OK
I teach a code club. I try to get the students excited and focused, and especially on projects where they work together, it generally works really well, even for students who obviously aren't quite 'into it'.
But at absolutely any opportunity where they are not focused (and there's always someone) they try to play roblox or other games. They try to have it running in the background and switch. And even installed a workspace switcher so it wasn't obvious they had game windows open.
It's really like highly addictive drugs. For kids, at least, the best solution is to make them unavailable while they are supposed to be learning.
Sorry, but learning is actually a slog. The best we can do is get them addicted to learning, instead of gaming, but let's help them on the way by removing the gaming temptation while they are in class.
OK, so sometimes a person may get all fired up about a project and slog through reams of - effort - in order to get some stage done, out of a deep desire to see what happens next. And from an external perspective that seems very worthy because it seems deeper than something that's just constantly rewarding. But is it necessary, proper, that any given person be doing such a deep and onerous thing all the time? Or even very often? Is it for the external observer, who knows nothing of the person's internal processes and feelings, to decide these things? Mind your own beeswax.
Crack doesn't count, IMO, because it games the system. Probably now you'll say something to compare Roblox unironically to crack "because dopamine". Did you know, we get dopamine released when doing anything we enjoy? But there's always a lot of people ready to claim that electronic devices are literally addictive, because it's a trendy thing to say, and the pressure of this opinion is like a physical force, a great gaseous mass of idiots. I shouldn't have got involved with this conversation, I have important video games to play.
Where I disagree with you is that I do think it is true that some things are addictive and are designed to be addictive (social media is), but its the things people do on devices that are addictive, not the devices themselves.
I agree "dopamine release" is not a bad thing per se, but when businesses hire psychologists to figure out how to get people to spend more time on their app people are being manipulated in a disturbing way.
Edit - inserted missing "not"
I'll take that as "is not a bad thing."
One point about manipulative attempts to increase engagement is that they only have to apply statistically, that is, increase total engagement. Another point is that people just enjoy doing dumb things to relax. It's then offensive (to me, too!) that businesses exploit this to promote things. But it's not disturbing if somebody is really into, say, jigsaw puzzles. We don't claim Ravensburger is hacking people's brains with their carefully designed colorful and complex pictures that draw you in and keep you playing. That's because Ravensburger are not a bunch of sinister jerks, which is the real issue. But the brain-hacking capacity of infinite phone videos isn't any more real than that of the jigsaws.
Yes, and I have now edited it. Thank you.
> not a bunch of sinister jerks, which is the real issue.
I agree with this.
> But the brain-hacking capacity of infinite phone videos isn't any more real than that of the jigsaws.
I am not sure about this, and I am convinced that some things (e.g. social media) do have greater brain-hacking capacity.
Other stuff we slog through just because we've decided it makes a student well-rounded. I like reading fiction, but I never liked reading "literature" and then trying to write an analysis of it. It was absolutely a slog, and even 40 years later I cannot see that my life is any worse off because I never loved reading Homer or Shakespeare or Chaucer or Tolstoy.
I was reading parts of the Iliad for fun recently, on the other hand, because somebody had asked a question, and I enjoy slogging through dense texts to find obscure facts. It's horribly written because names are frequently oblique, like "the old one" or "son of ..." instead of an actual name, and everybody talks in flowery speeches. Shakespeare suffers from the flowery speeches thing too. Beowulf is also tedious to read because of all the kennings (talking in riddles). Chaucer on the other hand is sometimes dirty and amusing. Tolstoy, never tried. Gilgamesh, though, is well-written, fast-paced and highly entertaining, I reckon literature should probably have stopped there, all the authors after that were just derivative hacks.
But in summary it depends what you're into.
These are now the COVID lockdown and post-pandemic kids. They come in to college unprepared/lacking mastery of prerequisites, don't listen in class, they don't come to office hours, they don't do their homework (or try to have ChatGPT do it) and get upset when they fail.
Can’t keep up with the class because you’re distracted on your phone? Not the teachers problem! Good luck on the test lol. You’re paying for the class either way…
It’s different if a student is earnestly trying to focus on the material, showing up to office hours, etc.
12 year old kids are still developing the brain structures to be able to handle discipline. Meanwhile a large fraction of adults are failing to do what you’re expecting a 12 year old to get right.
