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I’m not convinced laptops were as big an issue as intentionally sabotaging the US educational system with things like No Child Left Behind and Common Core. Are

by hedora 8mo ago

I’m not convinced laptops were as big an issue as intentionally sabotaging the US educational system with things like No Child Left Behind and Common Core. Are Gen-Z folks overseas as screwed as Americans, and is there a correlation between academic performance and classroom laptops?

tzone 8mo ago
Trend is pretty clear pretty much across all western countries. Even among ones that have supposedly highest quality public education like Norway, Sweden, Germany, etc... People are getting too stuck on US specific issues and missing that this is a pretty global problem.
- juggerl6 8mo ago
  [dead]
- piggerl 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - clipsy 8mo ago
    If you aren't going to tell us what the elephant in the room is, aren't you part of the problem?
    - piggerl 8mo ago
      [dead]
    - nillkiggers1488 8mo ago
      [dead]
austin-cheney 8mo ago
Those are bad but they do not penalize the more competent half of students. Use of laptops as an educational tool penalize everyone equally.
PearlRiver 8mo ago
People are graduating from high school functionally illiterate so yeah definitely not just the US. Budget issues exist all over the world and American culture is Western culture.
tangotaylor 8mo ago
> is there a correlation between academic performance and classroom laptops? Yes, here is Dr. Horvath's (the neuroscientist mentioned in the article) written testimony which cites some studies. The table in Section 3 is particularly damning. It shows how a classroom intervention worsened or improved outcomes relative to the baseline. Note that the worst intervention is the "1-to-1 laptops row". Unclear if they mixed interventions, I'd have to read the mentioned studies. If the interventions were done in isolation then that's basically a longitudinal study which is a pretty clear smoking gun. https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/A19DF2E8-3C69-4193-A676-430CF0C83DC2 https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/A19DF2E8-3C69...
nradov 8mo ago
What specifically is wrong with Common Core math? I've seen a lot of vague complaints about it but the materials my children brought home seem fine. It's different from the way I learned but I haven't seen any compelling evidence that it's worse.
- npunt 8mo ago
  Yep. From what I recall from my time in education about a decade ago, Common Core standards were generally considered excellent. The rollout of Common Core tests wasn't that great, but that should have been a one-time adaptation period, but everything got mired in politics and bit by bit got torn apart as states all went their own way.
- piggerl 8mo ago
  [dead]
- floren 8mo ago
  Doing multiplication without laboriously writing one number over the other with an x next to the bottom one considered deeply suspicious...
analog31 8mo ago
Common core was a thing when my kids were in school, so I “did my research.” A number of states had published their CC standards online, so it was easy to figure out. The standards looked quite similar to what I learned as a kid, give or take a couple of topics. It’s actually quite puzzling to me what the controversy is. It may be a bunch of political hoopla with no underlying substance. On the other hand, I think that K-12 math teaching has been a failure all along. Very few adults can make effective use of math beyond basic arithmetic and spreadsheets. I even encounter engineers who admit that they’re weak at math, and that they got through school with the expectation that they would never use their math after graduating. Every generation declares a “crisis,” looks back at an imaginary glorious past, and blames parents, unions and other standard bogeymen. Parents and leaders who complain about math education don’t even known what math is. I’ve complained about some things like the proliferation of standardized testing, but on the other hand, my generation didn’t learn math very well. Disclosure: College math major.
- seanicus 8mo ago
  Any recommendations for how to approach K-12 math teaching? Got some (very) little ones and doing our best but both parents are definitely more humanities-brained
  - analog31 8mo ago
    I think it helps to think in terms of keeping up with the demands of school without crushing their curiosity and interest. In my generation, at least where I grew up, school was less competitive and college admissions more laid back. We were at the tail end of when the people who worked on the line at Ford’s earned more than many college graduates. We had no idea what would happen next. Today parents are freaked out because math scores are a sorting hat for college admissions and lucrative careers. Yet they don’t use math in their own careers, and many of them hate it. My neighbor, who is a retired high school math teacher, told me that the kids who shine in advanced math are not the ones whose parents treated math as a series of competitive milestones. I started out “slow” in math, and my K-12 math grades were highly variable (to put it kindly), but eventually graduated cum laude as a math major while also becoming a fairly competent jazz musician. My parents were both scientists, but loved the humanities. I think you can show your own interest and curiosity when talking to your kids about math, or helping them with their lessons. Rather than suggesting that you’re not “math people”, admit that it’s being taught in a new way and that you’re going to re-learn it along with them because it’s fun. I would restructure school math if it were up to me, though I’m cautious about wholesale introduction of computers for the many reasons discussed in this thread. One idea for your kids is to explore some non-school math topics as they show an interest, such as pure logic, proofs, and computation.

