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.
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.
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.
mjevans•2h ago
A practical example of this from fitness is turning exercise into a sport.
Razengan•2h 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•2h ago
"Here's the refrigerator."
"Here's a cell phone."
Razengan•2h 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.
LoFiSamurai•2h ago
Razengan•2h 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•56m 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.
onionisafruit•1h ago
Razengan•1h ago
Just enough to get you hooked into the "game" you've just spawned into.
nemomarx•1h 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•1h ago
jayd16•1h ago
wakawaka28•1h 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.
analog31•2h 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•2h 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•1h ago
clickety_clack•2h ago
card_zero•2h ago
mindslight•2h ago
graemep•1h 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•1h ago
mindslight•20m ago
graemep•1h ago
Its sometimes necessary to learn some thing that are not fun, buts is exceptional, especially for children.
card_zero•1h ago
graemep•6m ago
You made me laugh anyway.
clickety_clack•1h 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•1h 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•2h ago
jacknews•1h ago
card_zero•1h ago
hereme888•1h 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•1h 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•59m ago
gf000•46m ago
hereme888•52m 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.
graemep•1h 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•1h 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