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> Most of these points smack of rosy retrospective bias. Well, accusations of bias can go both ways. Maybe it feels bad to admit that there is a serious proble

> Most of these points smack of rosy retrospective bias. Well, accusations of bias can go both ways. Maybe it feels bad to admit that there is a serious problem with no obvious solution in sight; and pretending that we don't see anything is how we bury our collective heads in the sand. Instead of accusing each other of biases, let's discuss evidence. As was mentioned in a few comments in this thread, high-school textbooks in multiple countries are gradually dumbed down, so much that 20 or more years old textbooks are now considered a material for gifted kids. (I can confirm this.) Your turn. > Kids have great attention spans if content is delivered to them in a way they can engage in, for instance, interactive computer games. If the only problem is that humans are losing the ability to learn without playing computer games, perhaps we could fix it by making all the necessary games. But we better start making them really fast, because there is a lot of knowledge to cover. And while we are at this type of solution, we could also fix problems with nutrition by genetically engineering a broccoli that will taste like heroin. Situation is not that bad if kids are still willing to pay attention to addictive things.

naasking 9y ago
> As was mentioned in a few comments in this thread, high-school textbooks in multiple countries are gradually dumbed down, so much that 20 or more years old textbooks are now considered a material for gifted kids. (I can confirm this.) Your turn. And what do you think that proves exactly? Did you prove that the kids using the old textbooks actually absorbed the more advanced material? Did you prove that outcomes using the old material are better than with the new material? Perhaps the new textbooks simply distilled the relevant material that the vast majority of kids actually grasp, without all the unnecessary detail that was just skipped over. I can think of plenty of different scenarios to explain the evidence that's been listed here, and only one of those explanations are "dumber kids and/or dumbed down education". The exact same arguments have been trotted out about the dumbing down of liberal college education, where in the 1900s, every college degree meant exposure to poetry, art, history, philosophy and more. Modern college education is then portrayed as poor substitute, completely ignoring the fact that our body of knowledge is at least 10,000x larger than it was in the 1900s, and a direct comparison is frankly laughable. > If the only problem is that humans are losing the ability to learn without playing computer games, perhaps we could fix it by making all the necessary games. Talk about missing the point. As evidenced by my use of "for instance", that was merely an example. Even among adults, interactive systems are clearly more engaging, and given the environmental factors that shape modern kids, you obviously are already too old to grasp their thinking process if you can't understand that different environmental factors entails different learning processes. Which just proves my point that adults are and always will be out of touch with the kids of their day.
- kbart 9y ago
  "And what do you think that proves exactly? Did you prove that the kids using the old textbooks actually absorbed the more advanced material?" Well, yes, at least some pupils did. See my comment about degrading exams difficulty and problems in contemporary national competitions. Math problems are fundamental, so it's a good indicator of skills, despite changing times. Science is boring at most times, you can't gamify everything.

naasking 9y ago

> As was mentioned in a few comments in this thread, high-school textbooks in multiple countries are gradually dumbed down, so much that 20 or more years old textbooks are now considered a material for gifted kids. (I can confirm this.) Your turn. And what do you think that proves exactly? Did you prove that the kids using the old textbooks actually absorbed the more advanced material? Did you prove that outcomes using the old material are better than with the new material? Perhaps the new textbooks simply distilled the relevant material that the vast majority of kids actually grasp, without all the unnecessary detail that was just skipped over. I can think of plenty of different scenarios to explain the evidence that's been listed here, and only one of those explanations are "dumber kids and/or dumbed down education". The exact same arguments have been trotted out about the dumbing down of liberal college education, where in the 1900s, every college degree meant exposure to poetry, art, history, philosophy and more. Modern college education is then portrayed as poor substitute, completely ignoring the fact that our body of knowledge is at least 10,000x larger than it was in the 1900s, and a direct comparison is frankly laughable. > If the only problem is that humans are losing the ability to learn without playing computer games, perhaps we could fix it by making all the necessary games. Talk about missing the point. As evidenced by my use of "for instance", that was merely an example. Even among adults, interactive systems are clearly more engaging, and given the environmental factors that shape modern kids, you obviously are already too old to grasp their thinking process if you can't understand that different environmental factors entails different learning processes. Which just proves my point that adults are and always will be out of touch with the kids of their day.

kbart 9y ago
"And what do you think that proves exactly? Did you prove that the kids using the old textbooks actually absorbed the more advanced material?" Well, yes, at least some pupils did. See my comment about degrading exams difficulty and problems in contemporary national competitions. Math problems are fundamental, so it's a good indicator of skills, despite changing times. Science is boring at most times, you can't gamify everything.