3 ms·

I wish educational systems were less eager to jump into the latest fads, and more conservative in their approach (and I say that as a progressive). In my count

I wish educational systems were less eager to jump into the latest fads, and more conservative in their approach (and I say that as a progressive). In my country we didn't have this particular fad as far as I know, but we are harming kids with the trend of making everything digital. With nonsense such as classrooms of 3-year-old kids where they solve a puzzle by dragging images of the pieces on a big screen, rather than handling the physical pieces themselves.

api 3y ago
Yeah, there’s nothing progressive about not teaching kids to read. The “just throw them in the pool and expect them to swim” approach is particularly harmful to kids with ADD type difficulties. Replace conservative with evidence based. This sounds like one of those “sounds right to me” ideas pushed by someone with charisma who was positioned properly in the educational world to be listened to. In any field there occasionally seem to be these ideas that emerge fully formed with a hallelujah chorus. These days it’s usually accompanied by a book, a book tour, podcast interviews, and a TED talk. Everyone who is anyone agrees that this idea is the smartest thing ever and probably right. The person behind it is very often from New York. When this happens, get skeptical.
- zozbot234 3y ago
  > In any field there occasionally seem to be these ideas that emerge fully formed with a hallelujah chorus. These days it’s usually accompanied by a book, a book tour, and a TED talk. Meh. The flipped classroom was one of those ideas, and it seems to work just fine.
- uxp100 3y ago
  I don’t think just being evidence based is going to cut it. Yada yada yada, replication crisis in psychology (and every other science, including physics.) There was a time when evidence based teaching included “Power Poses.”
- giantg2 3y ago
  "Replace conservative with evidence based." I think it doesn't matter what it's called. Most of the fads do have evidence. It's just that it might not be measured in the right way, or ignoring other effects. As an example, the balanced reading approach has evidence that it does work. However, the practical implementation of this approach has numerous interpretations. It's supposed to include balanced meaning between meaning and phonics. It's not supposed to be putting kids in the position of independent reading prior to being able to read. That's just a shitty school, lesson plan, or teacher. Its also supposed to include 1-on-1 reading instruction. I wonder how many kids are getting that at school with the instructor to kid ratio... Now, maybe the systemic phonics approach will work better, but that's possibly due to the key resources (essentially lesson plans and materials) that the school is using. If it doesn't include forcing kids who don't know how to read to read independently, then any implementation would be an improvement over that, including if it was still an alternate implementation of the same system.
- Kamq 3y ago
  > Replace conservative with evidence based. Sure, but that implies a system of pilot studies and increasingly larger studies to make sure that the intervention scales and it wasn't working due to factors inherent to the original population. You need to create an entire body of evidence, because every random fad has at least a single study to back it up. But single studies aren't that predictive, that is to say P(discovering some new fundamental truth | single study published) is rather low, as the replication crisis is showing us. Your changes are probably going to take 20-40 years to iron out all the details and suss out all the subtleties. And real, useful, interventions are going to be delayed in exchange for preventing harmful interventions from propagating. That puts you pretty deep into conservative, risk-adverse, territory. Firmly in the Eisenhowerian "Let us make our mistakes slowly" camp. I feel like the characterization is accurate here.
JKCalhoun 3y ago
Yeah, well sadly there are publishers that have an incentive to sell. As I look back on my education I see more and more clearly a corporation was lurking in the back of the classroom looking for profits. I suppose it need not be destructive so long as the product being sold actually does do well in aiding teachers to educate students.
giantg2 3y ago
I agree on the digital stuff. I really don't like that kids are primarily using Chrome books and stuff as their primary mode of learning. Maybe that would be fine in high school, but I feel that elementary and middle schools should be taught with physical media. I'm touring schools in my area now (k-8) to figure out where we want to send our kids. One school says the kids get hybrid instruction, but every single class we walked past except an art class had the kids working on their device. Hybrid my ass. It's easier to teach and grade using the tech, so that's what they're going to use. I question how durable that type of learning is vs things like handwriting notes (shown to increase retention).
- xahrepap 3y ago
  I hate it. The over reliance on “Canvas” Which on the surface seems like such of a convenience. But every time I watch my kid turn in his math homework by holding his 2-sided worksheet up to the webcam I just cringe. He’ll never get any reasonable feedback on his work because it’s impossible to read. Some assignments have “spot check” questions where you input the answer on Canvas. Instructions like “make sure you spell it right”, “use ‘i’ for infinity”, and “do not put spaces after the commas” should’ve made the teacher realize it was a bad idea. But alas. And the teachers are SO GOOD otherwise. It makes me wonder how much of this is being forced ON THEM.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    Absolutely a lot of it is forced at the district or school level. I had a friend who decided they didn't want to teach because of the policies they encountered student teaching (and partly the apathy and behavior of students). I have another friend who will only teach at private schools, even if they pay less for similar reasons.

