
The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development - boh
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/08/rotten-stem-how-technology-corrupts-education/
======
plughs
Our elementary school uses chromebooks from 1st grade on, and I do see a lot
of downsides.

The most outrageous problem, IMO, is that there are 'modules' that must be
completed, and kids with computer access at home can work on them at home.
Kids from low income families are screwed over - again.

Other problems

\- spellcheck is always on, why learn real spelling when the computer fixes it
for you?

\- The de-emphasis on handwriting is mentioned in the article. In-class
assignments are still handwritten, but take-home projects can be typed.

\- A lot of 'educational' games are regular games with a minimal pretense of
education value. Frogger is still Frogger, even if there's some notion of
jumping to the lily pad with the right sum.

\- Same for 'educational' youtube videos. youtube is blocked on my kid's
devices, despite insistence that there are channels where they do scientific
experiments. The videos are more about funny jokes than the different phases
of matter.

( youtube is a funny one. Non-tech parents always tell me how great kid's
youtube is. Tech parents are always like "f yea, of course you block youtube"
)

Plus the last thing my kid needs is more screentime. I don't want to have to
sit next to them all night making sure that they are only doing 'productive'
work.

~~~
jacobolus
Why do you think students will better learn to spell without spellcheck?

As far as I can tell spending class time on spelling per se and/or grading
students on spelling mistakes is a complete waste of time and focus.

The ideal way to teach spelling is (1) get kids to read a whole lot, (2) show
students their mistakes in context when they make them on as short a feedback
loop as possible, without judgment.

It’s plausible that showing that a mistake was made but then forcing the
student to retype or rewrite the word correctly (without letting them just
click once on the word to fix the mistake) would be more effective.

But I have seen no evidence that spellcheck reduces people’s ability to learn
spelling. I’d like to see some kind of formal study.

Disclaimer: I think giving every 1st grade student a chromebook is a terrible
mistake.

~~~
grawprog
>The ideal way to teach spelling is (1) get kids to read a whole lot, (2) show
students their mistakes in context when they make them on as short a feedback
loop as possible, without judgment.

I'm not sure I agree with this. This doesn't teach the fundamentals and rules
of how words are put together. Learning to spell isn't memorizing lists of
words, it's learning the rules of English and how words are actually put
together so, even if you don't know how a word's spelled, you should be able
to at least be able to make a good guess based on your knowledge of English.
The spell checker doesn't teach you any of this.

~~~
jacobolus
People don’t learn the “rules of English” through explicit instruction. They
learn them through years (decades) of exposure.

Anecdotally, the main predictor of how good someone’s spelling will be is how
much reading they have done.

~~~
grawprog
I did. They taught us this in school. My spelling is good. I rarely rely on a
spell checker and have autocorrect turned off on my keyboard because I find it
annoying rather than helpful. Knowing how to spell and sound out words helped
me be a better reader and kept reading interesting for me.

Anecdotally, I've met many people that dislike reading because they find large
words complicated to comprehend, their spelling is usually atrocious also. I
also know a few heavy readers with terrible spelling because they never
learned properly. Their pronunciation of large words is usually atrocious.

~~~
jacobolus
> _I 've met many people that dislike reading because they find large words
> complicated to comprehend, their spelling is usually atrocious also. I also
> know a few heavy readers with terrible spelling because they never learned
> properly. Their pronunciation of large words is usually atrocious._

None of the people I know who grew up in highly literate families with parents
who read with them several hours per week up through age 7+ ever had either of
these problems in adulthood. Including the dyslexic ones.

I am highly skeptical that your acquaintances dislike reading because the
spelling of long words is too complicated. More realistically they find long
words hard because they never did enough reading to become fluent. Nearly
everyone can get at least 90% of the way to reading arbitrary English text
with about a year of appropriate reading instruction at age 6 plus a few years
of regular practice.

As someone who never spent any effort on spelling in school, big words are
fine to read and spelling is no trouble. I also dislike and disable
autocorrect. I’d happily put my pronunciation of arbitrary English words up
against anyone who isn’t a professional linguist.

------
pier25
It totally is.

I worked in EdTech for the past 4 years and was in contact with the education
world.

Digital devices are harmful to younger kids. The brain develops much better
when using fine motor skills such as writing with pen and paper. France banned
all digital devices in primary schools for a reason and all countries should
do it.

The most important factor in getting quality education are not digital devices
or educational material but the quality of the teacher. The OECD did a study
about the use of computers by students at the school and at home[0]. See the
results for yourself. Countries like China, Singapoore, Finland, and Estonia
barely use computers but have some of the best PISA academic results.

[0]: [http://www.oecd.org/education/students-computers-and-
learnin...](http://www.oecd.org/education/students-computers-and-
learning-9789264239555-en.htm)

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
>The most important factor in getting quality education are not digital
devices or educational material but the quality of the teacher.

I agree with you in general, but I think the most important factor in getting
quality education is parents that value education.

