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The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development

• zwieback 7y ago
  Nice rant! I think a lot of what the author complains about is already obsolete, our school system (privileged city in Oregon) went through the chromebook/tablet mania and already got rid of them again. As far as I can tell the only "tech" they use are electronic whiteboards. The curriculum across liberal arts and science seems almost indistinguishable from what I learned in high school in the 80s. In Germany. Still, this was a real gem: > "How did we get here? The American public education system, a rusted-out 1976 mustard sedan whose “check engine” light is always on, is driven by a psychopath who wants, by turns, to crash it for the insurance, to insist that cars can be submarines, and to spend hilarious sums on unnecessary parts."
• jimbob45 7y ago
  I was considered a gifted child from a young age. In third grade, because of my "giftedness", I was told I could just read instead of participating in the class skit of the planets of the solar system. I used that time to complete the entire Chronicles of Narnia (good books btw - skip The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle though). I've wondered what would happen if we scrapped the most useless 30% of my state's school curriculum and instead replaced it with reading time. I know sports generally have a metric of "Wins above Replacement" where players are measured in how many wins they are expected to add to their team over a hypothetical average player for their position. I've wondered if you could similarly measure "Learning above reading" where your curriculum is measured in how much the student learns in comparison to if they had just sat down and read a book of their choosing for the same amount of time.
  • ravedave5 7y ago
    http://www.ala.org/tools/research/librariesmatter/reading-fun-improves-students-test-scores http://www.ala.org/tools/research/librariesmatter/reading-fu...
  • virtuous_signal 7y ago
    I love the wins-above-replacement idea. Just reading by yourself sounds like a great "control" treatment. But some subjects, like math, are too hard to learn with just eyeballs moving across a page. Perhaps a math intervention could be measured as "how much better is it than letting the child loose on khan academy?" My TAG program in school was just us sitting around a table with the art teacher having inane discussions. Literally zero value added.
  • wavefunction 7y ago
    Last Battle and Magician's Nephew are excellent because they provide insight into CS Lewis as an author and person. Even as a child I recognized the 'problems' with those two books and that flash of insight helped with bringing more nuance into my own thoughts. At least I hope so.
    • ticmasta 7y ago
      As an adult learning about his personal history/development and late conversion to Catholicism explained a lot of what confused the kid version of me who read the books decades earlier
      • wavefunction 7y ago
        Last Battle left an impression on my younger self that was far greater than the other books which I enjoyed but didn't experience such a visceral interaction with. Other than a weird interest in Turkish Delight despite now knowing that it is probably not as enticing as I might imagine.
        • floren 7y ago
          If you're in the US, try to get some "Aplets and Cotlets". They're a delicious variety of Turkish Delight made in Washington state from apples and apricots.
      • acheron 7y ago
        He converted to Anglicanism, not Catholicism, to the dismay of his friend Tolkien.
  • dekhn 7y ago
    Skip the Magician's Nephew? That's crazy. It's now considered the first book in the series, and I think some of what it covers is the most fascinating aspects of Narnia.
    • ggm 7y ago
      ...But he was right about the last battle. Susan dropped out because she discovered sex and rational humanism. I'm with susan!
  • glitchc 7y ago
    As an avid reader personally, I would have loved that. My son is an avid reader too, however, interacting with his friends and my colleagues over the years, I have realized that not everyone learns well or absorbs enough through reading alone. Some people need to see and/or do to learn.
    • ticmasta 7y ago
      Reading is a great skill and encouraging kids to read has real value. I have an avid reader who is ten however who struggles with many aspects of writing and communication (organization, idea structure, penmanship, thinking before you speak, etc). He would much rather read and often rushes through other work so he can get back to his reading. He doesn't need more time to read sitting in class, he needs more practice speaking and presenting, learning to construct and edit work and other interactive skills. Sending your kid to school to read independently seems like a waste of resources, likely tolerated because it takes work from everyone's shoulders and no one complains. I'd like to see the reading be the homework and the day filled with practice, teacher guidance and student coaching, similar to what Sal Khan promotes. None of this has much to do with technology and screens though...
  • floren 7y ago
    I'm convinced that people would, in general, be much more competent at general writing and communication if they spent more time reading for pleasure as kids. I developed a huge vocabulary and an instinctive grasp of grammar because I read voraciously; constantly immersed in more-or-less decent writing, I could immediately tell when my own writing was "off".
    • watwut 7y ago
      I used to read a lot, basically all the time, and was never good at writing or grammer. So I don't think it is so easy and clear. I got better at writing when I took lessons and read books about how to write.
    • moretai 7y ago
      Yeah being a late reader, I see that I could have done a lot better in English class if I had read more as a child.
    • slumdev 7y ago
      There's a comment elsewhere in this thread that suggests there's no link between spelling and higher intelligence. I disagree. Spelling ability doesn't develop in a vacuum. It's the result of an individual's having seen the words before. Reading develops spelling ability. Reading also develops the imagination and one's ability to reason about abstractions. Reading may not have any influence on spatial reasoning or math ability, but I think it's the primary driver of verbal intelligence.