When you look around and everyone is suddenly overweight and addicted to their phones humans didn’t suddenly lose willpower, their environment changed.
Without that you will get the result in your final sentence.
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
― Robert A. Heinlein
Heinlein is right in principle but its a big ask. can do quite a bit of that list, but I have never butchered a hog or conned a ship or planned an invasion. I am pretty sure I could pitch manure but finding out whether you can die gallantly is likely to be the last thing you find out.
No human has the capability to learn to do all the things necessary to sustain a modern technological lifestyle solo, with the limited time we have on this planet. At best, someone who's wealthy enough not to have to do all the boring, time-consuming parts might be able to learn a decent subset.
Heinlein's purported philosophy fits very well with the all-too-American "rugged individualist" perspective that every person should be completely self-sufficient, but it doesn't actually hold up if you study psychology, sociology, or history.
It is, perhaps, also relevant that this quote is from the book "Time Enough for Love", whose main character, Lazarus Long, has been alive for many centuries.
They really aren't. Brains are not close to being fully developed until the age of 25.
The gift of "adult discipline" is quite a flawed idea. Depending on how far you take it, that's exactly the kind of thing that can create trauma, depression, low self esteem and perhaps worst can affect creativity self expression and just wanting to play.
Play, undiscipline, rebelliousness, is exactly where the Apple Macintosh came from and so many other amazing technologies and ideas came from in the world.
I'd say exactly the opposite, we need to find ways of removing discipline and conformity and extending play and self-expression into adult life for as long as possible as it is the foundation of so much goodness.
That said, if your idea of "Adult discipline" is chock-o-block full of play and self-expression then I'm all ears.
Brains continue developing throughout our lifetimes.
The study that appeared to show them stopping development at 25 did not have any participants older than 25.
It would be convenient to have a specific age we can point to where we can say "now you're fully adult!" based on biological factors, but I'm afraid we'll just have to use our flawed human judgement and draw imperfect lines.
That said, it is fairly well-understood when various of the structures and functions in the brain responsible for certain basic capacities (like discipline) first develop, on average.
Its not one study, its a multitude of studies of a different functions, and the popular conception about “brain development” not being full until the mid 20s is specifically about where multiple studies show the average peak in executive function occurs (with a slow decline after the peak, which obviously wouldn't be seen if it was only based on studies of younger people.)
Other functions peak anywhere from a little earlier, to much later, to, in a few cases, continuing to develop without a discernible age-related peak.
You see my last sentence when you don’t change how our parents were raised. A 12 year old isn’t ready to handle the full responsibility of a smartphone or grocery shopping etc, but that doesn’t mean you can’t introduce aspects of a smartphone.
Is it not because they failed to learn it in there teenage years?
My mother is a teacher and she noticed that kids that regularly do some kind of competitive sports tend to be much more hardworking in school, and it does extend to their university studies as well. Meanwhile "former gifted children" often experience the first year of university as a giant slap on the face, because they never learnt how to study, how to work hard for something, and being smart is often not enough at this level. Many can't even stand up from that hit.
So this is absolutely a huge disservice to not teach children some sort of self-discipline, motivation is never enough, there will always be days when you don't have enough of the latter, and only the former could push you forward then.
Learning just about anything looks very different than handling the full responsibility of doing the thing correctly in your own. ‘How to teach someone to use a cellphone’ is a much better question than ‘is 12 years old enough to be given one.’
No phones, no internet at school. If you can't bring enough material into the building within books and teacher's brains to teach, you're terrible and pointless. Leave the screens to their software and programming classes.
I'd say it will be a blessing when this debacle is replaced with AI, except the AI will also come from the revolving income stream guys, and will also have children's well-being as an afterthought. It will be the same failure, but with 4x the margin going to 1/100 the previous number of vendors, just like every "tech advance" in the past decade.
The answer isn’t some fancy security software or screening, it is much simpler: no software, period. The bulk of school should be learning in a classroom, computers are not required.
They can and should be allowed in limited doses early on, and can build over time, particularly as courses either obviously require it or the computers truly facilitate the learning.
We had her public school teachers trying to tell us the answer to our daughter’s reading issues was more screen time. We ended up sending her to a private religious school with very limited screen time, and she is now an A and B student.