api 3y ago

Yeah, there’s nothing progressive about not teaching kids to read. The “just throw them in the pool and expect them to swim” approach is particularly harmful to kids with ADD type difficulties. Replace conservative with evidence based. This sounds like one of those “sounds right to me” ideas pushed by someone with charisma who was positioned properly in the educational world to be listened to. In any field there occasionally seem to be these ideas that emerge fully formed with a hallelujah chorus. These days it’s usually accompanied by a book, a book tour, podcast interviews, and a TED talk. Everyone who is anyone agrees that this idea is the smartest thing ever and probably right. The person behind it is very often from New York. When this happens, get skeptical.

zozbot234 3y ago
> In any field there occasionally seem to be these ideas that emerge fully formed with a hallelujah chorus. These days it’s usually accompanied by a book, a book tour, and a TED talk. Meh. The flipped classroom was one of those ideas, and it seems to work just fine.
uxp100 3y ago
I don’t think just being evidence based is going to cut it. Yada yada yada, replication crisis in psychology (and every other science, including physics.) There was a time when evidence based teaching included “Power Poses.”
giantg2 3y ago
"Replace conservative with evidence based." I think it doesn't matter what it's called. Most of the fads do have evidence. It's just that it might not be measured in the right way, or ignoring other effects. As an example, the balanced reading approach has evidence that it does work. However, the practical implementation of this approach has numerous interpretations. It's supposed to include balanced meaning between meaning and phonics. It's not supposed to be putting kids in the position of independent reading prior to being able to read. That's just a shitty school, lesson plan, or teacher. Its also supposed to include 1-on-1 reading instruction. I wonder how many kids are getting that at school with the instructor to kid ratio... Now, maybe the systemic phonics approach will work better, but that's possibly due to the key resources (essentially lesson plans and materials) that the school is using. If it doesn't include forcing kids who don't know how to read to read independently, then any implementation would be an improvement over that, including if it was still an alternate implementation of the same system.
Kamq 3y ago
> Replace conservative with evidence based. Sure, but that implies a system of pilot studies and increasingly larger studies to make sure that the intervention scales and it wasn't working due to factors inherent to the original population. You need to create an entire body of evidence, because every random fad has at least a single study to back it up. But single studies aren't that predictive, that is to say P(discovering some new fundamental truth | single study published) is rather low, as the replication crisis is showing us. Your changes are probably going to take 20-40 years to iron out all the details and suss out all the subtleties. And real, useful, interventions are going to be delayed in exchange for preventing harmful interventions from propagating. That puts you pretty deep into conservative, risk-adverse, territory. Firmly in the Eisenhowerian "Let us make our mistakes slowly" camp. I feel like the characterization is accurate here.

JKCalhoun 3y ago

Yeah, well sadly there are publishers that have an incentive to sell. As I look back on my education I see more and more clearly a corporation was lurking in the back of the classroom looking for profits. I suppose it need not be destructive so long as the product being sold actually does do well in aiding teachers to educate students.

giantg2 3y ago

I agree on the digital stuff. I really don't like that kids are primarily using Chrome books and stuff as their primary mode of learning. Maybe that would be fine in high school, but I feel that elementary and middle schools should be taught with physical media. I'm touring schools in my area now (k-8) to figure out where we want to send our kids. One school says the kids get hybrid instruction, but every single class we walked past except an art class had the kids working on their device. Hybrid my ass. It's easier to teach and grade using the tech, so that's what they're going to use. I question how durable that type of learning is vs things like handwriting notes (shown to increase retention).

xahrepap 3y ago
I hate it. The over reliance on “Canvas” Which on the surface seems like such of a convenience. But every time I watch my kid turn in his math homework by holding his 2-sided worksheet up to the webcam I just cringe. He’ll never get any reasonable feedback on his work because it’s impossible to read. Some assignments have “spot check” questions where you input the answer on Canvas. Instructions like “make sure you spell it right”, “use ‘i’ for infinity”, and “do not put spaces after the commas” should’ve made the teacher realize it was a bad idea. But alas. And the teachers are SO GOOD otherwise. It makes me wonder how much of this is being forced ON THEM.
- giantg2 3y ago
  Absolutely a lot of it is forced at the district or school level. I had a friend who decided they didn't want to teach because of the policies they encountered student teaching (and partly the apathy and behavior of students). I have another friend who will only teach at private schools, even if they pay less for similar reasons.