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It is my instinctive reaction that if you think you can win your students hearts and minds by eliminating distractions like this, you don't belong in education.

It is my instinctive reaction that if you think you can win your students hearts and minds by eliminating distractions like this, you don't belong in education. On the risk of sounding hyperbolic, this is the mentality that would ban pencils because they can be used to scribble drawings instead of paying attention to class. To butcher up a Montessori quote: it is an interesting piece of work that grabs a child's concentration. Not rules.

Dawnyhf2 4y ago
[flagged]
scrollaway 4y ago
Indeed. A lot of bad teachers are ready to blame anything but themselves for their kids not paying attention in their classes. Too many schools just end up with this mindset that the kids HAVE to listen in class, and in order for them to, we just have to somehow force them by removing ANY alternative thing they could be doing, that way they will have no choice. And those same people wonder why the kids say school feels like prison.
- analog31 4y ago
  To be fair, the teachers are hopelessly outgunned here. They're competing with a deep pockets industry that can develop infinitely addictive, engaging content that is also designed to be de-educational. Trying to make successful educational media on the same playing field is hopeless. For one thing, the resources for doing that don't exist. For another, kids can instantly perceive that something "educational" is going to be slightly more boring than something purely entertaining and addictive. The playing field can't be leveled. Third, we're really not helping them by reinforcing that the only way to learn is to be saturated in addictive media content. Disclaimer: I'm not sure education was ever all that great, but there were people sincerely trying to make it better.
  - alexvoda 4y ago
    TFA is about teachers being outgunned by the t-rex game. If they can not even outcompete the t-rex game they should not be teaching. A generation back this would have been minesweeper and solitaire. These are all boring games. Further back students would just be doodling in their notebooks. And they still do. These are not highly entertaining activities with which you can't compete.
aaron695 4y ago
[dead]
atoav 4y ago
As someone working in an educational context on the university level, I certainly agree for young kids. But at some point people need to learn how to put themselves through boring mindnumbing stuff as well, because this will sometimes be part of what you need to do if you wanna reach your goals (e.g. reading the datasheets, reading some specification, looking at some source text that hasn't been simplified to digestive bits by someone else, gather boring data that is needed, ...). In my subjective observation students over the past 10 years have become less willing to put in mental footwork themselves if there is not an entertaining youtube video that lays it out for them. I work in art university, so most of the topics people will work on are entirely their own choice. But if e.g. a student wants to work with electronics, they would rather try to mimik what some guy in some youtube video did for a year (without understanding it at all), than grabbing a foundational book and work through it over the course of a month. The latter is less instant reward and more boring work, but pays off for a long time and will allow them to judge what makes sense and what is bullshit. The former feels like the direct solution, but will leave you coming back for help whenever you deviate from that precise solution someone else made. I have nothing against entertaining education at all, I just think that for many being able to go through the boring stuff (on their own terms) might be a valuable ability as well. And this is not about the media at all. The above example with the foundational electronics book would have worked as well if they have chosen to watch a foundational series of youtube videos as well. But these videos are not leading directly to the result. I have seen single students who have fooled around for years with try and error in electronics without ever having the idea to learn the basics.. Do they have "boring week" at Montessori's?
- js8 4y ago
  I think we should gamify education. Give the students a challenge who will complete the difficult electronics theory exam the quickest and you will see them making an effort. In general, I would split the current volume of basic education into smaller subjects (with many optionals) and finer levels, and have students to make a choice how fast they want to complete them (as long as they would work towards one of these goals).
  - number6 4y ago
greggarious 4y ago
>instinctive reaction I had my septum deviated for doing similar to the above in Word 97 in the 2000s. Must be nice to do things the way you describe, but unfortunately the process you go through in America to become a K12 teacher basically snags the sociopaths too intelligent to be cops and gives them a steady stream of narcissistic supply. https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...
Eleison23 4y ago
[dead]
mysterydip 4y ago
I learned networking on my own so I could make a multiplayer game in programming class for my friend and I.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  Most people you'll meet on HN are of the kind capable of self motivation to a high degree that makes long and involved projects possible if there's interest in something, even if it takes substantial extra learning to get there. Thing is, I suspect most people in general aren't like that. They just sort of exist, not knowing what they even want to learn or try to avoid learning if at all possible. You can see this very clearly in university students that pick prof given bachelor thesis titles by what seems easiest vs. those that come up with their own. Or just school project work in general.
  - krisoft 4y ago
    > I suspect most people in general aren't like that. They just sort of exist, not knowing what they even want to learn or try to avoid learning if at all possible. There is a saying about this: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. So what if there are people like that? It is not like everyone must learn. If they don’t want to they don’t have to.
    - moffkalast 4y ago
      Well believe it or not, primary education is mandatory by law in most of the world. So they sorta have to and the system must be designed to cater to all, unfortunately.
      - krisoft 4y ago
        Now we are just talking by each other. Previously you were talking about university students picking easy thesis topics. I reacted to that, and now you are talking about primary education. These two are very different contexts.
  - 4y ago
ryukoposting 4y ago
In a weird way, maybe this is good. The only reason I learned what autorun.ini does, or what VB is, is because I used them to get around the school's network controls. Kids today will figure out how to enable developer mode, un-enroll their chromebooks, and play the dinosaur game. A world without challenges is a world without ingenuity.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  The hardware is now locked down to the point that this isn't really possible anymore. Future generations will never get to have those kind of experiences like we did.
TheCleric 4y ago
To be fair, reading the initial bug reports, the focus is heavily on "students disable the wifi and then the next class has to turn it back on, and they may be too young to understand how to do that". Which is a completely fair point.

