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> When asked why they universally point the finger at phones Teachers universally believe all sorts of things that turn out (or long ago turned out) to be fals

> When asked why they universally point the finger at phones Teachers universally believe all sorts of things that turn out (or long ago turned out) to be false or detrimental. They may be right about phones or they may be wrong, but I'd guess their professional intuition on stuff like this is no better than random chance.

jessaustin 5y ago
Don't assume they haven't performed experiments. If performance improves after removing devices from class, in multiple classes in various situations, teachers won't be relying on "intuition" to know what's going on.
- newsbinator 5y ago
  If they have performed experiments, I'd like to read them: I'm easy to convince by a good experiment.
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    We call them "professionals" so we don't have to pay them overtime, but teachers are working people. Their mission is not to advance scientific understanding. Their mission is to impart knowledge to children. It's not as though the idea that modern smartphones are distracting is a novel result. No one who has observed distracted drivers on the highway would be surprised.
rscho 5y ago
"Don't listen to the professionals on the front lines. They know nothing" Really?
- newsbinator 5y ago
  Being negative about teachers is, in this case, a hill I'm choosing to get downvoted on. Professionals keep up with developments in their field, insist on scientifically valid studies to inform their methodology, and so on. In this case we are not talking about professionals, we are talking about teachers. They pick a theory that sounds good then ignore any evidence that it isn't valid. https://www.educationnext.org/stubborn-myth-learning-styles-state-teacher-license-prep-materials-debunked-theory/ https://www.educationnext.org/stubborn-myth-learning-styles-... For this reason, when they say X is caused by Y, it may well be, but not because I put any stock in their pedagogical expertise.
  - specialist 5y ago
    > Professionals keep up with developments in their field... Teachers are required to do a ridiculous amount of ongoing education, inservice stuff, credentialing. Typically on their own time with their own money. Whatever your obvious grievance is with teaching, it's not for lack of professionalism or training.
  - rscho 5y ago
    When you need your car fixed, do you ask the repairman which scientifically valid studies he bases his methods on? Scientists study things and advise on new methods (that often turn out to be worthless). Front line workers do the work they are paid for. But when the repairman says "I think that's your gear box", it often turns out to be true. And yes, a teacher is a professional. Teaching is a profession, and probably one the topmost important in Our society. If one day you end up trying to teach something to a bunch of angry teenagers, you'll quickly realize why. It's really fucking sad that so many people don't realize that.
    - iammisc 5y ago
      There's a difference between a repairman and a teacher. The repairman's techniques are immediately assessable. If you pick up your car and it doesn't work, his technique failed. A teacher's results are not obvious until many years after the fact. It is for this reason that when purchasing a car, we expect manufacturers to use engineering processes informed by scientific study that lead to longer-lasting cars. When mistakes in their quality are discovered, their cars develop particular reputations and sometimes have to be recalled.
      - rscho 5y ago
