The End of High-School English • Hacker News Board

Re: The End of High-School English

#11

Post by akshayshah » Sun, Dec 11, 2022, 7:52 PM UTC

greggarious wrote: post #6

mytailorisrich wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of engaging in a technological arms race perhaps the solution is to give more emphasise to writing in class: Make the pupils read, study, etc. then they get x hours in class to write their paper with only pen and paper allowed. You can also do both and then compare. If what's produced at home is very different from what's produced in class...

But haven’t we solved this in the quant side? Let them cheat all they want then fail the midterm, which has proctors watching like hawks. (Or if you can assemble a formula sheet and pull a b after copying answers from the back of the textbook then you earned it)

In some sense, yes - evaluation in high school math, physics, and similar quantitative fields has been reduced to proctored problem sets. Even in so-called advanced classes, this has come at a cost. Evaluations rarely assess creativity, independent reasoning, or even a non-trivial proof - because every problem must be part of a strictly time-limited problem set, with no space for real challenge or even a few hours of thought.

To date, writing has evaded this trap. Sure, students write short essays during timed exams, but they also wrestle with more complex ideas and topics in longer assignments. Those assignments often take days, or even weeks, to do well.

I’m not sure what the future of those longer assignments is. I’m a bit disturbed by the idea that reading widely, thinking deeply, and distilling a few pages of coherent thoughts may not be an important part of early education. (Schools don’t always teach this well today, but at least we expect them to try.)

Re: The End of High-School English

#12

Post by gunshai » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 4:53 PM UTC

It seems the main problem we are trying to solve with writing is communication of ideas in a coherant fashion.

There will be a few different types of Students using chatGPT. Those blatantly cheating and just turning in blindly these works.

Those who have a hard time putting their ideas to page, but when asked can talk through their ideas.

A third group may arise, those who cheat blatantly, but then parrot what they used.

What am I saying here though, oral exams will separate these groups. Identifying what group the pupil is in helps understand how to actually help them progress.

My bias for this idea comes from my mother is a retired college professor and gave oral exams for two decades with large success in weeding out those who couldn't formulate ideas of their own.

Re: The End of High-School English

#13

Post by greggarious » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 4:53 AM UTC

akshayshah wrote: post #11

greggarious wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But haven’t we solved this in the quant side? Let them cheat all they want then fail the midterm, which has proctors watching like hawks. (Or if you can assemble a formula sheet and pull a b after copying answers from the back of the textbook then you earned it)

In some sense, yes - evaluation in high school math, physics, and similar quantitative fields has been reduced to proctored problem sets. Even in so-called advanced classes, this has come at a cost. Evaluations rarely assess creativity, independent reasoning, or even a non-trivial proof - because every problem must be part of a strictly time-limited problem set, with no space for real challenge or even a few hours of…

Schools don’t teach it well because of no child left behind - how you write for a test is very different from how you’d write in a more literary or journalistic context.