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

americanaffairsjournal.org

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

#111

Post by pier25 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #83

I only ever write on a computer. I own a single pen which I have not needed to replace since I moved into my apartment in 2016. I'm pretty sure I last used it in November, when I had to fill out a form for jury duty. The article cite studies that handwriting is linked to brain development, and reading on paper improves memory, and so on... I'm certainly not in a position to refute those studies, but I have to wonder…

It's not about handwriting per se but about using fine motor skills. For a healthy development of the brain, young kids need to develop motor skills which neurologically will allow cognitive skills to develop properly later on.

Sorry I don't have any link to back this claim but I worked for a couple of years in EdTech with pedagogy experts.

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

#112

Post by catalogia »

gumby wrote: post #60

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 disc…

> "But time was taken from something else"

I think this is a key point. Insofar as computers or ipads can free up more time for other studies, they're a positive development, but insofar as they take away time from other studies, it seems like a negative.

I learned recently that the school district I attended as a child is phasing out their home economics program. They always had two teachers for that, one would teach the cooking half and the other the sewing, switching every quarter. Well, one retired a few years ago and the school district seems to have no interest in hiring a replacement, so the remaining teacher dropped the sewing section completely and now only teaches cooking to kids. But she's going to retire in a few years too and has told me the school district has no interest in hiring a replacement for her. Those classes weren't worth much to me since I learned to cook at home (incidentally that school teacher is my mother..) but a lot of kids have never done anything more sophisticated in their kitchens than use the microwave, if that. A lot of kids have parents that don't have the time or inclination to teach them how to cook, maybe they don't even know themselves. This trend concerns me a lot more than the ability to spell. Being able to cook for yourself is cheaper and potentially healthier than buying microwave TV dinners the rest of your life. And for that matter, the only serious nutrition education that school district provides is in that course. Unless they're going to replace that class with a nutrition class, they'll certainly be doing those kids a disservice.

See also: "Figure 5. Trends in obesity prevalence among adults aged 20 and over (age adjusted) and youth aged 2–19 years: United States, 1999–2000 through 2015–2016" - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db288.pdf

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

#113

Post by triceratops »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #107
triceratops wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we should be teaching the skills that people need in today's world, and that overwhelmingly means typing. You don't need a ton of practice to get good at typing. Anyone can reach 80 WPM within a year. That's more than enough. Handwriting is much more difficult and needs more practice. Even software engineers who type all the time need to write on whiteboards to get jobs. /s

> Handwriting is much more difficult and needs more practice. Okay, I'll buy that. So, why are we teaching it? For whiteboard interviews? I realize it will take some restructuring of society before handwriting is an obsolete skill, but gradually de-emphasizing it in school isn't a bad way to get there, over the course of a few generations. The time schools save can be used on any number of other skills.

> So, why are we teaching it?

Here's a list of random, unresearched reasons:

1. It teaches fine motor skills

2. Some people learn reading and writing better when writing by hand. Some people learn better in lectures when taking notes by hand.

3. Tech isn't always available. Sometimes pen/pencil and paper are all you have when you really need to write something.

4. Drawing, painting and other art require learning how to hold and use pencils, brushes, pens, and other tools in a fine, controlled manner. If people are going to learn to make art with manual instruments, they may as well learn to write at the same time.

5. Text input is genuinely more awkward on keyboards for many non-Latin languages, and is less emphasized in development of software products. That relegates those language learners to second-class status as they grapple with tools built for the Latin/Cyrillic world.

6. There's a ton of cultural significance to writing by hand: calligraphy, religious or legal rites.

I can probably come up with a dozen more but to get to your next point.

> And the time schools save can be used for any number of other things.

If you want to talk about outdated holdovers in children's education, summer vacation is the biggest one, dating from when kids were needed on farms to help bring in the harvest. Schools could simply eliminate summer vacations if they really wanted more time to educate. No more complaints about teachers only working 9 months/year, no more summer learning slump (or whatever it's called), no more paying for daycare or summer camp 3 months/year. A lack of time is not a real problem.

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

#114

Post by zemo »

the whole "computers in schools aren't working" part of the article is being overly focused in these comments. the important part of the article is this:

> STEM ideologues and real educators are pursuing very different goals. The purpose of edu­cation in the sciences is to cultivate children as knowers in and of the world. The purpose of STEM programs is just to create more of a certain kind of worker.

as someone with a computer engineering degree currently working on an MFA, I couldn't agree more. I have learned more about the consequences and impact of my work in a half year of MFA studies than I did in five years of engineering studies.