This is a huge problem in public schools because state and federal governments are complicit in burying kids (and parents!) in unnecessary technology. During Covid, the feds flooded schools with literal billions of dollars that did not go to better teachers, it went to smart boards and MacBook pros and iPads and dozens of “School as a Service” providers who existed only to extract money from clueless superintendents who have a seemingly endless supply of tax money to draw from.
I suppose I could have done this without internet on air-gapped laptops. They do need laptops though, and the internet makes it much easier for them to submit their work for me to review after class.
I realize that a bounded computer science class probably isn't what you're talking about. However, my school has in fact really been trying to clamp down on technology use this year, and it has been challenging for the computer science department!
The numbers are smaller and smaller, but there will still be kids whose only access to the internet is their parents' smartphones. When I personally mentored a couple of pretty bright high school student interns, one of whom scored above 1500 SATs and a 36 ACT, they both found it really helpful to look at Khan Academy / YouTube clips to better understand what I was explaining.
If the poorer kids don't have access to these explanatory videos, except when their parents are done with their phones, they will fall further behind than they otherwise would have.
Perhaps a compromise would be to limit internet access to the school library?
In my opinion, elementary school (grades K-5) should really focus a good deal on rote memorization, but only if this focuses on teaching every kind of game and technique to facilitate that kind of learning. By that I mean making flash cards, learning to create and use mnemonic devices, etc.
I just asked ChatGPT, and got something like 15 different techniques, some of which can be used with kindergarteners, all of which can be used by grade 5.
There are always going to be "boring" things to learn. These things are often no longer boring once you know them by heart. In fact, they're often extremely valuable to know. I think by grade 5, if kids are going to be taught anything, they need to be taught the techniques that they can use—on their own—to make learning fun.
https://charactercalculator.com/readability-checker/
- Reading Level: 10th to 12th grade
- Reading Score: 59.00
- Reading Note: Fairly difficult to read
https://hemingwayapp.com/readability-checker
- Readability checker: Grade 10; OK. Aim for 9.
- 5 of 19 sentences are very hard to read.
- 6 of 19 sentences are hard to read.
There are some poor word choices[1], but yes, all in all this 7th grader is definitely writing above grade level. Hopefully his English teachers give him feedback pertinent to his demonstrated ability.
[1] - E.g. "That’s not to say a school’s system is necessarily completely ineffective. Last year, my school had left unblocked the spammy-sounding Unblocked Games 66."
would be easier to understand if re-written as:
"That’s not to say a school’s system is completely ineffective. Last year, my school failed to block the spammy-sounding "Unblocked Games 66.""
To get a healthy society, you must teach people how to behave, then (again, still explicitly prevent serious crimes, but otherwise) trust them. Some will take advantage of the system, but they may still face natural and social consequences, and some abuse of the system is OK.
I guess I’m not really following where this logic is going. Are you saying “therefore we should not have laws and regulations”? I highly doubt that’s what you actually mean, but I am unsure how to parse what you do mean if not that.
Examples of "obvious" laws and regulations: physical violence should be policed, companies should have to pay salaries and have basic restrictions on work hours, safety, sanitation, etc. Examples of things that can't really be regulated: "gambling" and "harmful social media". When does a game become "gambling"? When does a site become "social media" and "harmful"? Various countries have legal definitions for these, but they're very long, so companies find loopholes (e.g. sports betting, loot-boxes); or they straight-up break the laws, but the government doesn't bother to enforce them, because it's too difficult and the general population doesn't notice or care enough. Complex and ineffective laws and regulations also tend to have unintended consequences, like Balatro being considered "gambling" in Australia, and the UK's "Online Safety Act" affecting small forums.
Part of the reason is that the people writing and enforcing laws and regulations themselves are corrupt. But this goes back to the source: you can't police those people with more laws, because their enforcers are also corrupt, and so on. A society is controlled and its morality is defined by its people, so to some extent, a society must teach its people to be moral and give them the leeway to still behave immoral.
That being said maybe I’m still not quite grasping the thrust of your point, but it sounds to me like you’re saying “corrupt/bad people ignore laws so laws meant to stop them are pointless.” Is that an accurate summary?
Bad laws are:
- Controversial. For example, prohibition. Such laws also tend to be hard-to-enforce and “immoral”, but even with effective enforcement and moral justification, they’re bad because they decrease societal QOL and cooperation.