~~~
DataWorker
Or maybe there’s not a single monolithic factor to optimize. Assuming you can
even define education in the first place, it will always be very contextual.
Of course a single factor is very appealing, but maybe it’s an assumption that
people impose upon reality and the reality is more complex.

------
Glyptodon
Getting kids away from electronics is definitely important, and in some
respects I find myself agreeing with multiple points from this:

I absolutely agree that (in the USA) K-12 Education's basis should indeed be
_civic_ education, or the education required to create excellent citizens. I
also absolutely agree that giving kids "technology" (as smartphones, tablets,
Baby Shark, and the rest are known) can be unexpectedly close to giving them
crack depending on the circumstances.

However, there is one single thing with respect to computing I find relevant
overlooked:

I also think it's critical, in a civic sense, that most of the populace has a
general understanding of what computation is and how computers "work." Not
because I think everyone should code for a career, but because everyone should
be able to have some understanding of debates about topics like encryption or
automation, and in general have an a mental scaffolding that outlines the
invisible infrastructure supporting the daily experiences of our times.

In my view, absent this, too much of the citizenry will increasingly see
"technology" in a way that verges on being a bit too close to "magic."

I'm not sure what exactly this means for K-12 education, but I'm pretty sure
it means that despite my antipathy for pervasive classroom "technology," there
should still be some sort of very planned and mediated curriculum that exposes
students to "computing."

~~~
steverb
I agree, and having been the volunteer runner of my kid's middle school
computer clubs (and occasional stand-in teacher) I think the best way to teach
computing is not with computers, but with pencil, paper and classroom
simulations.

We've successfully implemented some very simple computers by letting various
class members stand in for components, and we had one very good implementation
of TCP/IP over middleschooler.

~~~
chewxy
Simon Peyton Jones gave a very good talk on this at Strange Loop 2018 - sadly
it's falling to deaf ears

~~~
bokchoi
[https://thestrangeloop.com/2018/shaping-our-childrens-
educat...](https://thestrangeloop.com/2018/shaping-our-childrens-education-in-
computing.html)

------
Wowfunhappy
I only ever write on a computer. I own a single pen which I have not needed to
replace since I moved into my apartment in 2016. I'm pretty sure I last used
it in November, when I had to fill out a form for jury duty.

The article cite studies that handwriting is linked to brain development, and
reading on paper improves memory, and so on... I'm certainly not in a position
to refute those studies, but I have to wonder how complete they are. People
once denounced the printing press for causing us to loose our memories, and as
a population, we _do_ in fact have worse memories than scholars during the
Middle Ages. If we taught intensive memory training in school, memory would
likely improve, but do you think that would be an ideal use of student time?

Maybe handwriting is a magical art that improves brain function across the
board, but I'm going to need a lot more evidence before I believe that. In the
meantime, we should be teaching the skills that people need in today's world,
and that overwhelmingly means typing.

~~~
pier25
It's not about handwriting per se but about using fine motor skills. For a
healthy development of the brain, young kids need to develop motor skills
which neurologically will allow cognitive skills to develop properly later on.

Sorry I don't have any link to back this claim but I worked for a couple of
years in EdTech with pedagogy experts.

~~~
Jarwain
Does typing Not require fine motor skills?

~~~
geomark
Motor skills, certainly. But not _fine_ motor skills, obviously. There's a
pretty big difference between getting within a cm of accuracy needed to press
a key and drawing submillimeter-accurate curves. An aspiring artist or surgeon
certainly needs that level of skill. But do fine motor skills impart other
cognitive benefits?

------
japhyr
If you're interested in an ongoing critical look at technology in education,
Audrey Watters is a great person to follow [0]. She helps keep me honest as
someone working in this space. She put out a really long and interesting post,
The 100 Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade [1].