Dawnyhf2 4y ago

[flagged]

scrollaway 4y ago

Indeed. A lot of bad teachers are ready to blame anything but themselves for their kids not paying attention in their classes. Too many schools just end up with this mindset that the kids HAVE to listen in class, and in order for them to, we just have to somehow force them by removing ANY alternative thing they could be doing, that way they will have no choice. And those same people wonder why the kids say school feels like prison.

analog31 4y ago
To be fair, the teachers are hopelessly outgunned here. They're competing with a deep pockets industry that can develop infinitely addictive, engaging content that is also designed to be de-educational. Trying to make successful educational media on the same playing field is hopeless. For one thing, the resources for doing that don't exist. For another, kids can instantly perceive that something "educational" is going to be slightly more boring than something purely entertaining and addictive. The playing field can't be leveled. Third, we're really not helping them by reinforcing that the only way to learn is to be saturated in addictive media content. Disclaimer: I'm not sure education was ever all that great, but there were people sincerely trying to make it better.
- alexvoda 4y ago
  TFA is about teachers being outgunned by the t-rex game. If they can not even outcompete the t-rex game they should not be teaching. A generation back this would have been minesweeper and solitaire. These are all boring games. Further back students would just be doodling in their notebooks. And they still do. These are not highly entertaining activities with which you can't compete.

aaron695 4y ago

[dead]

atoav 4y ago

As someone working in an educational context on the university level, I certainly agree for young kids. But at some point people need to learn how to put themselves through boring mindnumbing stuff as well, because this will sometimes be part of what you need to do if you wanna reach your goals (e.g. reading the datasheets, reading some specification, looking at some source text that hasn't been simplified to digestive bits by someone else, gather boring data that is needed, ...). In my subjective observation students over the past 10 years have become less willing to put in mental footwork themselves if there is not an entertaining youtube video that lays it out for them. I work in art university, so most of the topics people will work on are entirely their own choice. But if e.g. a student wants to work with electronics, they would rather try to mimik what some guy in some youtube video did for a year (without understanding it at all), than grabbing a foundational book and work through it over the course of a month. The latter is less instant reward and more boring work, but pays off for a long time and will allow them to judge what makes sense and what is bullshit. The former feels like the direct solution, but will leave you coming back for help whenever you deviate from that precise solution someone else made. I have nothing against entertaining education at all, I just think that for many being able to go through the boring stuff (on their own terms) might be a valuable ability as well. And this is not about the media at all. The above example with the foundational electronics book would have worked as well if they have chosen to watch a foundational series of youtube videos as well. But these videos are not leading directly to the result. I have seen single students who have fooled around for years with try and error in electronics without ever having the idea to learn the basics.. Do they have "boring week" at Montessori's?

js8 4y ago
I think we should gamify education. Give the students a challenge who will complete the difficult electronics theory exam the quickest and you will see them making an effort. In general, I would split the current volume of basic education into smaller subjects (with many optionals) and finer levels, and have students to make a choice how fast they want to complete them (as long as they would work towards one of these goals).
- number6 4y ago

greggarious 4y ago

>instinctive reaction I had my septum deviated for doing similar to the above in Word 97 in the 2000s. Must be nice to do things the way you describe, but unfortunately the process you go through in America to become a K12 teacher basically snags the sociopaths too intelligent to be cops and gives them a steady stream of narcissistic supply. https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...

Eleison23 4y ago

[dead]

mysterydip 4y ago

I learned networking on my own so I could make a multiplayer game in programming class for my friend and I.

moffkalast 4y ago
Most people you'll meet on HN are of the kind capable of self motivation to a high degree that makes long and involved projects possible if there's interest in something, even if it takes substantial extra learning to get there. Thing is, I suspect most people in general aren't like that. They just sort of exist, not knowing what they even want to learn or try to avoid learning if at all possible. You can see this very clearly in university students that pick prof given bachelor thesis titles by what seems easiest vs. those that come up with their own. Or just school project work in general.
- krisoft 4y ago
  > I suspect most people in general aren't like that. They just sort of exist, not knowing what they even want to learn or try to avoid learning if at all possible. There is a saying about this: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. So what if there are people like that? It is not like everyone must learn. If they don’t want to they don’t have to.
  - moffkalast 4y ago
    Well believe it or not, primary education is mandatory by law in most of the world. So they sorta have to and the system must be designed to cater to all, unfortunately.
    - krisoft 4y ago
      Now we are just talking by each other. Previously you were talking about university students picking easy thesis topics. I reacted to that, and now you are talking about primary education. These two are very different contexts.
- 4y ago

ryukoposting 4y ago

In a weird way, maybe this is good. The only reason I learned what autorun.ini does, or what VB is, is because I used them to get around the school's network controls. Kids today will figure out how to enable developer mode, un-enroll their chromebooks, and play the dinosaur game. A world without challenges is a world without ingenuity.

josephcsible 4y ago
The hardware is now locked down to the point that this isn't really possible anymore. Future generations will never get to have those kind of experiences like we did.

TheCleric 4y ago

To be fair, reading the initial bug reports, the focus is heavily on "students disable the wifi and then the next class has to turn it back on, and they may be too young to understand how to do that". Which is a completely fair point.