  • logifail 7y ago
    > I've wondered what would happen if we scrapped the most useless 30% of my state's school curriculum and instead replaced it with reading time. At our kids school they operate a (third-party) web-based reading comprehension test linked with many books available in the school library. Kids can collects points in their account on this system if they correctly answer questions about the books they've borrowed and read. Our eldest has now amassed by far the most points that any child in the school has ever had. His teacher is convinced it's somehow to do with him chasing lots of points. We, on the other hand, are convinced it's just because he really enjoys reading, and that we have no TV in the house and an awful lot of books...
  • novok 7y ago
    The thing is there will be kids with low 'learning above reading' score (like a lot on HN probably) and kids with very high 'learning above reading' scores. I heard one person call the ones you can throw a book and they will be good the kids you could put into a dark room and they will emerge literate. I was also praised as a child because you could leave me in a book store for 5 hours and 5 hours later I would still be in the same spot reading the same book and enjoying it. I realized now I was praised for that because it was rare!
  • gowld 7y ago
    Spoken communication skills and teamwork are important skills do, despite the protestations of people who live on their computers.
    • downerending 7y ago
      I guess so. Mostly those team activities were an opportunity to re-experience the unfortunate fact that I was generally unliked and socially unskilled. It might be useful to actually teach those skills as an independent targeted activity, but turning science or math into a social activity sounds like a lose-lose.
      • jriot 7y ago
        And kids who had social skills yet struggled with math still had to do math. School isn't just the Rs, it's also about learning how to function in a society with other people.
        • deleted 7y ago
          [deleted]
  • mrr54 7y ago
    The Magician's Nephew is the best one! You do need to read it after at least the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe though, or it's a bit of a spoiler.
• ravedave5 7y ago
  "the use of technology in schools actually lowers test scores in reading, math, and science, damages long-term memory, and induces addiction" - citation needed.
  • zepto 7y ago
    I don’t think it’s an extraordinary claim. Both sides of this have common sense validity. I think you can just as much be expected to provide a citation if you disagree.
  • fenwick67 7y ago
    There are 38 citations in TFA
    • ravedave5 7y ago
      yeah but which one of the 38 citations makes this statement? I vastly prefer wikipedia's style of having direct inline citations for statements that are making claims.
      • yorwba 7y ago
        The citation for lowering test scores is probably supposed to be PISA, which doesn't get listed in the footnotes, so who knows which report he got it from. The citation for harming long-term memory is https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01443410.2018.1489046 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01443410.2018.1... which specifically investigates the distracting effect of allowing the use of phones and laptops during class for purposes other than the class itself. (Ironically, the in-classroom questions had to be answered electronically.)
        • yorwba 7y ago
          Having now looked at http://www.oecd.org/pisa/publications/pisa-2018-results.htm http://www.oecd.org/pisa/publications/pisa-2018-results.htm I didn't find anything like the figure included in the article, nor any indication PISA actually involves collecting information about technology use, which makes me wonder how reliable that article's statements really are.
• lalaithion 7y ago
  "Education is the cultivation of a person, not the manufacture of a worker" It's neither; the american school system is a socialized daycare so that their parents can go work a full day without worrying about what their kids are up to.
  • fenwick67 7y ago
    Maybe it's more than one thing
  • plughs 7y ago
    As opposed to other school systems? Out-of-the-home-schooling is not something invented in the US.
  • bpt3 7y ago
    No, it's not. If it were, the school day would be more closely in line with work schedules, rather than being about 6 hours long and starting/ending at wildly different times depending on the child's age or just what school they attend. Parents generally have to supplement supervision at school with beforecare and/or aftercare programs of some sort.
  • moretai 7y ago
    I feel like people tailor their lives around their children for the most part. During December, most people tend to just take their vacation to coincide with their children's.
  • watwut 7y ago
    American system is not that much friendly to both parents working. It often and in many places basicly assume that one parent work part time.
• plughs 7y ago
  Our elementary school uses chromebooks from 1st grade on, and I do see a lot of downsides. The most outrageous problem, IMO, is that there are 'modules' that must be completed, and kids with computer access at home can work on them at home. Kids from low income families are screwed over - again. Other problems - spellcheck is always on, why learn real spelling when the computer fixes it for you? - The de-emphasis on handwriting is mentioned in the article. In-class assignments are still handwritten, but take-home projects can be typed. - A lot of 'educational' games are regular games with a minimal pretense of education value. Frogger is still Frogger, even if there's some notion of jumping to the lily pad with the right sum. - Same for 'educational' youtube videos. youtube is blocked on my kid's devices, despite insistence that there are channels where they do scientific experiments. The videos are more about funny jokes than the different phases of matter. ( youtube is a funny one. Non-tech parents always tell me how great kid's youtube is. Tech parents are always like "f yea, of course you block youtube" ) Plus the last thing my kid needs is more screentime. I don't want to have to sit next to them all night making sure that they are only doing 'productive' work.
  • nickbauman 7y ago
    There's no reasonable correlation between spelling and higher intelligence. It can be a proxy for minimum intelligence, absent other information, but that's about all.
    • elliekelly 7y ago
      Who said anything about intelligence? Spelling is a critical component of effective written communication.
      • yorwba 7y ago
        That also means students using spellcheck is not necessarily a problem, so long as they can communicate effectively in writing.
        • deleted 7y ago
• thrower123 7y ago
  Once we got laptops in high school, almost all of the down-time after completing assignments that I used to spend reading in middle school was converted to playing Flash games or screwing around with GarageBand.