[0] [https://twitter.com/audreywatters](https://twitter.com/audreywatters)

[1] [http://hackeducation.com/2019/12/31/what-a-
shitshow](http://hackeducation.com/2019/12/31/what-a-shitshow)

~~~
markdeloura
That article is a useful summary but a tad sensationalist and should be read
with a critical eye. Many of the debacles would be portrayed as successes by a
different person with a different perspective. For example, Google for
Education (#10) is extraordinarily popular and useful - hardly a debacle. The
CSforAll movement (#6) has made a substantial and growing difference in the
number and diversity of software engineers. Gamergate (#5) was clearly a
clusterf, and it is many things, AND a stretch to relate it to ed-tech.

------
zwieback
Nice rant! I think a lot of what the author complains about is already
obsolete, our school system (privileged city in Oregon) went through the
chromebook/tablet mania and already got rid of them again. As far as I can
tell the only "tech" they use are electronic whiteboards. The curriculum
across liberal arts and science seems almost indistinguishable from what I
learned in high school in the 80s. In Germany.

Still, this was a real gem:

> "How did we get here? The American public education system, a rusted-out
> 1976 mustard sedan whose “check engine” light is always on, is driven by a
> psychopath who wants, by turns, to crash it for the insurance, to insist
> that cars can be submarines, and to spend hilarious sums on unnecessary
> parts."

------
TheOperator
>Among the jobs most likely to be automated out of existence are those whose
functions are the most similar to computers, including jobs like computer
systems administrators, network architects, and computer support specialists,
60–70 percent of whose functions could be automated using current technology.

>Even the brainiest are not safe. In the finance industry, in recent years, we
have seen the development of machine learning tools that can perform in
minutes the same analysis for which a human com­puter science major required
hours or even days. You can guess which of those resources was less expensive
to retain.

EDIT: I'll note that the article cited to support the second point “The Future
of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerisation" doesn't acutally
refer to "Computer science majors". It lists programmers having a moderate
(not high!) chance of automation... and also lists system administrators as
having amongst the least automatable jobs of all. Then to support the point
that system administrators would have their jobs automated a different paper
was cited. I'm not sure how seriously I can take the author with such clear
evidence of contradicting the articles it cited and cherry picking evidence to
apparently support a point the author had in mind before these papers were
ever read. Bluntly the article smacks of outright dishonesty obscured by
citing a huge number of lengthy research papers...

Not sure if I buy this take. I received a laptop in school and back then this
exact analysis was true and indeed the jobs of administrators, network
architects, and computer support administrators was largely automated. So
those jobs are far less prevalent than in my childhood right?

Except that's not what happened and the jobs became more prevalent as improved
automation made computers cheaper and more useful. I'm not holding my breath
over the imminent collapse of jobs involving computers simply because the
current work can be automated by... people using computers. Sure this argument
is undeniably true if you think computing will stay exactly like it is now
except the current jobs will be automated and no new jobs will be created.

My crystal ball is as foggy as anybody elses though. Maybe we will hit the
singularity and in that case computing jobs will likely be the very first to
be completely replaced.

~~~
SteveGoob
^^ These parts of the article also bothered me, and tainted many of his other
possibly/probably valid points.

> ...we have seen the development of machine learning tools that can perform
> in minutes the same analysis for which a human com­puter science major
> required hours or even days.

Statements like this just demonstrate an obvious lack of understanding of how
the field of computer science works. Guess who developed those machine
learning tools? A machine learning engineer _who more than likely studied CS._

It's just hard to trust the author on other topics where I'm less familiar,
seeing the data clearly driven toward a predetermined narrative.

It reeks of cherrypicking to me, regardless of how well justified it is or
isn't.

------
nickbauman
Most teachers believe that education is supposed to:

1) To make good people.

2) To make good citizens.

3) To make each person his or her personal best.

But our public school system as envisioned by its creator (Alexander Inglis)
in the early 20th century was to simply to reduce as many individuals as much
as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized
citizenry and establish fixed habits of reaction to authority.

Inglis, in his speeches, makes it perfectly clear that compulsory schooling is
intended to halt a worldwide democratic movement that threatened to give the
peasants and the proletarians a voice and unity. Compulsory schooling was to
thwart the prospective unity of these underclasses. Divide children by
subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more
subtle means to stop the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood from
ever reintegrating into a dangerous whole.

~~~
8bitsrule
Yep. Educators refer to this as the 'Factory model of education'. Imported
from Northern Europe in the late 1800s with heavy influence from industrial
Germany.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_model_school](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_model_school)

In the case of such schools (for the unwashed masses, of course), the medium
is definitely the message. Uptight. Neat rows of assigned seating in non-
nonsense, screwed-down desks with steel frames and hardwood tops. 'Workbooks',
authoritarian teaching by rote (to a model, not to individuals), elected
school boards, daily pledges of allegiance, lockstep curriculum, nearly
invisible boards of accreditation, etc.

Ah, humanity.