- Vague. For example, a law that allows a cop to search your vehicle if they “smell drugs”. Since in theory cops aren’t allowed to arbitrarily search people’s vehicles, and this seems to be something most people believe; except “smell drugs” is entirely subjective, so bad cops use it as an excuse to arbitrarily search people’s vehicles anyways. Likewise, it may not be common, but a cop can choose to ignore a vehicle that obviously contains drugs, by claiming they can’t smell anything. If there was a specific criteria like “X ratio of drug particles in the air…well, technically cops aren’t required to enforce laws, but at least it would be easier for bystanders to prove they deliberately weren’t enforcing that one (vs the current law, the cop can argue and may actually have a weak sense of smell).
- Hard to enforce. Specifically when the cost of enforcement surpasses the benefit from the law existing (by definition).
These are the laws that are most affected by loopholes.
- People purposefully ignore loopholes to controversial laws that break said laws in spirit, if not outright (“loopholes” not in a law’s text but in its enforcement).
- Judges side towards innocence, so borderline (in theory) violations of vague laws are (in practice) effectively allowed. Even non-borderline violations require more evidence to convict. Also, while all laws are selectively enforced, vague laws tend to be moreso, because proving selective enforcement is itself proving something vague. “Borderline violations” are loopholes, “selective enforcement” is sometimes loopholes (the loopholes are the parts that aren’t enforced).
- Laws that are already hard to enforce, enforcers don’t have the effort or ability to target loopholes. Some laws are hard to enforce mainly if not entirely because of certain loopholes.
Also, my argument (and analogy to the article) isn’t just that some laws are bad, but that laws aren’t enough to prevent crime. Because some crimes are accepted by large parts of society, some can only be defined vaguely, and some are impossible to enforce (without severe downsides, like an authoritarian police state, if not literally impossible). Another way to mitigate crime is through norms; teaching people not to do things, by explaining why and/or just telling them, without formal enforcement. That’s analogous to convincing students not to play video games in class by their own volition, instead of only blocking video games, because not all “games” can be blocked.
That corrupt/bad people ignore laws doesn’t make every law pointless, but it means the rule of law isn’t enough to stop corrupt/bad people. And good-intentioned people who rely on the rule of law too much create laws which, still aren’t all pointless, but cause more harm than good.
There are a lot of good points throughout what you’re saying, but ultimately I think they don’t really pass muster once you exit an academic discussion.
In my day, tests were on paper and collected at the end of class.
Now they’re online and kids exchange answers by taking the cell phone to the bathroom.
Or they will exploit the online nature and compare answers during the passing period AFTER the class a submit it before the next class starts. Teachers can’t be bothered to close the test when class ends!
Instead of being 25-50% short response, tests are all multiple choice so they can be automatically graded.
To think my teachers recorded grades in a ledger and computed averages by hand for classes of 35+ students…
What about students who need extra time, which can be part of an IEP, and other issues, I don't think that part is lazy. Also a decent amount of the usage of Canvas or similar LMS's is subject to school or district wide rules.
Edit: I taught highschool CS during the pandemic to try to help out with issues in my district.
Students have to explain their process when they present their projects, and answer questions, which ensures they did the work.
These projects make up most of their grades.
The above is maybe not an entirely fair summary, but I think it captures the spirit of Bobby's comment in vivid detail.
Cell phones haven’t magically made students cheat. Students were cheating plenty with paper tests too. Ands if the students are trading answers with cell phones, they will definitely have a way to trade answers to paper tests. Nearly every smartphone has a camera. Instead we should figure out how to regulate cell phone use at school if they are the enabler for cheating.
Teaching is undoubtedly different than it was a few decades ago. There is technology integrated into most schools and classrooms. The requirements of teachers has changed, but I wouldn’t say teachers have gotten lazy.
My point is, in regards to education tech is a distraction 95% of the time…and i say this as someone working in tech! Tech makes grading easier. Great. Has instruction improved? Are most kids learning more now? Are most kids _actually_ prepared for a basic office job, if they desire one?
Frankly, going back to basics would benefit all of us. Math is the same as it ever was. Blackboard and paper is all you need. Same with most other classes.
Schools will happily waste thousands on ipads and chrome books that do little for actual education. Yet they are happy to feed crappy lunches to kids because good food is too expensive. Apparently gadgets are more helpful for learning than nutrition? I’m sure Google and Apple are laughing all the way to the bank…at least the teachers and kids get to feel modern.