  • Nasrudith 7y ago
    I remember how it was before - they just screwed around in different ways such that doodling violent or rude stick figures was one of the better uses of the down time compared to outright mischief.
• Glyptodon 7y ago
  Getting kids away from electronics is definitely important, and in some respects I find myself agreeing with multiple points from this: I absolutely agree that (in the USA) K-12 Education's basis should indeed be civic education, or the education required to create excellent citizens. I also absolutely agree that giving kids "technology" (as smartphones, tablets, Baby Shark, and the rest are known) can be unexpectedly close to giving them crack depending on the circumstances. However, there is one single thing with respect to computing I find relevant overlooked: I also think it's critical, in a civic sense, that most of the populace has a general understanding of what computation is and how computers "work." Not because I think everyone should code for a career, but because everyone should be able to have some understanding of debates about topics like encryption or automation, and in general have an a mental scaffolding that outlines the invisible infrastructure supporting the daily experiences of our times. In my view, absent this, too much of the citizenry will increasingly see "technology" in a way that verges on being a bit too close to "magic." I'm not sure what exactly this means for K-12 education, but I'm pretty sure it means that despite my antipathy for pervasive classroom "technology," there should still be some sort of very planned and mediated curriculum that exposes students to "computing."
  • steverb 7y ago
    I agree, and having been the volunteer runner of my kid's middle school computer clubs (and occasional stand-in teacher) I think the best way to teach computing is not with computers, but with pencil, paper and classroom simulations. We've successfully implemented some very simple computers by letting various class members stand in for components, and we had one very good implementation of TCP/IP over middleschooler.
    • K0SM0S 7y ago
      This is incredibly funny and probably an experience that most of these kids will remember — whenever they hear "TCP/IP", they'll think back to images, impressions of this day/class. I love such not-so-random acts of awesomeness! Kudos, steverb. Question: have you observed some of these kids then "level up" (over the next months, years; "days" is clearly too short to internalize I think) with regards to these topics, or general "abstractions", that made you think "hum, this is definitely very, very much like what I tried to teach with TCP/IP"?
• japhyr 7y ago
  If you're interested in an ongoing critical look at technology in education, Audrey Watters is a great person to follow [0]. She helps keep me honest as someone working in this space. She put out a really long and interesting post, The 100 Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade [1]. [0] https://twitter.com/audreywatters https://twitter.com/audreywatters [1] http://hackeducation.com/2019/12/31/what-a-shitshow http://hackeducation.com/2019/12/31/what-a-shitshow
  • markdeloura 7y ago
    That article is a useful summary but a tad sensationalist and should be read with a critical eye. Many of the debacles would be portrayed as successes by a different person with a different perspective. For example, Google for Education (#10) is extraordinarily popular and useful - hardly a debacle. The CSforAll movement (#6) has made a substantial and growing difference in the number and diversity of software engineers. Gamergate (#5) was clearly a clusterf, and it is many things, AND a stretch to relate it to ed-tech.
• emmelaich 7y ago
  My kid made a small complaint about missing out on the laptop refresh for his year; it happened the next after he had left the school. I pointed out that you don't need a laptop at all to learn. Abraham Lincoln famously used the back of a shovel to write on! (occasionally) https://www.lincolncollection.org/discover/ask-an-expert/qa-archive/did-the-young-lincoln-do-his-homework-writing-with-coal-on-the-back-of-a-shovel/ https://www.lincolncollection.org/discover/ask-an-expert/qa-...
  • MadWombat 7y ago
    > I pointed out that you don't need a laptop at all to learn I am going to assume that, being a good parent, that is what you do. That when you need to learn something new, you do not research it on your phone or laptop, you go to a library, check out a number of books and reference materials, read them and take notes (maybe not on a shovel, but on a physical writing medium of some sort). That you did not blow off your kid's concern and left a smug comment about it on HN.
    • emmelaich 7y ago
      Well, yeah. We have a ton of books, including a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica. There is a very strong tradition of learning in our family. That said, it was no "blow off"; having a slightly newer laptop is not something a student should be concerned with. And they understand that. But also ... I think researching with your phone or laptop is perfectly fine as long as it is done with care. And is not the only method of research! ps Chrome spelling checker flagged "Encyclopedia" as a misspelling. Hmm.
      • yorwba 7y ago
        It's properly spelled "Encyclopædia Britannica" https://www.britannica.com/topic/Encyclopaedia-Britannica-English-language-reference-work https://www.britannica.com/topic/Encyclopaedia-Britannica-En...
        • emmelaich 7y ago
• devmunchies 7y ago
  Article mentions Waldorf. A good, old article about Waldorf in Silicon Valley: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-school-in-silicon-valley-technology-can-wait.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-sch... I just started my son at Waldorf in the Sierra Nevadas. Would recommend to anyone if you have one near you.
  • wiredfool 7y ago
    Waldorf does a lot of good things for pretty bonkers reasons. It kind of depends on what the philosophy your particular Waldorf school if that’s an issue or not, and what kind of side effects that has.
    • sitkack 7y ago
      We did a Waldorf tour and a Montessori tour as I am Piaget constructivist fan. Waldorf was kooky-dooks, the specific Montessori had no soul, I am sure most probably do. We ended up going with a preschool that was a chaotic hodgepodge, the best part of which they had two mandatory outside play times, no exceptions for weather. Waldorf is extremely conforming. Good intentions with the wrong focus.