~~~
wisty
As Wikipedia notes, this is kind of just a myth -
[http://hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/factory-
model](http://hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/factory-model)

~~~
nickbauman
The division chair of the school of education at my niece's alma mater,
Augsburg University, fully believes in the factory model of education. My
niece almost switched majors over it.

------
InfinityByTen
I have seen these discussions before. I have seen people who will cherish the
times gone by and the skills of the good ol' days becoming extinct -
calligraphy, letter writing, book handling... I have seen people with the
progressive mind saying that: what's not needed anymore, or what's not going
to be needed soon, why even bother!? If it's dying, let it! It's evolution!
It's Science! It's Progress!

The problems is both things. There are people who have gone too far with the
science and tech craze, "the silicon valley bigwigs" and feel that in the end
it wasn't really the tech that made the cut for them or they did see people
lose out because they didn't have the other bits figured, despite being
wonderful at their niche. The other people are the ones who feel that the
world is surrendering to the tech and there is no place where tech won't go.
It's better to keep catching up with the times than being left out in dilly-
dallying over notions, ideas, philosophies, arts and the like.

My concern is both are narrow ways of thinking by themselves. Yes, tech will
be everywhere. Yes it is getting important and you won't find a job if you
don't know tech etiquette, soon enough at least. But it won't make the cut
without understanding people, tendencies, perspectives, arts, histories. New
skills are nice and important, but then old values and ways of doing things
have inspirations. You can't "disrupt" everything by "the new way of
thinking". You will end up destroying a lot of places. Forget that there's a
panacea, "the one unified theory", "one ring to rule them all". That's good
for a fantasy movie conveying a few ideas, but incomplete when it comes to
real life.

------
lordnacho
First of all, could someone enlighten the non-US readers about what common
core is? I hear the term a lot, not clear what the main ideas actually are or
how people view it.

My own kids go to private schools in the UK. None of the parents would have
any problems buying a load of tablets or VR goggles or whatever if the schools
said so, and the schools would not have any problems buying whatever manner of
gadgets they thought were needed. These are schools that have historically fed
kids to top secondary schools in the area, which in turn feed into the top
universities in the country, and the world.

And yet, the classroom is more or less just like the ones I attended as a kid
in the 1980s. Bunch of chairs for little people and letters and numbers made
from paper cutouts. The blackboard is one of those big touchscreens but it's
used mostly like a blackboard. It's a screen for showing videos only when the
kids are in after-school care waiting for parents to come get them.

The kids start to read the year they turn 5, and the big kid who is three
years in can mostly read an Economist article. Math-wise it's going fine as
well.

As a programmer I'd love it if the kids could learn some of what I do, and
there's plenty of interest, but essentially the article is right. The point
isn't to make little workers who can write an insertion sort. If you are
educated, and you wind up in a place where that's needed, it won't take you
all that long to figure out.

We've somehow missed the point of education. It isn't to create specific
skills that are useful for businesses. The point is to have an understanding
of our place in the world, a vast context that encompasses a huge range of
topics. If you do that, you will come across those specific skills, and much
more.

~~~
SolarNet
> First of all, could someone enlighten the non-US readers about what common
> core is?

A new set of standards for education that are meant to cut across state lines
(e.g. California and Texas previously set education standards merely through
market volume and being the biggest purchasers). It's mostly fine.

A lot of people are upset that they "changed how math works" but what they
really did was introduce a bunch of different ways for students to think about
math so they can get a working math literacy. Instead of being a prescriptive
standards ("this is how math works") its more descriptive ("here are a dozen
ways one could reason about math to get the answer"). The hope is that this
will allow students to better pick up and understand more advanced math in the
future, while also providing more opportunities for struggling students to
"get it" (e.g. because one example worked for them).

> As a programmer I'd love it if the kids could learn some of what I do, and
> there's plenty of interest, but essentially the article is right. The point
> isn't to make little workers who can write an insertion sort. If you are
> educated, and you wind up in a place where that's needed, it won't take you
> all that long to figure out.

I think the important thing, instead of learning how to program insertion
sort, or even to program (except perhaps as an extra class), is learning how
to reason about basic computing ideas.