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

#115

Post by eikenberry »

pier25 wrote: post #111
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #83

I only ever write on a computer. I own a single pen which I have not needed to replace since I moved into my apartment in 2016. I'm pretty sure I last used it in November, when I had to fill out a form for jury duty. The article cite studies that handwriting is linked to brain development, and reading on paper improves memory, and so on... I'm certainly not in a position to refute those studies, but I have to wonder…

It's not about handwriting per se but about using fine motor skills. For a healthy development of the brain, young kids need to develop motor skills which neurologically will allow cognitive skills to develop properly later on. Sorry I don't have any link to back this claim but I worked for a couple of years in EdTech with pedagogy experts.

Fine motor skills can be developed in many ways, including many ways that use more modern technology than a pen. If it is the motor skills that are important, then they should focus on those and not one particular means of practicing them.

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

#116

Post by filoleg »

johnchristopher wrote: post #105
jacobolus wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think students will better learn to spell without spellcheck? As far as I can tell spending class time on spelling per se and/or grading students on spelling mistakes is a complete waste of time and focus. The ideal way to teach spelling is (1) get kids to read a whole lot, (2) show students their mistakes in context when they make them on as short a feedback loop as possible, without judgment. It’s plausi…

https://www.bbc.com/news/education-18158665 N=1: I feel like - and I am 99% certain - that my grammatical and spelling skills have decreased since I started using the internet heavily.

I think it heavily depends on the kind of content you are consuming. I know it is anecdata, but my personal grammar and spelling skills went all the way up since I started using internet heavily (which was very noticeable to me, since english isn't my native language). And while I use a lot of incorrect grammar and spelling when talking to friends, I usually do it out of convenience (to shorten words, etc.), not because I don't know the proper grammar/spelling.

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

#117

Post by yorwba »

Ensorceled wrote: post #109
yorwba wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim that "technology in schools actually lowers test scores in reading, math, and science" is not supported by identifiable sources, so some skepticism is warranted.

Later in the essay, the author has supporting examples AND references for his opening claims. For lowering test scores there are two examples that I found in a few moments of looking. > In a study of over seven hundred students at West Point, those with computers in class had test scores 0.2 standard deviations below those of students who did not.12 > In one study, the final exam scores of students whose class permit…

I was talking about the figure claiming to show changes in PISA scores caused by various technologies, for which I can't find the source.

I didn't look closer at the West Point study, but I did read reference 13, which by the way required the use of electronic devices for in-class testing, so it did not actually compare classes permitting electronic devices against those that did not. Rather, it had a proctor remind students to put their devices away when they weren't using them for the lecture.

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

#118

Post by filoleg »

jacobolus wrote: post #100
grawprog wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The ideal way to teach spelling is (1) get kids to read a whole lot, (2) show students their mistakes in context when they make them on as short a feedback loop as possible, without judgment. I'm not sure I agree with this. This doesn't teach the fundamentals and rules of how words are put together. Learning to spell isn't memorizing lists of words, it's learning the rules of English and how words are actually put t…

People don’t learn the “rules of English” through explicit instruction. They learn them through years (decades) of exposure. Anecdotally, the main predictor of how good someone’s spelling will be is how much reading they have done.

>Anecdotally, the main predictor of how good someone’s spelling will be is how much reading they have done.

Agreed, but it doesn't just have to be books. My personal example: in my native language, I read tons of books as a child, which was what gave me a strong edge when it comes to spelling/grammar. I got into learning english in my late teens, and, by that time, I wasn't as much into reading long-form books as I was into reading random things on the internet. I would say my grammar/spelling is on about the same level in english as it is in my native language, at the moment. In both cases, however, I can easily attribute it to consuming a lot of reading material that gave me some kind of intuition for the correct spelling/grammar. I don't remember explicit grammar rules for either language. In case of my native one, I never really learned the rules in the first place, as I had trouble memorizing those, and the rules felt forced and arbitrary with tons of exceptions to each of them. I just know that something feels "right" or "wrong", simply because of tons of reading that settled down in my head.

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

#119

Post by gumby »

watwut wrote: post #85
gumby wrote: post #60

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 disc…

Then again, engineers and computer programmers routinelly introduce their kids to scratch, hour of code, code combat, general programming, hacking things and what not. At the high school level, kids of my collegues (especially boys) have significant advantage compared to kids of other people.

indeed, but I wouldn't say "then again": I'd say that teaching kids Word isn't giving them any kind of computational thinking. Teaching them to write a small piece of code (and that exquisite feeling when you finally get it working) is very powerful.

It's similar to how mathematics is typically taught to kids in the systems I'm familiar with (US, DE, AU): mostly as syntactic transformations unattached to anything useful. Apparently the teachers have a propensity to be "afraid" of maths which is one reason they might choose to go into early education. The kids may be able to pass a simple maths test but not really have and feel for what it is.

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

#120

Post by dpeck »

its because the people who are making these programs don't actually have an understanding of technology (just like technologists don't, as a general rule, understand education).

These folks so that successful people are using computers and think that using computers is the goal, not just a handy tool for doing stuff that we're slow at really fast.

To quote Dijkstra, "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes"

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