• type0 7y ago
  Such a gobbledygook of an article, sure some tech spending isn't helpful and may even be harmful to education but this author doesn't even fully explain what he means by "technology".
  • zemo 7y ago
    the entire "STEM Against Science" section is about what he means by "technology" so I am really not convinced you've read the article. > The sciences and mathematics have a historic place in the cur­riculum, and technology does not, for the simple reason that the latter is not inherently “about” anything. Absent human contributions on specific topics, cut off from the subject matter of academic work, technology is nothing—an electron microscope without any samples, darkened VR goggles, an empty spreadsheet. Specializing in techne as such means trying to teach people to be good at “making” without having any idea of what to make, or why to make it.
    • type0 7y ago
      I don't have to convince you of anything, that quote is exactly the terrible nonsensical word salad that don't explain his premises. Jumbling all technology as if it is a single phenomenon just makes the author sound high on his own rambling intellectualism. edit: > technology is nothing—an electron microscope without any samples, Pretty sure there's actually not many electron microscopes and quite a lot of samples in schools.
• duxup 7y ago
  I think 'education' is largely just not aware how best to USE tech. Teacher's struggle with whatever applications were selected for them. Schools struggle to pick good systems / programs to use. It's early stages.
  • sitkack 7y ago
    We have had Apple II in the class room from what the mid 80s? It is not early stages.
    • duxup 7y ago
      One computer in a room is dramatically different than today.
      • war1025 7y ago
        I graduated high school in 2007. My entire K-12, we would occasionally go to the computer lab to do things. The lab had enough computers for everyone in the class to use one. Granted, that's a lot different from each student having a computer in class all the time. I think the school did actually buy a cart of portable laptops that teachers could check out for doing assignments in class. Mostly I found it to be unproductive. Then again, I found a lot of teaching techniques to be unproductive.
• virtuous_signal 7y ago
  >The sciences and mathematics have a historic place in the cur­riculum, and technology does not, for the simple reason that the latter is not inherently “about” anything. Absent human contributions on specific topics, cut off from the subject matter of academic work, technology is nothing—an electron microscope without any samples, darkened VR goggles, an empty spreadsheet. Specializing in techne as such means trying to teach people to be good at “making” without having any idea of what to make, or why to make it. I wonder what STEM education would have been centuries ago -- a 60-minute class period learning about the inner workings of a steam engine? or how to operate a spinning jenny? It would certainly look out of place in a school curriculum, and better learned on the job or in an apprenticeship. As a counterpoint to the author, I would point out that universal public education is a recent thing. Sure, maybe classroom education should focus on "the good, the true, and the beautiful" but then why should we expect everyone to do it?
  • deogeo 7y ago
    > universal public education is a recent thing. Not that recent - it's been around since the 1750s: "The education reform was met with hostility particularly by peasants who wanted the children to work in the fields instead. Maria Theresa crushed the dissent by ordering the arrest of all those opposed." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Theresa#Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Theresa#Education
  • throwaway023421 7y ago
    I studied engineering in a country with a non-idiotic university program. Books (in b/w), pencil and paper. Lessons using a whiteboard or blackboard with chalk. Desks and chairs. Some of the rooms where exactly the same used a century ago. You learn theory, not how some "new technology of the year" works. > I would point out that universal public education is a recent thing. "recent" as in french revolution. > Sure, maybe classroom education should focus on "the good, the true, and the beautiful" but then why should we expect everyone to do it? Yes.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• lordnacho 7y ago
  First of all, could someone enlighten the non-US readers about what common core is? I hear the term a lot, not clear what the main ideas actually are or how people view it. My own kids go to private schools in the UK. None of the parents would have any problems buying a load of tablets or VR goggles or whatever if the schools said so, and the schools would not have any problems buying whatever manner of gadgets they thought were needed. These are schools that have historically fed kids to top secondary schools in the area, which in turn feed into the top universities in the country, and the world. And yet, the classroom is more or less just like the ones I attended as a kid in the 1980s. Bunch of chairs for little people and letters and numbers made from paper cutouts. The blackboard is one of those big touchscreens but it's used mostly like a blackboard. It's a screen for showing videos only when the kids are in after-school care waiting for parents to come get them. The kids start to read the year they turn 5, and the big kid who is three years in can mostly read an Economist article. Math-wise it's going fine as well. As a programmer I'd love it if the kids could learn some of what I do, and there's plenty of interest, but essentially the article is right. The point isn't to make little workers who can write an insertion sort. If you are educated, and you wind up in a place where that's needed, it won't take you all that long to figure out. We've somehow missed the point of education. It isn't to create specific skills that are useful for businesses. The point is to have an understanding of our place in the world, a vast context that encompasses a huge range of topics. If you do that, you will come across those specific skills, and much more.