        Indeed, and that's why teachers are analogous to repairmen and the engineering equivalent is called a researcher in education science. The latter has nothing in common with teachers and effectively doesn't teach except sometimes at the college or university level. It's a bit rich to blame teachers when they're not actually empowered with the ability to redesign pedagogy principles. Additionally, everyone bitches about the lack of research, but I'd be very interested to know how many financially able families would keep their children in an experimental school ('cause you'd have to inform them). Interventional education research has a huge selection bias, and I'm speaking from personal experience. All in all, the schooling system issues are analogous to those of the industry. How often do I read about devs complaining that management is stupid and academics are in ivory towers and know nothing of the front lines? Certainly, many teachers are quirky, but people dismissing them altogether live comfortably in their fantasy world.
- seer 5y ago
  While we now know a lot about teaching, a lot of misconceptions have been found recently regarding “truths” about teaching, its a fascinating subject really, and the main problem seems to be lack of rigorous repeatable double blind testing for all of those things. Veritasium did a very interesting video on the subject: https://youtu.be/rhgwIhB58PA https://youtu.be/rhgwIhB58PA
  - rscho 5y ago
    I happen to work in academic research. Let me just say that research in 'soft science', i.e. that which uses statistics to 'prove' things does very little to convince me. I'd trust a senior pro over the last shiny study anytime, precisely because I happen to produce such studies.
- iammisc 5y ago
  Yes, often times they are incredibly jaded and abused by the system. For example, my mom was a public school teacher. Lots of boys in her class were diagnosed with ADHD. She would make the children run off their energy before lessons, but this is not policy. The other teachers would just take a rowdy kid and send him off to assessment for ritalin or whatever drug they give these days. That was the 'standard practice'. Guess which one actually works?
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    I feel bad for the boys who would have excelled academically had they been chasing after farm animals the first two hours of the day instead of being given neurodepressents to calm down.
    - iammisc 5y ago
      Yes my mom did too. After several times she failed to deliver them to the school nurse for their daily tranquilizers, she was eventually put on administrative leave and then denied tenure. unfortunately, you cannot fight the system. The boys she had were excelling, but the schools could not stand that they were being showed up by a mother of boys with no 'formal' research experience.
      - sjg007 5y ago
        The school did the right thing.
        mensetmanusman 5y ago
        That depends on if you think the equilibrium will be something like 25% of boys needing drugs to normalize them (where it is trending in ‘leading’ counties).
    - sjg007 5y ago
      What neurodepressents are you talking about?
- theknocker 5y ago
  They're not professionals in any relevant sense. We all attended school. We all remember how stupid teachers can be.
Confiks 5y ago
Agreed. It's a good hunch, but no evidence. "One such factor [of increasing ADHD prevalence] may be audiovisual media exposure during early childhood. Observational studies in humans have linked exposure to fast-paced television in the first 3 years of life with subsequent attentional deficits in later childhood." [1] but also "The diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among children and adolescents has increased considerably over the past decades. Scholars and health professionals alike have expressed concern about the role of screen media in the rise in ADHD diagnosis. However, the extent to which screen media use and ADHD are linked remains a point of debate. (...) The available evidence suggests a statistically small relationship between media and ADHD-related behaviors. " [2] [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/115/40/9851 https://www.pnas.org/content/115/40/9851 [2] https://www.pnas.org/content/115/40/9875 https://www.pnas.org/content/115/40/9875
- sjg007 5y ago
  Modern cartoons and movies are now really fast paced. We've adapted to them that it makes watching the older stuff painful. YouTube and game videos take this to an extreme. So that is probably evidence of an attentional feedback loop.

