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$30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents

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Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents

#131

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #122
somenameforme wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Places like China and Vietnam are the ones rocking the test scores. These places operate on a tiny fraction of the $ per student of most places in the world, even PPP adjusted. And I think China's increasingly absurd achievements [1] make it clear that this goes beyond the test. I think the nurture argument can still apply there - Chinese parent is a meme all its own, and for a good reason. But this isn't something t…

> It's a combined mix of culture and parenting within that culture. The problem is, that culture (and other more or less closely related Asian cultures) also produces an awful lot of psychologically awfully damaged adults - and many Asian countries are now facing the consequences of that, with hikikomori, women not finding suitable partners, rock bottom fertility rates and collapsing demographics. And on top of that,…

> "And on top of that, you may get really obedient children, excelling at following what they know to do... but creativity? Thinking outside the box? Going against the script? Thrown into unfamiliar situations? Whoops."

Usual Western racism, reassuring themselves they're better than those "uncreative" Asians, even as Asia continues to eat away at the West's technology lead in a variety of sectors.

One wonders if the Europeans ever told themselves that the backwards folk of the colonies could never catch up to the technological or scientific achievements of the continent's great centers of learning and industry.

Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents

#132

Post by CJefferson »

iambateman wrote: post #79
japhyr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the real culprit could simply be boiled down to a failure in classroom management and lack of enforcement against cell phones in class I was a middle school and high school math and science teacher from 1994 through 2019. I watched the advent of internet in schools, then desktop computers in classrooms, and finally smartphones in students' hands. I've lived a life of watching teachers and schools get blamed for not…

What would be better policy, in your opinion?

Having taught in schools for years? Treat companies that make addictive products the same way we treat drugs, alcohol and tobacco. Kids want them, particularly teenagers. We aren't perfect at stopping their access. But we can make a best attempt.

It would be hard, and it would be 'anti-capitalism', but, I think we have done real long term damage to a generation, and I think in 20 years, like Tobacco, it I'll turn out the companies knew how much they were damaging children and covered it up.

Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents

#133

Post by Noumenon72 »

itishappy wrote: post #128
telman17 wrote: post #11

This article tries to put the blame on laptops when the real culprit could simply be boiled down to a failure in classroom management and lack of enforcement against cell phones in class, whiny parents who rage when their children are told they can't be playing video games in class, and teachers who are using computer programs to teach the kids instead of actually teaching. Ban phones from class. For real. Lock down…

No teacher (or parent) has ever managed to lock down a computer that was in my possession to a level where I wouldn't get distracted by it. You could shut the power off, and I'd still be poking around the hardware. I spent hundreds of hours programming my calculator instead of paying attention in class. Informative? Yes. Distracting to myself and those around me? You bet. I completely agree with your phone take. Ther…

We could reduce it to the level of distraction of a notebook and pen. Grayscale would help.

Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents

#135

Post by YesBox »

By the time I was in high school, we had laptop carts that were rolled out for a few classes (as in a handful of times per year). This was 2004+. We also had computer labs since elementary school. Iirc laptops were used when labs were booked up.

I recall the experience being distracting. Computers are more fun than classes. No matter how much you lock down the machine, a kid will figure a way to make it more interesting than class. Computers can do so much. Children are curious.

I remember sneaking in flash games, ms paint/kidpix, browsing the web and whatever.

Anecdotal.. but i certainly wasn’t the only kid fooling around.

I don’t know what the “right amount” is, but I turned out ok. Though the iPhone was introduced after I graduated high school

Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents

#136

Post by AngryData »

throwaway439080 wrote: post #101
glitchc wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ban phones from class. For real. Lock down websites that are irrelevant to the subjects being taught. These are all technically possible with the tools schools have. Even Youtube. If something is important enough to show the class, the teacher can show it on their larger screen. Sure. Teachers would love to ban cellphones and punish kids who disobey. The problem is, the parents who sit on the school boards as trust…

> Guess who sits on the school boards? People who get elected to sit on the school boards? I think you're actually just complaining about democracy. My local school district has banned phones during school time (enforced by an auto-locking pouch gadget that releases the phone when school ends), and parents overwhelmingly support it.

In my experience school boards are anything but democratic. The only people that heartfully pursue those positions are the handful of assholes that shouldn't be in those positions for any reason. And their election is just a choose your flavor of asshole that can manage a half decent public persona and is sitting on excess capital to blow on marketing. Nobody knows who these people are, even in small towns with life long residency, half the people on the board nobody knows unless they are also on the school board and met them through it. Even if people cared about their board's membership, how do you realistically vet them all without having shit tons of free time to go personally meet them or follow them around?

Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents

#137

Post by salawat »

xethos wrote: post #115
telman17 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can definitely see the push for using technology in schools - what you're saying makes sense. It's not the individual teachers I blame. I come from a family of educators and a lot of the crappy enforcement falls to the district level, who just want to make the parents happy. There is literally no reason a child needs a cell phone in class. Computers are great. Lock them down. There is nothing unreasonable about thi…

Are we sure it isn't the offensively-well-funded tech industry that's being referenced here?

You're not suggesting the most overinflated asset class in the market might somehow be involved though predatory pushing of product into education to get em hooked while they're young are you?!

/s

Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents

#138

Post by nativeit »

MichaelRo wrote: post #89
mschuster91 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And on top of that, in many countries (not just the US) teachers, school and the students themselves don't have anywhere near the financial resources that they need. Schools are (literally) falling apart, here in Germany it became apparent during Covid that a ton of schools had windows that rotted so far they couldn't be opened, in the US there are states that introduced 4 day school weeks due to budget constraints […

I dunno, maybe it differs by country/location but my perception is that school was never capable to educate beyond some basic mediocrity level. Mostly it's an institution imposed by the state to process the children while parents are working. And the way to actually teach your kids something never really changed since the times of the elite few versus the mass of peasants: private tutoring. Now it's true that with ba…

We could pay teachers even half of the median salary for HN users, and then see if outcomes improve?

Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents

#139

Post by jonhohle »

gruez wrote: post #95
synergy20 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's actually extremely hard to ban websites unless all students can only use chrome book, middle and high schoolers know how to install tor and free vpn to bypass all those domain blacklists in a few minutes with their laptop or phone.

Whitelist sites instead of blacklisting? I'm also not sure how kids are getting admin rights to install a VPN in the first place. For the overwhelming majority of cases a kiosk like experience should suffice, which should virtually eliminate any jailbreaks.

Yeah, this never made sense to me and I’ve suggested it to the district, especially for lower grades. They will never block all of the websites they need to unless they block all of the websites. Allow teachers to unblock specific sites for the students they’re responsible for.

Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents

#140

Post by mrwh »

I went to school at what I realise was an unusual interregnum between computerisation. Too young for the BBC micro (there was one, in the library, at my secondary school, that was never turned on), too old for PCs or Archimedes or whatever came later in the 90s. In retrospect, not a bad thing.
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