  • SolarNet 7y ago
    > First of all, could someone enlighten the non-US readers about what common core is? A new set of standards for education that are meant to cut across state lines (e.g. California and Texas previously set education standards merely through market volume and being the biggest purchasers). It's mostly fine. A lot of people are upset that they "changed how math works" but what they really did was introduce a bunch of different ways for students to think about math so they can get a working math literacy. Instead of being a prescriptive standards ("this is how math works") its more descriptive ("here are a dozen ways one could reason about math to get the answer"). The hope is that this will allow students to better pick up and understand more advanced math in the future, while also providing more opportunities for struggling students to "get it" (e.g. because one example worked for them). > As a programmer I'd love it if the kids could learn some of what I do, and there's plenty of interest, but essentially the article is right. The point isn't to make little workers who can write an insertion sort. If you are educated, and you wind up in a place where that's needed, it won't take you all that long to figure out. I think the important thing, instead of learning how to program insertion sort, or even to program (except perhaps as an extra class), is learning how to reason about basic computing ideas. Explaining basic ideas like Turing Completeness (and the related ideas of no way to control how another device does things impacts on sharing always meaning copying is possible), NP Hardness (allowing people to reason about how computers actually work, it can only brute force and do clever math, what it can and can't know), cryptography (trust and privacy), and what software engineering vs. programming is (like, discuss the size of code bases, where bugs come from, programming as vocational skill like cooking or writing that is also useful in other fields, etc).
• gumby 7y ago
  about six years ago my son let a campaign to turn back the attempt to introduce iPads to the school (they'd been piloted in grade 9 and were to be introduced high school wide the following year). A surprising number of the 9th graders said it was a waste and many kids didn't want them (they already had phone to get whatever distraction they wanted). The principal finally took him aside and said "I'm not going to discuss your points. The fact is if we don't adopt them the parents will complain and enrolment (in that private school) will drop as we appear to be behind the times." Years before I was on the school board and the parents were the biggest problem. For example there was a panic that "technology" must be added to the curriculum (apparently the inclined plane or pulley weren't considered "technology"). The pushback came from the engineers and computer programmers on the school board, and the computing teachers at the high school level. But time was taken from something else and all the 2-6 grade kids learned to use Powerpoint and Word which essentially none of them (now all college age) have used in years.
  • watwut 7y ago
    Then again, engineers and computer programmers routinelly introduce their kids to scratch, hour of code, code combat, general programming, hacking things and what not. At the high school level, kids of my collegues (especially boys) have significant advantage compared to kids of other people.
    • gumby 7y ago
      indeed, but I wouldn't say "then again": I'd say that teaching kids Word isn't giving them any kind of computational thinking. Teaching them to write a small piece of code (and that exquisite feeling when you finally get it working) is very powerful. It's similar to how mathematics is typically taught to kids in the systems I'm familiar with (US, DE, AU): mostly as syntactic transformations unattached to anything useful. Apparently the teachers have a propensity to be "afraid" of maths which is one reason they might choose to go into early education. The kids may be able to pass a simple maths test but not really have and feel for what it is.
      • 7y ago
• dlkf 7y ago
  There is some irksome editorializing, namedropping of irrelevant "theorists", and some egregious use of anecdata, but for all its many flaws, this is fundamentally a compelling essay. The author cites legit data as well, and makes concrete recommendations. I am grateful to have gone through school before the internet and mobile devices became mainstream. I think kids today have it significantly harder than I did.
• nickbauman 7y ago
  Most teachers believe that education is supposed to: 1) To make good people. 2) To make good citizens. 3) To make each person his or her personal best. But our public school system as envisioned by its creator (Alexander Inglis) in the early 20th century was to simply to reduce as many individuals as much as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry and establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. Inglis, in his speeches, makes it perfectly clear that compulsory schooling is intended to halt a worldwide democratic movement that threatened to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice and unity. Compulsory schooling was to thwart the prospective unity of these underclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means to stop the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood from ever reintegrating into a dangerous whole.
  • 8bitsrule 7y ago
    Yep. Educators refer to this as the 'Factory model of education'. Imported from Northern Europe in the late 1800s with heavy influence from industrial Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_model_school https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_model_school In the case of such schools (for the unwashed masses, of course), the medium is definitely the message. Uptight. Neat rows of assigned seating in non-nonsense, screwed-down desks with steel frames and hardwood tops. 'Workbooks', authoritarian teaching by rote (to a model, not to individuals), elected school boards, daily pledges of allegiance, lockstep curriculum, nearly invisible boards of accreditation, etc. Ah, humanity.
    • wisty 7y ago
      As Wikipedia notes, this is kind of just a myth - http://hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/factory-model http://hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/factory-model
      • nickbauman 7y ago
        The division chair of the school of education at my niece's alma mater, Augsburg University, fully believes in the factory model of education. My niece almost switched majors over it.
• Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  I only ever write on a computer. I own a single pen which I have not needed to replace since I moved into my apartment in 2016. I'm pretty sure I last used it in November, when I had to fill out a form for jury duty. The article cite studies that handwriting is linked to brain development, and reading on paper improves memory, and so on... I'm certainly not in a position to refute those studies, but I have to wonder how complete they are. People once denounced the printing press for causing us to loose our memories, and as a population, we do in fact have worse memories than scholars during the Middle Ages. If we taught intensive memory training in school, memory would likely improve, but do you think that would be an ideal use of student time? Maybe handwriting is a magical art that improves brain function across the board, but I'm going to need a lot more evidence before I believe that. In the meantime, we should be teaching the skills that people need in today's world, and that overwhelmingly means typing.
