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"Technology can do X more conveniently than people, so why should children practice X?" has been a point of controversy in education at least since pocket calcu
by wrp 2y ago
"Technology can do X more conveniently than people, so why should children practice X?" has been a point of controversy in education at least since pocket calculators became available.
I try to explain by shifting the focus from neurological to musculoskeletal development. It's easy to see that physical activity promotes development of children's bodies. So although machines can aid in many physical tasks, nobody is suggesting we introduce robots to augment PE classes. People need to recognize that complex tasks also induce brain development. This is hard to demonstrate but has been measured in extensive tasks like learning languages and music performance. Of course, this argument is about child development, and much of the discussion here is around adult education, which has some different considerations.
- boredhedgehog 2y agoI would add that we don't pretend PE or gyms serve any higher purpose besides individual health and well-being, which is why they are much more game-ified than formal education. If we acknowledge that it doesn't particularly matter how a mind is being used, the structure of school would change fundamentally.
- Footprint0521 2y agoThis is the motivation I needed right now
- nicbou 2y agoMy last calculator had a "solve" button and we could bring it in an exam. You still needed to know what to ask it, and how to interpret the output. This is hard to do without an understanding of how the underlying math works. The same is true with LLMs. Without the fundamentals, you are outsourcing work that you can't understand and getting an output that you can't verify.