jessaustin 5y ago

Don't assume they haven't performed experiments. If performance improves after removing devices from class, in multiple classes in various situations, teachers won't be relying on "intuition" to know what's going on.

newsbinator 5y ago
If they have performed experiments, I'd like to read them: I'm easy to convince by a good experiment.
- jessaustin 5y ago
  We call them "professionals" so we don't have to pay them overtime, but teachers are working people. Their mission is not to advance scientific understanding. Their mission is to impart knowledge to children. It's not as though the idea that modern smartphones are distracting is a novel result. No one who has observed distracted drivers on the highway would be surprised.

rscho 5y ago

"Don't listen to the professionals on the front lines. They know nothing" Really?

newsbinator 5y ago
Being negative about teachers is, in this case, a hill I'm choosing to get downvoted on. Professionals keep up with developments in their field, insist on scientifically valid studies to inform their methodology, and so on. In this case we are not talking about professionals, we are talking about teachers. They pick a theory that sounds good then ignore any evidence that it isn't valid. https://www.educationnext.org/stubborn-myth-learning-styles-state-teacher-license-prep-materials-debunked-theory/ https://www.educationnext.org/stubborn-myth-learning-styles-... For this reason, when they say X is caused by Y, it may well be, but not because I put any stock in their pedagogical expertise.
- specialist 5y ago
  > Professionals keep up with developments in their field... Teachers are required to do a ridiculous amount of ongoing education, inservice stuff, credentialing. Typically on their own time with their own money. Whatever your obvious grievance is with teaching, it's not for lack of professionalism or training.
- rscho 5y ago
  When you need your car fixed, do you ask the repairman which scientifically valid studies he bases his methods on? Scientists study things and advise on new methods (that often turn out to be worthless). Front line workers do the work they are paid for. But when the repairman says "I think that's your gear box", it often turns out to be true. And yes, a teacher is a professional. Teaching is a profession, and probably one the topmost important in Our society. If one day you end up trying to teach something to a bunch of angry teenagers, you'll quickly realize why. It's really fucking sad that so many people don't realize that.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    There's a difference between a repairman and a teacher. The repairman's techniques are immediately assessable. If you pick up your car and it doesn't work, his technique failed. A teacher's results are not obvious until many years after the fact. It is for this reason that when purchasing a car, we expect manufacturers to use engineering processes informed by scientific study that lead to longer-lasting cars. When mistakes in their quality are discovered, their cars develop particular reputations and sometimes have to be recalled.
    - rscho 5y ago
      Indeed, and that's why teachers are analogous to repairmen and the engineering equivalent is called a researcher in education science. The latter has nothing in common with teachers and effectively doesn't teach except sometimes at the college or university level. It's a bit rich to blame teachers when they're not actually empowered with the ability to redesign pedagogy principles. Additionally, everyone bitches about the lack of research, but I'd be very interested to know how many financially able families would keep their children in an experimental school ('cause you'd have to inform them). Interventional education research has a huge selection bias, and I'm speaking from personal experience. All in all, the schooling system issues are analogous to those of the industry. How often do I read about devs complaining that management is stupid and academics are in ivory towers and know nothing of the front lines? Certainly, many teachers are quirky, but people dismissing them altogether live comfortably in their fantasy world.
seer 5y ago
While we now know a lot about teaching, a lot of misconceptions have been found recently regarding “truths” about teaching, its a fascinating subject really, and the main problem seems to be lack of rigorous repeatable double blind testing for all of those things. Veritasium did a very interesting video on the subject: https://youtu.be/rhgwIhB58PA https://youtu.be/rhgwIhB58PA
- rscho 5y ago
  I happen to work in academic research. Let me just say that research in 'soft science', i.e. that which uses statistics to 'prove' things does very little to convince me. I'd trust a senior pro over the last shiny study anytime, precisely because I happen to produce such studies.
iammisc 5y ago
Yes, often times they are incredibly jaded and abused by the system. For example, my mom was a public school teacher. Lots of boys in her class were diagnosed with ADHD. She would make the children run off their energy before lessons, but this is not policy. The other teachers would just take a rowdy kid and send him off to assessment for ritalin or whatever drug they give these days. That was the 'standard practice'. Guess which one actually works?
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  I feel bad for the boys who would have excelled academically had they been chasing after farm animals the first two hours of the day instead of being given neurodepressents to calm down.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    Yes my mom did too. After several times she failed to deliver them to the school nurse for their daily tranquilizers, she was eventually put on administrative leave and then denied tenure. unfortunately, you cannot fight the system. The boys she had were excelling, but the schools could not stand that they were being showed up by a mother of boys with no 'formal' research experience.
    - sjg007 5y ago
      The school did the right thing.
      - mensetmanusman 5y ago
        That depends on if you think the equilibrium will be something like 25% of boys needing drugs to normalize them (where it is trending in ‘leading’ counties).
  - sjg007 5y ago
    What neurodepressents are you talking about?
theknocker 5y ago
They're not professionals in any relevant sense. We all attended school. We all remember how stupid teachers can be.

Confiks 5y ago

Agreed. It's a good hunch, but no evidence. "One such factor [of increasing ADHD prevalence] may be audiovisual media exposure during early childhood. Observational studies in humans have linked exposure to fast-paced television in the first 3 years of life with subsequent attentional deficits in later childhood." [1] but also "The diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among children and adolescents has increased considerably over the past decades. Scholars and health professionals alike have expressed concern about the role of screen media in the rise in ADHD diagnosis. However, the extent to which screen media use and ADHD are linked remains a point of debate. (...) The available evidence suggests a statistically small relationship between media and ADHD-related behaviors. " [2] [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/115/40/9851 https://www.pnas.org/content/115/40/9851 [2] https://www.pnas.org/content/115/40/9875 https://www.pnas.org/content/115/40/9875

sjg007 5y ago
Modern cartoons and movies are now really fast paced. We've adapted to them that it makes watching the older stuff painful. YouTube and game videos take this to an extreme. So that is probably evidence of an attentional feedback loop.