  • triceratops 7y ago
    > we should be teaching the skills that people need in today's world, and that overwhelmingly means typing. You don't need a ton of practice to get good at typing. Anyone can reach 80 WPM within a year. That's more than enough. Handwriting is much more difficult and needs more practice. Even software engineers who type all the time need to write on whiteboards to get jobs. /s
    • Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      > Handwriting is much more difficult and needs more practice. Okay, I'll buy that. So, why are we teaching it? For whiteboard interviews? I realize it will take some restructuring of society before handwriting is an obsolete skill, but gradually de-emphasizing it in school isn't a bad way to get there, over the course of a few generations. The time schools save can be used on any number of other skills.
      • triceratops 7y ago
        > So, why are we teaching it? Here's a list of random, unresearched reasons: 1. It teaches fine motor skills 2. Some people learn reading and writing better when writing by hand. Some people learn better in lectures when taking notes by hand. 3. Tech isn't always available. Sometimes pen/pencil and paper are all you have when you really need to write something. 4. Drawing, painting and other art require learning how to hold and use pencils, brushes, pens, and other tools in a fine, controlled manner. If people are going to learn to make art with manual instruments, they may as well learn to write at the same time. 5. Text input is genuinely more awkward on keyboards for many non-Latin languages, and is less emphasized in development of software products. That relegates those language learners to second-class status as they grapple with tools built for the Latin/Cyrillic world. 6. There's a ton of cultural significance to writing by hand: calligraphy, religious or legal rites. I can probably come up with a dozen more but to get to your next point. > And the time schools save can be used for any number of other things. If you want to talk about outdated holdovers in children's education, summer vacation is the biggest one, dating from when kids were needed on farms to help bring in the harvest. Schools could simply eliminate summer vacations if they really wanted more time to educate. No more complaints about teachers only working 9 months/year, no more summer learning slump (or whatever it's called), no more paying for daycare or summer camp 3 months/year. A lack of time is not a real problem.
• bitwize 7y ago
  I heard of an OLPC-like program in Peru that builds a wooden laptop with a Raspberry Pi brain to be used to "improve education". While the Peruvians deserve all props for being able to mass-produce a low-cost laptop for even the poor in their community, my hot take was, if they wanted to improve education, give each kid a THEC64 and limit their exposure to an hour (okay, maybe two) a day. Have them spend the rest of their free time outside. I think computers have the most to teach us when we are the ones teaching them (i.e., programming them), and that the promise of 1980s computers was that they could do whatever you want (that was within their capacity), the drawback being that they came with very limited functionality out of the box and must be programmed (or loaded with external software) to be useful; whereas today, computers and computer-like devices such as phones come with lots of functionality out of the box, but they do things that might not be what you want. (Crash due to brittle OS/drivers, sudden UI or functionality changes due to "mandatory updates", DRM, spyware...) This plus the ready accessibility of obscene or offensive content makes me very wary about giving internet-connected devices to the very young (< 14 years or so). If kids are to be exposed to computers, we should teach them to be their masters, not their slaves. And we should strictly temper screen time, because their growing bodies and minds need time outside more than they need time in front of a screen.
• pier25 7y ago
  It totally is. I worked in EdTech for the past 4 years and was in contact with the education world. Digital devices are harmful to younger kids. The brain develops much better when using fine motor skills such as writing with pen and paper. France banned all digital devices in primary schools for a reason and all countries should do it. The most important factor in getting quality education are not digital devices or educational material but the quality of the teacher. The OECD did a study about the use of computers by students at the school and at home[0]. See the results for yourself. Countries like China, Singapoore, Finland, and Estonia barely use computers but have some of the best PISA academic results. [0]: http://www.oecd.org/education/students-computers-and-learning-9789264239555-en.htm http://www.oecd.org/education/students-computers-and-learnin...
  • RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago
    >The most important factor in getting quality education are not digital devices or educational material but the quality of the teacher. I agree with you in general, but I think the most important factor in getting quality education is parents that value education.
    • DataWorker 7y ago
      Or maybe there’s not a single monolithic factor to optimize. Assuming you can even define education in the first place, it will always be very contextual. Of course a single factor is very appealing, but maybe it’s an assumption that people impose upon reality and the reality is more complex.
    • pier25 7y ago
      Indeed. You'd be surprised most parents do not put the quality of education at the top when choosing a school. At least not in the market I was working on (private schools in Mexico).
  • seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    At least for China, they've never done a country-wide sample, they've only done their richest city (Shanghai) and richest provinces. For the article cited, it is 2012 when they did just Shanghai (likewise Singapore is a city state and Estonia/Finland have less population than either).
• zemo 7y ago
  the whole "computers in schools aren't working" part of the article is being overly focused in these comments. the important part of the article is this: > STEM ideologues and real educators are pursuing very different goals. The purpose of edu­cation in the sciences is to cultivate children as knowers in and of the world. The purpose of STEM programs is just to create more of a certain kind of worker. as someone with a computer engineering degree currently working on an MFA, I couldn't agree more. I have learned more about the consequences and impact of my work in a half year of MFA studies than I did in five years of engineering studies.
