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I don't think it necessarily does come in! I just think you have to be careful about this stuff, and the comment you wrote wasn't careful. I wouldn't care, except it spawned a gnarly thread --- that thread is what I noticed first, not anything you wrote.
For future reference, and as an example, how would you recommend I rephrase my comment to preclude gnarlification?
Scores for reading & science had actually been trending upwards in the US, while maths has been trending downwards for some 20 years.
Report: https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/report...
The fact that there’s even a debate about banning smart phones in classrooms tells you all you need to know. Cell phones were de facto banned in school in like 2002, not sure when it became the norm but it seems like a no brainer.
> 4. Limit the distractions caused by using digital devices in class >Students who spent up to one hour per day on digital devices for learning activities in school scored 14 points higher on average in mathematics than students who spent no time. Enforced cell phone bans in class may help reduce distractions but can also hinder the ability of students to self-regulate their use of the devices.
I don't think a simple blanket ban on smartphones in schools is likely to solve much.
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No, I'm not saying that. I already addressed my high school's ranking, so I'm not sure what point you think you're making by harping on that. My point is that US public education isn't universally bad, not that it's universally good.
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Of course kids are reading less. When I was growing, there was frequently not much else to do. Reading was replaced by movies and shows on demand and wont come back no matter what educators or parents do. It is cheaper, easily available and more fun. Sure kids also use social networks. But the role reading had was mostly taken over by Netflix, youtube, disney and such.
>Reading was replaced by movies and shows on demand and wont come back no matter what educators or parents do. ... huh? I'm a parent and this just isn't true. My wife and I have phones, our young children do not. We do not own a tablet. Our children have never known what it's like to have the option of resorting to a screen to keep them busy when we're out of the house. TV time is limited on the weekends, extra limit…
Assuming they will social, they will have friends to talk with them about anime shows and they will go visit them to watch those shows in their house. The kids in school will talk about anime, about netflix shows, but not about books.
> It's up to parents to, for lack of a better phrase, teach kids how to be bored.
You have full control while they are small. That goes away quickly and obviously even should go away.
But even more importantly, my parents and parents of my peers did not had to put that much work into us reading. They did not had to make the one big family project, they could have spend their weekends working in garden or going to play golf ... and generally speaking kids ended up reading a lot more anyway. They would read, because it was easily available and only fun thing to do.
> What's super fun, easily available and free for us is going to a park on the weekend to play and have lunch, and then driving around to a bunch of Little Free Libraries in the area.
It is not fun except for small kids. All these stats are about kids with agency which yours do not have yet.
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Just look at HN. Nominally an educated crowd, but talk about physics, and you immediately see terms like "ivory towers" or "return on investment", despite the fact that most on HN doesn't understand in fundamental science works.
There are _plenty_ of areas in physics where investment is paying off. Condensed matter physics, optics, material research and so on. We mostly question the fundamental subatomic particle physics that is not producing any returns on the investment. E.g. the galvanic effect was discovered in 1780, and there were long-distance telegraph lines by 1845 - so 65 years. The last major theoretical advance in particle physics…
a physicist responds: physics has done very little for like 70 years[0]
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Culture argument can be argued effectively as follows: If a cohort in Japan has a median score of X at median household income Y, the American cohort with same median score X has income closer to 1.25Y or 1.5Y. Whether you want to define your American cohort based on geography or ethnicity doesn't really matter-the result will be preserved up to a point.
This isn't a culture argument or even a sound/good argument for anything. Americans are just wealthier and you can't compare like that. When you compare groups of students within the same country and adjust for both household income and intelligence you find that (again, even within the same intelligence brackets and income levels) some ethnic groups simply study more while others spend more time on things like unpro…
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No, I'm not saying that. I already addressed my high school's ranking, so I'm not sure what point you think you're making by harping on that. My point is that US public education isn't universally bad, not that it's universally good.
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That's trivially not true. Girls do better overall, but it's a long, long way from being bimodal. Do you have another reason for being against streaming?
Just looking at the picture triggered me. Why are the students sitting in groups and cutting paper with scissors? There’s a huge teaching gap between USA and Asia. See for yourself: https://youtu.be/wIyVYCuPxl0?si=f6wFv2G3Iru7QFTy https://en.wikipedia-on-ipfs.org/wiki/James_W._Stigler Edit: since it may not have been clear from the video, this is my interpretation: * in the Japanese math class the teacher teaches at…
When I was in school, most work & learning happened on the individual level. Sometimes in pairs, where we would have to check each other's answers. But from what I see among my younger relatives and friends with children, there's a lot of group learning going on these days. Groups of five doing all kinds of projects in pretty much any class on any subject. Maybe it's fun to collectively build a diorama of ancient rome for history class, but I doubt you'll improve your maths skills much in this way.
Is this a consequence of a teacher shortage? Are kids in these groups supposed to help other kids? Are they supposed to learn cooperating with (or leeching off) others, at the cost of learning useful skills for themselves?