Even before computers were ubiquitous, which office jobs would you say a high school graduate was qualified for? I'd say not much other than basic clerk duties, which requires some basic counting skills and record keeping. In today's times, that requires basic computer use skills because we use computers to perform those tasks, which high school graduates are capable of.
So with revised expectations, what about the technology integration in high school is inadequate? High school graduates can be expected to be able to type and use some word processing software and do basic data entry. That sounds like the right level to me. And consider the cost of a chromebook for a few years vs. the cost of feeding a child. More money gets spent on food than the cost of a chromebook, it's just that the food funding comes from multiple sources so you might not have considered the total cost. It's not like they are handing out brand new MacBooks every single year, chromebooks are about the lowest cost option for schools to have guaranteed technology access for students.
“guranteeed technology access for students” - that’s great, and was useful during covid remote learning, but that was an exceptional circumstance. I don’t see why a computer lab with 5-10 year old computers isn’t sufficient to learn how to use a word processor? Since we’re setting the tech literacy bar that low…
My impression is this is a gigantic headache with very very little benefit: https://www.edweek.org/technology/chromebooks-short-lifespan...
Don’t think we’ll see eye to eye on this. :) thanks for the thoughtful response though.
With Chromebooks so cloud-connected, many kids have no understanding of file systems or even storage. There’s no backup and restore…
They don’t even realize their Windows PC has a drive C: …
I used to yearn for electronic textbooks when my backpack was bursting with 25+ lbs of textbooks.
Kids today don’t carry such loads… because there are no textbooks at all! (Not even electronic ones).
Even “fill in the blank” has disappeared yet could be auto-graded in principle.
Another harm from the loss of paper tests is that teachers no longer return graded test papers to students. Sometimes completed tests made available online, often not.
Students will see their numeric grade but not immediately know why and might end up never seeing the completed test if and when it is finally made available.
The whole dynamic of returning the test papers and the students asking the teacher to explain missed questions is totally lost.
1:1 ed tech (e.g. chromebooks) probably exacerbates the problem because kids have a single machine that's their own. They can customize it as they please, for better and worse.
When I was his age, my school's thin clients would wipe most of your customizations every time you logged out. For the handful of standalone desktops, you'd still have to set stuff up on each machine individually. This limited the effectiveness of the various tricks we played to get past IT guardrails.
I think the title is a little misleading, though. The essay details why DNS-level blocking doesn't work in educational environments. The title suggests it'd talk about why ed-tech fails in a more general case. Remember, projectors, document cameras, VHS players, and Smart boards were all red-hot tech at some point. Even today, ed-tech is more than just computers assigned to kids.
mjevans•2mo ago
A practical example of this from fitness is turning exercise into a sport.
Razengan•2mo ago
"You are a human."
"You are on this planet."
"This is what this world is like."
"This is what humans have made so far."
"This is what's out there."
and then let people be free from 10-20 to figure out their own goals instead of just funneling them into the endless capitalist churn.
analog31•2mo ago
"Here's the refrigerator."
"Here's a cell phone."
Razengan•2mo ago
That'd be a much better way of teaching multiple subjects that are boring and irrelevant on their own.
You're not supposed to have phones or computers in class but you're supposed to somehow be interested in the math and other sciences that make those things possible?
You go home and your life there is much more entertaining than in school, but you have no idea how what you're being taught in school ties into the things at home.
analog31•2mo ago
Even using computers in class, which I endorse, involves acceptance that many of the uses will seem boring.
Making everything as entertaining as commercial media is too much to ask.
Razengan•2mo ago
For me for example, a lot of the work in developing the game is mundane boilerplate and looking up solutions to solved problems, but I can bear through it because I really want to play the game I'm trying to make.
Education should optimize for finding such "goals" for each individual person, instead of just finding a "use" for each person to be put to, as another poster put it.
LoFiSamurai•2mo ago
Razengan•2mo ago
Before I realized this world is just as interesting, but school does everything to make you bored of it before you can explore it.
wakawaka28•2mo ago
In a sense, the most important thing school does is to build up within students a tolerance of boredom and an appreciation of the fact that most work is potentially boring.