by hedora 8mo ago

tzone 8mo ago

Trend is pretty clear pretty much across all western countries. Even among ones that have supposedly highest quality public education like Norway, Sweden, Germany, etc... People are getting too stuck on US specific issues and missing that this is a pretty global problem.

juggerl6 8mo ago
[dead]
piggerl 8mo ago
[flagged]
- clipsy 8mo ago
  If you aren't going to tell us what the elephant in the room is, aren't you part of the problem?
  - piggerl 8mo ago
    [dead]
  - nillkiggers1488 8mo ago
    [dead]

austin-cheney 8mo ago

Those are bad but they do not penalize the more competent half of students. Use of laptops as an educational tool penalize everyone equally.

PearlRiver 8mo ago

People are graduating from high school functionally illiterate so yeah definitely not just the US. Budget issues exist all over the world and American culture is Western culture.

tangotaylor 8mo ago

> is there a correlation between academic performance and classroom laptops? Yes, here is Dr. Horvath's (the neuroscientist mentioned in the article) written testimony which cites some studies. The table in Section 3 is particularly damning. It shows how a classroom intervention worsened or improved outcomes relative to the baseline. Note that the worst intervention is the "1-to-1 laptops row". Unclear if they mixed interventions, I'd have to read the mentioned studies. If the interventions were done in isolation then that's basically a longitudinal study which is a pretty clear smoking gun. https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/A19DF2E8-3C69-4193-A676-430CF0C83DC2 https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/A19DF2E8-3C69...

nradov 8mo ago

What specifically is wrong with Common Core math? I've seen a lot of vague complaints about it but the materials my children brought home seem fine. It's different from the way I learned but I haven't seen any compelling evidence that it's worse.

npunt 8mo ago
Yep. From what I recall from my time in education about a decade ago, Common Core standards were generally considered excellent. The rollout of Common Core tests wasn't that great, but that should have been a one-time adaptation period, but everything got mired in politics and bit by bit got torn apart as states all went their own way.
piggerl 8mo ago
[dead]
floren 8mo ago
Doing multiplication without laboriously writing one number over the other with an x next to the bottom one considered deeply suspicious...

analog31 8mo ago

Common core was a thing when my kids were in school, so I “did my research.” A number of states had published their CC standards online, so it was easy to figure out. The standards looked quite similar to what I learned as a kid, give or take a couple of topics. It’s actually quite puzzling to me what the controversy is. It may be a bunch of political hoopla with no underlying substance. On the other hand, I think that K-12 math teaching has been a failure all along. Very few adults can make effective use of math beyond basic arithmetic and spreadsheets. I even encounter engineers who admit that they’re weak at math, and that they got through school with the expectation that they would never use their math after graduating. Every generation declares a “crisis,” looks back at an imaginary glorious past, and blames parents, unions and other standard bogeymen. Parents and leaders who complain about math education don’t even known what math is. I’ve complained about some things like the proliferation of standardized testing, but on the other hand, my generation didn’t learn math very well. Disclosure: College math major.

seanicus 8mo ago
Any recommendations for how to approach K-12 math teaching? Got some (very) little ones and doing our best but both parents are definitely more humanities-brained
- analog31 8mo ago
  I think it helps to think in terms of keeping up with the demands of school without crushing their curiosity and interest. In my generation, at least where I grew up, school was less competitive and college admissions more laid back. We were at the tail end of when the people who worked on the line at Ford’s earned more than many college graduates. We had no idea what would happen next. Today parents are freaked out because math scores are a sorting hat for college admissions and lucrative careers. Yet they don’t use math in their own careers, and many of them hate it. My neighbor, who is a retired high school math teacher, told me that the kids who shine in advanced math are not the ones whose parents treated math as a series of competitive milestones. I started out “slow” in math, and my K-12 math grades were highly variable (to put it kindly), but eventually graduated cum laude as a math major while also becoming a fairly competent jazz musician. My parents were both scientists, but loved the humanities. I think you can show your own interest and curiosity when talking to your kids about math, or helping them with their lessons. Rather than suggesting that you’re not “math people”, admit that it’s being taught in a new way and that you’re going to re-learn it along with them because it’s fun. I would restructure school math if it were up to me, though I’m cautious about wholesale introduction of computers for the many reasons discussed in this thread. One idea for your kids is to explore some non-school math topics as they show an interest, such as pure logic, proofs, and computation.