• dpeck 7y ago
  its because the people who are making these programs don't actually have an understanding of technology (just like technologists don't, as a general rule, understand education). These folks so that successful people are using computers and think that using computers is the goal, not just a handy tool for doing stuff that we're slow at really fast. To quote Dijkstra, "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes"
• cryptica 7y ago
  Everything I learned came out of a computer so these statistics certaintly don't apply to me. I found human teachers terrible at explaining things. Their explanations are often full of holes and they expect you to move at their pace - They don't give you the time to absorb the content. I felt that math class was just for show. I never learned anything from it. I failed math in my final year of school, then I went to university and I got distinction in math. The difference was that at university, I was watching videos online and using free online interactive graphing software and programming matrix transformations. The problem is not technology in general. It's using the wrong technologies.
• partingshots 7y ago
  TV is rotting children’s minds. We need to ban television!
• daxfohl 7y ago
  I half think that the entirety of Common Core Math is designed by lobbyists promoting the type of technology presented in the article. "Carry the one" is the simplest thing to explain with a pencil and a blank piece of paper. All the new Common Core techniques seem to require some kind of visual representation, either via the games sold to the schools and onward to the parents, or via the overpriced blocks sold to teach these techniques. Yeah as a parent I could draw it all out, but then you end up doing 90% drawing and 10% teaching; it's pretty impractical. So I could see cynically that whether it ends up helping students is moot; it helps put money into a lot of lobbyists' pocketbooks and that's all that matters. NB Even when I'm trying to be positive about it, I find it a bit backwards. I think giving beginning students a dozen ways to reason about the answer only adds to the confusion. IMO the better teaching method is give them one rote mechanical way to get the answer and explain that as best you can. Once they've mastered that, then start looking at additional ways to reason about it (if necessary).
  • mrr54 7y ago
    What are these 'common core math' techniques? I went to primary school in New Zealand. In around 2005 they introduced a new way of teaching mathematics that we referred to as the 'numeracy programme'. It wasn't very popular with students and parents obviously all thought it was crap because parents are naturally scared of change in education negatively affecting their kids. But when we actually did it, it was basically fine. Obviously everyone still learnt the standard place value algorithms (by that point we already knew them, and they didn't stop teaching them to younger kids), but people also learnt other strategies like: if I'm adding 47 to 54, I can simplify that by instead adding 50 (47 + 3) to 57 (54 + 3), which is 107. It was about learning what you to terms like 47 + 54 without changing the value. Another one I think I remember being mentioned was thinking of 124 x 52 as 100 x 52 + 20 x 52 + 4 x 52. Of course, that's exactly what you're doing with the standard algorithm! The 'algorithm' you learn when you're 5 is just the same as the 'strategy' you learn when you're 10, but presented as something you do on paper rather than something you do in your head. I also remember learning about ways to approximate these sorts of things. So you want to work out 4241 x 1245 - well you can work it out, but you should probably also work out what 4000 x 1000 is and use that to check that your answer is of the right order of magnitude. And if you're just working something out quickly, then maybe all you need is 4200 x 1300, that's obviously close enough for any practical usage. I don't remember exactly what I learnt then which to me is a sign it was probably very effective: I internalised the strategies, some of which I was probably already using, some of which I probably didn't remember but thought about again later. It all seems very obvious now, of course, but it's different when you're 10.
• stoneglyph 7y ago
  HPV vacccination (Currently Guardasil, made by Merck - same company that killed people with Viox) is another technology that is also a threat to child development. But don't take my word for it. Decide for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5GyRJ8ThZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5GyRJ8ThZA. It's a big deal. A bigger one because the center of the bell curve believes that vaccination is "save and effective".
• TheOperator 7y ago
  >Among the jobs most likely to be automated out of existence are those whose functions are the most similar to computers, including jobs like computer systems administrators, network architects, and computer support specialists, 60–70 percent of whose functions could be automated using current technology. >Even the brainiest are not safe. In the finance industry, in recent years, we have seen the development of machine learning tools that can perform in minutes the same analysis for which a human com­puter science major required hours or even days. You can guess which of those resources was less expensive to retain. EDIT: I'll note that the article cited to support the second point “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerisation" doesn't acutally refer to "Computer science majors". It lists programmers having a moderate (not high!) chance of automation... and also lists system administrators as having amongst the least automatable jobs of all. Then to support the point that system administrators would have their jobs automated a different paper was cited. I'm not sure how seriously I can take the author with such clear evidence of contradicting the articles it cited and cherry picking evidence to apparently support a point the author had in mind before these papers were ever read. Bluntly the article smacks of outright dishonesty obscured by citing a huge number of lengthy research papers... Not sure if I buy this take. I received a laptop in school and back then this exact analysis was true and indeed the jobs of administrators, network architects, and computer support administrators was largely automated. So those jobs are far less prevalent than in my childhood right? Except that's not what happened and the jobs became more prevalent as improved automation made computers cheaper and more useful. I'm not holding my breath over the imminent collapse of jobs involving computers simply because the current work can be automated by... people using computers. Sure this argument is undeniably true if you think computing will stay exactly like it is now except the current jobs will be automated and no new jobs will be created. My crystal ball is as foggy as anybody elses though. Maybe we will hit the singularity and in that case computing jobs will likely be the very first to be completely replaced.
  • SteveGoob 7y ago
    ^^ These parts of the article also bothered me, and tainted many of his other possibly/probably valid points. > ...we have seen the development of machine learning tools that can perform in minutes the same analysis for which a human com­puter science major required hours or even days. Statements like this just demonstrate an obvious lack of understanding of how the field of computer science works. Guess who developed those machine learning tools? A machine learning engineer _who more than likely studied CS._ It's just hard to trust the author on other topics where I'm less familiar, seeing the data clearly driven toward a predetermined narrative. It reeks of cherrypicking to me, regardless of how well justified it is or isn't.