Razengan•2mo ago
You can plow through boring work if the end goal is exciting. For example, when developing a game that you yourself want to play :)
wakawaka28•2mo ago
Razengan•2mo ago
Not that most people like games, but everyone has their own goal, even if they haven't discovered them yet, even if it's just to chill in a nice place and do nothing all day, they can still find better ways to be lazy! (build better furniture, explore the search for the ideal climate etc.)
What is with all this defeatist give-up-by-default attitude? There's NO fucking way that the current common system of human education, which has been pretty much the same for hundreds of years, is perfect.
wakawaka28•2mo ago
onionisafruit•2mo ago
Razengan•2mo ago
Just enough to get you hooked into the "game" you've just spawned into.
nemomarx•2mo ago
We already have people say they wish they'd learned how to do their taxes or balance budgets - imagine what 12 year olds might think is uninteresting that comes up later, right?
Razengan•2mo ago
jayd16•2mo ago
wakawaka28•2mo ago
This "capitalist churn" is how we get things done for society. While some exploration makes sense, the vast majority of people are not gifted in the arts or endowed with genius. They must be prepared for life with basic skills that can be put to good use. Even under communist "utopian" regimes, children are forced to do basically the same stuff they do under capitalist regimes, because people and their needs are the same under both.
Razengan•2mo ago
There are 8 billion people. Not every single one can be ""put to good use""
We have enough technology now to let people slow down and fucking chill a bit.
wakawaka28•2mo ago
giantg2•2mo ago
"You are on this planet."
"This is what this world is like."
"This is what humans have made so far."
"This is what's out there."
That's basically what school is. Many of these topics can't be explained in reasonable detail and complexity until after 10 years old.
analog31•2mo ago
I'm a musician. I could get more people to come to my concerts if I just come up with material that's more engaging than Taylor Swift.
aleph_minus_one•2mo ago
Even without knowing anything about your music, I'm 98 % certain that I would prefer to go to your concert than to a Taylor Swift concert. :-)
antonvs•2mo ago
clickety_clack•2mo ago
card_zero•2mo ago
mindslight•2mo ago
graemep•2mo ago
This forum has plenty of past comments from people who have learned a programming language for fun when they could have spent that time watching a TV series.
card_zero•2mo ago
mindslight•2mo ago
card_zero•2mo ago
(Actually I remember hating C when I got to the part of K&R about pointers. I threw the book across the room. I hated it for about 12 hours. Then I woke up the next morning and was all like "pointers are brilliant", it was weird.)
I guess you can guide people into a subject, assuring them the whole way through that the subject is probably going to get enjoyable, and in the meantime making the experience enjoyable through social effects and entertainment - while allowing them freedom to back out if in fact you're boring them. But that doesn't demand their willpower. It hinges on their interest.
mindslight•2mo ago
Yes?
It's great that learning things was fun for you. I'm there with you myself. I had amazing lucid dreams the night after I learned Ocaml...
But this entire thread is about teaching children, many of whom need guidance, support, and unfortunately sometimes control to mitigate their attraction to easy-but-unhealthy activities.
Not everyone is going to be a programmer. But even if we're talking about structuring learning such that it's compelling on its own, then we're kind of assuming everyone is going to have a calling and also find it relatively young. That feels pretty naive.
card_zero•2mo ago
To push people into academic crap that they hate is:
1. Pompous,
2. Counterproductive.
mindslight•2mo ago
card_zero•2mo ago
Practical difficulties, then, can be used as an excuse for saying that an arbitrarily chosen 20% of control is vital, which is a reassuringly normal strategy, although there's no common agreement about which 20%, since this is just a performance.
mindslight•2mo ago
The 80% figure I meant is not that I think this is applicable to 80% "of learning" or something, but rather trying to convey to you that I greatly sympathize with where you seem to be coming from. I'm mostly self-taught as well, even in college my classes were basically spent reading ahead the next chapter in the textbook to occupy my interest (and doing homework due in my next class), while half-listening to the lecture to confirm what I already knew (from reading ahead the previous class).
But still I think it would be naive to assume that all kids can do without most structure.
graemep•2mo ago
What I would say that there are enough fun things that provide learning that kids (especially younger ones - its difference once exams and qualifications start looming) can learn primarily through fun. Provide the environment and guidance and encouragement. Think about how many fun things kids do is learning. Playing games, making things, drawing. The TV series might be a documentary or produced by a different culture or be based on a book that is worth reading, or may be of cultural value in its own right. It may create an opportunity to talk to children about related topics (I am very much a fan of "conversational learning").
