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Gen Z first generation since 1800's with lower cognitive performance
$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
#82Bring back the indestructible Apple ][e and put let the kids program in logo (turtle graphics) for 1 or 2 hours per week max. The will not hurt them while society takes a few years to figure out how the introduction of technology in education went so catastrophically bad.
You joke but I think there is value in ripping all tech out except for a computer lab where kids can learn something productive like programming, graphic design, etc.
Tech is ubiquitous now, there is no reason to need exposure to it in school (anymore). We should be doing what maximizes learning - which we now know is not tech.
Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#83This 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…
> 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 trustees won't let them.
Adding parents to the school system has single-handedly destroyed the North American education system. Why is there no homework? Because parents complain that kids find it too hard or too much. Why is there no discipline? Because parents complain that discipline is making their kids miserable. Why is there so much emphasis on schools to teach practical skills? Because parents have abdicated their responsibility to teach these skills at home, where they belong.
Parents are no experts on education yet they get to decide what teachers do in the classrooms. The law of averages dictates that 50% were below average students themselves. Guess who sits on the school boards? It's not the over-achievers, those people are too busy being successful in their careers.
There's a global competition for talent and our children are falling behind. Now you know why.
Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#84Pretty simple solution: all tech out of schools, back to paper. There is value in being able to automate things, but there is far more value in being able to first to learn how to do stuff yourself.
Completely agree. One issue that I never hear mentioned is how disconnected parents become from their child's progress when there are no more paper books. It used to be that you'd progress from start to finish of a book over a term, and a parent could, at a glance, see what you should know and what you're about to learn. Now kids don't get books (which I think would surprise many parents and non-parents alike). Parents literally don't know what their child is learning at any point in time without asking them, and that is unreliable to say the least. Computers in school was supposed to be "an experiment" but everyone has decided, without proof, that it's great and therefore more screens in schools is great. Maybe in the 80's and 90's having computer knowledge was a valid shibboleth for "being smart" but it hasn't been true for 30 years. "Computer knowledge" has displaced "knowledge" in a zero-sum fashion, and it's getting worse.
My son is in the "gifted" program at his school which means they sit him down for 3 extra hours to play the Pokemon rip-off with trivia interspersed called "Prodigy". The public school system is in an unenviable state, being the fulcrum of vast societal forces and disagreements with the highest possible stakes. The districts are terrified of parents starting litigation against the school for any reason, which is why many of them have rules against ALL teacher physical contact with students, including holding the hand of pre-K, K and first graders, including stopping fights. They're supposed to tell the child no, and in the case of fights, distance themselves and call the police. In elementary school, there are no books, no teaching of handwriting, and 30 minutes of recess a day - if they're lucky. If they misbehave, taking away recess is the teacher's recourse.
Plus of course the schools are locked down like prisons, they have "code red" shooter drills once a month, every teacher has a panic button around their neck. No-one walks or rides their bike (at least not in elementary school). All of this is new, all of it is bad, and for some reason no-one seems to notice. I think it's in part that the kids don't know any different, so for them this all seems normal. Those of us having kids recently are shocked at all the changes, shocked that they've happened so quickly, and so silently.
Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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…
All it takes is one persistent parent who manages to get an administrator to reprimand a teacher for enforcing classroom rules. A teacher who deeply cares about teaching will need to support themselves at the end of the day.
This does not require a persistent parent. Administrators whose job it is to administer consequences for misbehavior already reprimand teachers for enforcing school rules. The turnover on new teachers is crazy bad. It's kind of like what you hear about Russia "recruiting" foreigners to die in Ukraine. Our school district recruits teachers from places like the Philippines and Singapore. Even with the promise of fat American wages and a ticket to the promised land, a huge number of even those teachers don't last two years.
Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#86This 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…
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.
Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
This only works if you can isolate your society from having to compete with others. Like American kids will have to compete with Chinese kids who are learning AI in middle school, and not just “I can write a prompt” AI. But then those kids are also starting to learn calculus while our middle schools claim algebra is too advanced for 8th graders. Sigh.
Isn't learning to use AI just learning how to talk, read, and think coherently? Unless you mean learning to build AI or how it actually works?
Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#88Utter rubbish, designed as clickbait for older folks. Every generations dunks on the next one, right up until it's time to change the clock on the VCR and only the kids can do that. Kids are growing up in a different world than we did. They need different skills, and probably a different cognition. Teaching them to deal with rapid attention shifts is probably going to equip them better for their actual lives than try…
Completely agree. Pit those retiring baby boomers against the efficiency and capabilities of the new generations.
Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#89Earlier 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…
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 basic access to education for masses, a few more poor smart kids that would otherwise become fishmongers or something, now have the chance to raise above their starting condition. But the reality never changed and never will: the vast majority of people are not very bright. And making it easier for them to be dumb and get away with it doesn't help (smartphones and now AI).
Re: $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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…
No, thus why I said it could be boiled down to. However as I say in another comment, most of my family are educators so these experiences represent what they've been dealing with for the past 20+ years. > 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!" I think both could be true and I'm not excluding either. The issu…
20+ years feels like a very long time for this to be the norm. Smartphone hegemony in general isn't that old.