational. Andrej is giving a rule of thumb to help people identify when they’re being lulled into an entertainment trap while thinking they’re doing something worthwhile (not that an occasional escape isn’t worthwhile). I think his veggie straw analogy is a good one, and I’m filing it away for reuse.
It's not bad advice. But it is also not insightful and might be harmful. No one should be worried that they're having too much fun when they are learning.
I have to disagree.
I can't think of a single instance of learning a subject that mattered where I would describe as "having fun". Let alone too much fun.
Only on games which are fun themselves I could describe them as a fun experience, but they don't really require deep learning. The ones that do, will often stop being fun too.
It's very easy to enjoy the first stages of learning and have fun with it, but to really learn something, you have to get past that phase. Then it's much more about repetition and grit, than it is about fun.
So, for me, too much fun == not really learning.
Karpathy clearly wrote something different that what you say he wrote.
Selective quoting is fun!
Here's my take: "Learning is not supposed to be fun."
"Not supposed to be fun" has a clear meaning. "It doesn't have to be actively not fun" doesn't have a meaning. No one ever says "actively not fun". It's a cop out to pretend like he's not presenting a false dichotomy, and I can see right through it.