> The point is that getting to a place where learning a new programming language is fun requires developing a lot of skill and willpower
I am old enough that I learned because my parents bought me what was then called a "home computer" and it was fun to learn programming. I did not have much skill or will power at that point (I would have been about 10).
More generally, children can learn a lot without skill and will power. It needs opportunities and guidance and encouragement. I agree that sticking kids in front of a TV or giving them a tablet with a bunch of simplistic games will mean they do not learn.
graemep•2mo ago
Its sometimes necessary to learn some thing that are not fun, buts is exceptional, especially for children.
card_zero•2mo ago
graemep•2mo ago
You made me laugh anyway.
clickety_clack•2mo ago
Second, in refuting me, it seems you are stating that learning should be Type 1 fun, which I totally disagree with. You are severely limiting your potential if you only do things that are entertaining. And not just in an accidental way: you are also setting yourself up for a life in which you follow the things that are made to be entertaining for you, by advertisers or whoever else thinks they can gain by leading you along.
I enjoy learning new things, I’ve learned new languages, musical instruments, and I’ve switched careers a couple of times which has led to all kinds of new things I had to learn to do. The fact is, that the real fun happens after mastery, and after a brief ”this is cool” bump where you bang a drum for a couple of minutes on the beach or whatever, there is a long period of practice where you pretty much have to put in the work before you can get to that fun flow state of mastery.
card_zero•2mo ago
I suppose we often have to do painful things to maintain stability, or advance, and indirectly therefore they're necessary as part of a strategy to continue learning. Like, I don't know, work a terrible job to pay the rent. But that's indirect, not intrinsic to learning, so those things don't count.
card_zero•2mo ago
jacknews•2mo ago
card_zero•2mo ago
giantg2•2mo ago
If one chooses the modern life, then they're stuck within the constraints of society. You could be nearly self sufficient, but that would be even more difficult.
hereme888•2mo ago
Teacher: "today we're going to learn about the three types of rocks, and the quadratic equation."
Student: "what for? I've never seen an adult discuss or use that in real life."
Teacher: "you might need it some day, and its part of the curriculum."
gf000•2mo ago
Education should attempt to somehow tap into that as a core motivation, though that will surely not be enough or good for everyone.
But learning is work, and there is no way around that.
card_zero•2mo ago
gf000•2mo ago
hereme888•2mo ago
True learning, and curiosity-driven learning, boosts dopamine, hence most learning in modern society should be inherently "pleasurable". Of course this excludes hard lessons we have to learn through painful experiences.
Even really difficult learning, like at the Masters - phD level, the painful parts of learning should constitute a small percent of the person's overall learning.
Children are often accused of being unmotivated or lazy, but these are usually accusations from boring adults who can't see the magnitude of their error. A child will focus on a video game for hours, even a difficult one, and will still remember the information a week later. But give a child a boring and pointless video game, with no specific goal or accomplishment, and no one will play it. This is why the quadratic equation has become such a meme among "anti-schoolers". It's the epitome of pointlessness for the general population.
giantg2•2mo ago
Probably most people. 6 hour days, lunch provided, recess with your friends, no real responsibilities. Sounds better than most jobs.
Rocks are easy to turn into fun since they're physical things and you can go over knapping flint, etc.
graemep•2mo ago
I home educated by kids from about eight up to sixteen when they had done GCSEs (exams school kids in the UK do at 16). I very rarely had to force them to do anything, but I did have to make an effort to find the right approach to make things interesting.
I think the solution is to let kids do what they choose but intervene if they are not learning at all. This takes judgement and knowing them as individuals.
You could do it in schools if you have a very low student-teacher ratio (I say below 10 to 1 - so in the UK you would need about double the number of teachers in the state system), trusted teachers' judgement over metrics, and had more flexibility about learning to individual needs rather the prescribing exactly what kids need to learn at a particular age.
foobarian•2mo ago
It's not not possible, but the problem is you'd end up with a majority uneducated populous who would decide that sacrificing goats and watering crops with Gatorade is the thing to do, and they would hang you if you disagreed
card_zero•2mo ago
giantg2•2mo ago