Earlier quoted context omitted.
We could pay teachers even half of the median salary for HN users, and then see if outcomes improve?
It's more about passion then money.
Why don't you try paying your bills with passion and report back.
$30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
151–160 of 257 posts
Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#152I guess my buddies using laptops in electrical engineering 10 years ago also got dumber? Ought to have done programming and CAD with pen and paper. I wish I had a laptop earlier - or even better, a tablet with a good pen and attachable keyboard. I’m struggling to think of a disadvantage vs dead tree [note]books. Doodle right on the pdf textbook, dump things to remember into some flashcards app, have notes as searchab…
When I first started learning C in uni many years ago, we were forced to use vi and command line, despite there being functional IDEs.
The argument then was IDEs cause cognitive offloading and you don't actually learn to the fullest extent. By forcing us to do everything manually helped us understand how the compiler works, how to debug errors, etc.
This is what current systems are doing. There is a good article that explains it much better
https://papers.cnl.salk.edu/PDFs/Memory%20Paradox_%20Why%20O...
> Oakley, B., Johnston, M., Chen, K.-Z., Jung, E., & Sejnowski, T. (2025).
> “The Memory Paradox:
> Why Our Brains Need Knowledge in an Age of AI.” In The Artificial Intelligence Revolution:
> Challenges and Opportunities (Springer Nature, forthcoming).
Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#153I’m not convinced laptops were as big an issue as intentionally sabotaging the US educational system with things like No Child Left Behind and Common Core. Are Gen-Z folks overseas as screwed as Americans, and is there a correlation between academic performance and classroom laptops?
What specifically is wrong with Common Core math? I've seen a lot of vague complaints about it but the materials my children brought home seem fine. It's different from the way I learned but I haven't seen any compelling evidence that it's worse.
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Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#154This 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…
>whiny parents who rage when their children are told they can't be playing video games in class you have stats on that? It seems like an outlier. >teachers who are using computer programs to teach the kids instead of actually teaching. before laptops there were bad teachers who used books to teach the kids instead of actually teaching - as in: "read chapter 7, there will be a test!" if after laptops there is a worse…
> before laptops there were bad teachers who used books to teach the kids instead of actually teaching - as in: "read chapter 7, there will be a test!"
Yeah, but when a kid opens a textbook there aren't a bunch of distractions designed by professional scientists to manipulate the user into more engagement.
That, alone, is enough for me to wish that study devices (laptops, tablets, whatever) were locked down with only a few whitelisted sites for material and research.
And even then, that may not be enough. I rarely go to wikipedia (or tvtropes) anymore because what happens is I look something up, then 3 hours of fascinated clicks later, I realise I just burned my whole evening!
Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#155[dead]
Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "reverse Flynn effect" is something that's been observed in a small number of Western countries that do IQ tests as part of their military conscription. But for example, in Denmark, when plotting measured IQ against first name, we observe that there is cultural effect, that would explain that the "reverse Flynn effect" is simply an averaging down, caused by the import of migrants from lower IQ regions. The "rever…
Fascinating. I'm reminded of the 'conservation of ninjutsu' trope. We've known for a while that birth rates fall as education rates increase, but this almost suggests there's a 'conservation of iq' principle at a population level- you can have growing population or iq, but not both!
Sounds like it depends how the population is growing.
Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#157Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#158Earlier 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…
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…
Tech industry composed of many of the smartest people in the world with the most money, and the backing of the current US presidency vs. average middle America school district. Hmm.
Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#159This is probably misleading information. Kids and their parents aren't responsible for their math performance. Teachers are. Especially the ones that demotivate their students.
Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#160This is probably misleading information. Kids and their parents aren't responsible for their math performance. Teachers are. Especially the ones that demotivate their students.
This isn’t a simple topic where all but one involved part gets completely excused.
Parental involvement is highly correlated with childhood educational success.
Parents can’t hand off the entirety of the responsibly for their children’s educations to teachers.