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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

#231

Post by moi2388 »

servo_sausage wrote: post #166
moi2388 wrote: post #144

With the possibility of unintentionally sounding racist.. “ Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized tests than the previous one” The percentage of immigrants or non-native English speakers is also increasing in the US (and in the EU). Since these groups historically also scored lower, one would expect the general scores at least partially lowered due to this. Also add in Covid w…

Every study like this needs to adjust for common compounding factors; demographics, income, teaching methods, covid... Otherwise it's junk data, we have have no idea if lower performance is due to more migrants, more computers, less sugar in cereal or whatever.

Yes. And follow them as cohort. Do they start behind? Or gradually got worse? Or actually improved more than the previous generations?

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

#232

Post by bob001 »

qsera wrote: post #172
bob001 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The peer review process provides a minimal level of verification, and the paper provides details that can be directly looked at.

>The peer review process provides a minimal level of verification But this is only true if you trust the peer more than the author. Because both the author and the peer are not accountable to you or to mostly none. So "peer review", without any other qualification is as good as shit. Every time I see people go "BUT IS IT PEER REVIEWED !??" I can't help but chuckle.

> But this is only true if you trust the peer more than the author

Peer review means that EITHER the author or the peer are trustworthy. Not one. Not the other. The failure mode is that BOTH are untrustworthy and not that EITHER is untrustworthy on their own. This is different from no peer review where the author is a single point of failure. There is furthermore the overall system of peer review with some level of checks within it if a peer or author end up being visibly untrustworthy. Not perfect however the same can be said for every single part of human society.

> Every time I see people go "BUT IS IT PEER REVIEWED !??" I can't help but chuckle.

And I sort of chuckle at people like you who don't realize that all of human society if built on the exact same vague fuzzy framework. It's not about absolutes but about levels of trustworthiness and system level checks.

Edit: In this case, for example, the quote is based on a study that the speaker did not publish. The study actually says the exact opposite. So now there's THREE levels of trust that can cross verify. The speaker, the original study authors and the peer reviews. In this case the speaker clearly is not trustworthy as their own source material disagrees with them. Had I simply blindly trusted the speaker this would not have been evident but due to having a study I can verify.

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

#233

Post by Teever »

eudamoniac wrote: post #223
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…

I'm not that old. "Just ban phones" worked perfectly fine when I was in high school in 2010. "Just ban cigarettes" also worked, and no one was smoking in the classroom. It's not a hard problem; the administration just refuses to solve it.

How do you expect anyone to take what you just wrote seriously when there's such a blatantly obvious difference in the detectability of the use of these two different products?

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

#234

Post by eudamoniac »

Teever wrote: post #233
eudamoniac wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not that old. "Just ban phones" worked perfectly fine when I was in high school in 2010. "Just ban cigarettes" also worked, and no one was smoking in the classroom. It's not a hard problem; the administration just refuses to solve it.

How do you expect anyone to take what you just wrote seriously when there's such a blatantly obvious difference in the detectability of the use of these two different products?

The two products of phones in 2026 and phones in 2010? In 2010 they were smaller.

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

#235

Post by array_key_first »

Teever wrote: post #233
eudamoniac wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not that old. "Just ban phones" worked perfectly fine when I was in high school in 2010. "Just ban cigarettes" also worked, and no one was smoking in the classroom. It's not a hard problem; the administration just refuses to solve it.

How do you expect anyone to take what you just wrote seriously when there's such a blatantly obvious difference in the detectability of the use of these two different products?

It's just not relevant. When I was in highschool some teachers had a thingy on the wall where you would hang up your cell phone in a pouch. If it wasn't there, you better have a good explanation, or you'll be counted absent.

The solutions are simple and effectively free. That's not the issue. The issue is nobody wants to do the solutions. Schools don't, parents don't, kids don't. Everyone is just lying to themselves.

You can't on one hand claim to care about kids and then on the other dismiss obvious tactics like banning cell phones.

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

#236

Post by array_key_first »

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.

This is a new phenomena. It took over a decade for my school district to ban phones. Eventually parents relented - but for the longest time they were the single blocker. Oh, what about emergencies???

Well Nancy, it's not 1995 anymore. Phones aren't for phone calls, we all know that. The school has phones too, you know.

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

#237

Post by array_key_first »

mlrtime wrote: post #191
bandrami wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you're actually just complaining about democracy Local participatory democracy is in fact pretty terrible: HOAs, school boards, neighborhood impact hearings where people complain that building apartments would let the poors move in and we can't have that.

I see this troll response all the time stating families don't want "poors" as some kind of attempt at manipulation to feel I am a bad person. I [given the chance] would also vote against apartments in my particular neighborhood, and it has nothing to do with being poor at all.

It's about it lowering the value of surrounding property, which is just "oh no poors" but roundabout.

But it's not your fault, it's a systemic issue. The fact you even care about your property value is the problem, not the fact you have to care about it. That's not your fault, you're just playing the game you have to play like everyone else.

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

#238

Post by red-iron-pine »

assaddayinh wrote: post #142
iambateman wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be better policy, in your opinion?

Faraday cages built into school buildings.

there will be one school shooting and no one would be able to call 911 and then there will be a public outcry.

the big tech companies making these phones and apps will amplify that outcry hard, and the phones will be let back in. the addiction will continue.

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

#239

Post by red-iron-pine »

gscott wrote: post #141
nativeit wrote: post #138

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.

passion makes sense when people can afford the rent

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

#240

Post by analog31 »

seanicus wrote: post #221
analog31 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Common core was a thing when my kids were in school, so I “did my research.” A number of states had published their CC standards online, so it was easy to figure out. The standards looked quite similar to what I learned as a kid, give or take a couple of topics. It’s actually quite puzzling to me what the controversy is. It may be a bunch of political hoopla with no underlying substance. On the other hand, I think th…

Any recommendations for how to approach K-12 math teaching? Got some (very) little ones and doing our best but both parents are definitely more humanities-brained

I think it helps to think in terms of keeping up with the demands of school without crushing their curiosity and interest. In my generation, at least where I grew up, school was less competitive and college admissions more laid back. We were at the tail end of when the people who worked on the line at Ford’s earned more than many college graduates. We had no idea what would happen next.

Today parents are freaked out because math scores are a sorting hat for college admissions and lucrative careers. Yet they don’t use math in their own careers, and many of them hate it.

My neighbor, who is a retired high school math teacher, told me that the kids who shine in advanced math are not the ones whose parents treated math as a series of competitive milestones. I started out “slow” in math, and my K-12 math grades were highly variable (to put it kindly), but eventually graduated cum laude as a math major while also becoming a fairly competent jazz musician.

My parents were both scientists, but loved the humanities. I think you can show your own interest and curiosity when talking to your kids about math, or helping them with their lessons. Rather than suggesting that you’re not “math people”, admit that it’s being taught in a new way and that you’re going to re-learn it along with them because it’s fun.

I would restructure school math if it were up to me, though I’m cautious about wholesale introduction of computers for the many reasons discussed in this thread. One idea for your kids is to explore some non-school math topics as they show an interest, such as pure logic, proofs, and computation.

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