The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development

Spoken communication skills and teamwork are important skills do, despite the protestations of people who live on their computers.

First of all, could someone enlighten the non-US readers about what common core is? I hear the term a lot, not clear what the main ideas actually are or how people view it.

My own kids go to private schools in the UK. None of the parents would have any problems buying a load of tablets or VR goggles or whatever if the schools said so, and the schools would not have any problems buying whatever manner of gadgets they thought were needed. These are schools that have historically fed kids to top secondary schools in the area, which in turn feed into the top universities in the country, and the world.

And yet, the classroom is more or less just like the ones I attended as a kid in the 1980s. Bunch of chairs for little people and letters and numbers made from paper cutouts. The blackboard is one of those big touchscreens but it's used mostly like a blackboard. It's a screen for showing videos only when the kids are in after-school care waiting for parents to come get them.

The kids start to read the year they turn 5, and the big kid who is three years in can mostly read an Economist article. Math-wise it's going fine as well.

As a programmer I'd love it if the kids could learn some of what I do, and there's plenty of interest, but essentially the article is right. The point isn't to make little workers who can write an insertion sort. If you are educated, and you wind up in a place where that's needed, it won't take you all that long to figure out.

We've somehow missed the point of education. It isn't to create specific skills that are useful for businesses. The point is to have an understanding of our place in the world, a vast context that encompasses a huge range of topics. If you do that, you will come across those specific skills, and much more.

Last Battle left an impression on my younger self that was far greater than the other books which I enjoyed but didn't experience such a visceral interaction with. Other than a weird interest in Turkish Delight despite now knowing that it is probably not as enticing as I might imagine.

I studied engineering in a country with a non-idiotic university program.

Books (in b/w), pencil and paper. Lessons using a whiteboard or blackboard with chalk. Desks and chairs.

Some of the rooms where exactly the same used a century ago.

You learn theory, not how some "new technology of the year" works.

> I would point out that universal public education is a recent thing.

"recent" as in french revolution.

> Sure, maybe classroom education should focus on "the good, the true, and the beautiful" but then why should we expect everyone to do it?

Yes.

about six years ago my son let a campaign to turn back the attempt to introduce iPads to the school (they'd been piloted in grade 9 and were to be introduced high school wide the following year). A surprising number of the 9th graders said it was a waste and many kids didn't want them (they already had phone to get whatever distraction they wanted).

The principal finally took him aside and said "I'm not going to discuss your points. The fact is if we don't adopt them the parents will complain and enrolment (in that private school) will drop as we appear to be behind the times."

Years before I was on the school board and the parents were the biggest problem. For example there was a panic that "technology" must be added to the curriculum (apparently the inclined plane or pulley weren't considered "technology"). The pushback came from the engineers and computer programmers on the school board, and the computing teachers at the high school level. But time was taken from something else and all the 2-6 grade kids learned to use Powerpoint and Word which essentially none of them (now all college age) have used in years.