• nl 7y ago
  Can anyone find a source for that "Give Students a Laptop to Knock off Half a Letter Grade" graph? It is credited to PISA, but isn't mentioned in the references section and isn't obvious in the PISA publications list: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/pisa_19963777?page=1 https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/pisa_19963777?page=1 I wonder if technology here is actually a proxy variable for country?
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • Quiark 7y ago
    Also can't find it, even if I google the label. All I can get is another study which finds the same but attributes it to distraction
    • nl 7y ago
      Isn't it ironic that the complaint is about technology, and yet none of us can find anything to back up the claim?
• temporallobe 7y ago
  I am gravely concerned about using too much tech in early education, as this will assuredly hinder the development of critical fine motor skills such as handwriting, drawing, painting, sculpting, among many other skills, all of which I learned as a child. Not to mention all of the physical play we had. As a child I remember having to invent games, stories, and adventures. In other words, we were forced to use our imagination, for everything. Perhaps I’m just a cynical and aging critic, but I feel like the overuse of technology in general will make future generations of children lazier, and therefore less creative. I already feel that my own life has been impacted in this way. Case in point: The widespread use of Grammarly is dumbing down everyone. Why actually learn proper grammar, spelling, common idioms, and syntax, if AI can basically do it for you? What as a society do we gain from such things? I can’t help but imagine that at some point our understanding of language will become so simplified that we’ll need a proxy language to express “real” phrases so that all we have to do is bang out basic ideas on some kind of modified keyboard which will translate it to real language.
  • js8 7y ago
    Young people just use their motor skills differently, for example for computer games or juggling (pen spinning, cardistry). These skills are now much more available thanks to YT and Internet in general. I think there is a good case to be made that kids actually learn much faster than ever, thanks to things like YT and Wikipedia. Before the Internet, it was very difficult to connect to really skillful people in the world, there were pockets of talent but really disconnected. If you were outside the pocket, you were pretty much screwed. Today it's not the case. Of course you can question usefulness of the skills learned, but that is a separate question, I think. Fashion in these skills is probably faster than in the past, for better or worse.
• tmaly 7y ago
  I agree with parts of the article such as the issue with common core requirements that make it easier for computers to grade. I do not see STEM being taught as an issue as I think science helps move us forward as a species. Connecticut passed a statue last year requiring inclusion of computer science in curriculum. The one issue I have with this is they want to retrain the teachers and make them subject matter experts in computer science. Public Act 19-128 (“An Act Concerning The Inclusion Of Computer Science Instruction In The Public School Curriculum, Programs Of Teacher Preparation And In-Service Training Programs For Teachers”)
• Hermel 7y ago
  In case you understand German, it is worth reading the books (or watching the talks) of psychologist Manfred Spitzer. He makes compelling arguments on why in particular our children suffer from “digital dementia”. Among other things, he argues that our brain learns much better when writing with pen and paper than when writing on a keyboard. This resonates with my own experience at university: I remembered stuff much better when I took notes on paper than when I did so using a computer. Links: https://www.amazon.de/Digitale-Demenz-unsere-Verstand-bringen/dp/3426300567 https://www.amazon.de/Digitale-Demenz-unsere-Verstand-bringe... https://youtu.be/MRrPbNLhEuQ https://youtu.be/MRrPbNLhEuQ
• rosstex 7y ago
  >American colleges graduate 50 percent more students each year than are hired into fields like computer and information science and engineering. I've been told the opposite many times by many different people. Is this true?
• InfinityByTen 7y ago
  I have seen these discussions before. I have seen people who will cherish the times gone by and the skills of the good ol' days becoming extinct - calligraphy, letter writing, book handling... I have seen people with the progressive mind saying that: what's not needed anymore, or what's not going to be needed soon, why even bother!? If it's dying, let it! It's evolution! It's Science! It's Progress! The problems is both things. There are people who have gone too far with the science and tech craze, "the silicon valley bigwigs" and feel that in the end it wasn't really the tech that made the cut for them or they did see people lose out because they didn't have the other bits figured, despite being wonderful at their niche. The other people are the ones who feel that the world is surrendering to the tech and there is no place where tech won't go. It's better to keep catching up with the times than being left out in dilly-dallying over notions, ideas, philosophies, arts and the like. My concern is both are narrow ways of thinking by themselves. Yes, tech will be everywhere. Yes it is getting important and you won't find a job if you don't know tech etiquette, soon enough at least. But it won't make the cut without understanding people, tendencies, perspectives, arts, histories. New skills are nice and important, but then old values and ways of doing things have inspirations. You can't "disrupt" everything by "the new way of thinking". You will end up destroying a lot of places. Forget that there's a panacea, "the one unified theory", "one ring to rule them all". That's good for a fantasy movie conveying a few ideas, but incomplete when it comes to real life.
• kingkawn 7y ago
  It is important to prioritize interpersonal interactions from a young age. Screen time is indirect interaction. It is essential for them to learn how to resolve conflict, play together, and make friends. activities with other people are invaluable to Social, emotional, and intellectual development.