Explaining basic ideas like Turing Completeness (and the related ideas of no
way to control how another device does things impacts on sharing always
meaning copying is possible), NP Hardness (allowing people to reason about how
computers actually work, it can only brute force and do clever math, what it
can and can't know), cryptography (trust and privacy), and what software
engineering vs. programming is (like, discuss the size of code bases, where
bugs come from, programming as vocational skill like cooking or writing that
is also useful in other fields, etc).

~~~
daxfohl
My eldest is in first grade and so far I'm not a fan of the Common Core math.

I could make a cynical conspiracy argument that much of it is designed around
promotion of the type of technology presented in the article. "Carry the one"
is the simplest thing to explain with a pencil and a blank piece of paper. All
the additional Common Core techniques seem to require some kind of visual
representation, either via the games sold to the schools and onward to the
parents, or via the overpriced blocks promoted to teach these techniques. Yeah
you could draw it all out, but geesh you end up doing 90% drawing and 10%
teaching. Whether it ends up helping students is moot; it helps put money into
a lot of lobbyists' pocketbooks.

In fact, now that I think about it, I find myself probably believing it.

Even when I'm trying to be positive about it, I find it a bit backwards. I
think giving beginning students a dozen ways to reason about the answer only
adds to the confusion. IMO the better teaching method is give them one way to
get the answer. Once they've mastered that, _then_ start looking at additional
ways to reason about it.

~~~
sethammons
What if the "one way" doesn't work for some students where an alternative way
does? What if the "one way" is interpreted as the only way? A large complaint
about math from students (pre common core) is that there is too much
memorization. "Is x^1 or x^0 1, or was it 0?" When math is a bunch of
memorizations, students can't apply it outside of canned prompts. The goal is
to build mathematical literacy and understanding in a way that is accessible
to more students than the "one way." Time will tell if common core gets us in
the right direction.

~~~
daxfohl
I somewhat think the opposite though. When you're given ten ways to do it,
then it's information overload and you end up just memorizing those ten ways.
When you're given one way to do it then not only do you have a way to do it
that will always work, but also it leaves your brain ready to find further
ways to do it on its own. And that's how thing start to make sense and stick.

Basically, I think for good students, CC just makes them memorize stuff they'd
come up with on their own, and for poor students it creates too much confusion
such that memorization isn't even effective anymore.

------
lalaithion
"Education is the cultivation of a person, not the manufacture of a worker"

It's neither; the american school system is a socialized daycare so that their
parents can go work a full day without worrying about what their kids are up
to.

~~~
bpt3
No, it's not.

If it were, the school day would be more closely in line with work schedules,
rather than being about 6 hours long and starting/ending at wildly different
times depending on the child's age or just what school they attend.

Parents generally have to supplement supervision at school with beforecare
and/or aftercare programs of some sort.

------
jimbob45
I was considered a gifted child from a young age. In third grade, because of
my "giftedness", I was told I could just read instead of participating in the
class skit of the planets of the solar system. I used that time to complete
the entire Chronicles of Narnia (good books btw - skip The Magician's Nephew
and The Last Battle though). I've wondered what would happen if we scrapped
the most useless 30% of my state's school curriculum and instead replaced it
with reading time.

I know sports generally have a metric of "Wins above Replacement" where
players are measured in how many wins they are expected to add to their team
over a hypothetical average player for their position. I've wondered if you
could similarly measure "Learning above reading" where your curriculum is
measured in how much the student learns in comparison to if they had just sat
down and read a book of their choosing for the same amount of time.

~~~
floren
I'm convinced that people would, in general, be much more competent at general
writing and communication if they spent more time reading for pleasure as
kids. I developed a huge vocabulary and an instinctive grasp of grammar
because I read voraciously; constantly immersed in more-or-less decent
writing, I could immediately tell when my own writing was "off".

~~~
slumdev
There's a comment elsewhere in this thread that suggests there's no link
between spelling and higher intelligence.

I disagree. Spelling ability doesn't develop in a vacuum. It's the result of
an individual's having seen the words before. Reading develops spelling
ability. Reading also develops the imagination and one's ability to reason
about abstractions. Reading may not have any influence on spatial reasoning or
math ability, but I think it's the primary driver of verbal intelligence.

------
gumby
about six years ago my son let a campaign to turn back the attempt to
introduce iPads to the school (they'd been piloted in grade 9 and were to be
introduced high school wide the following year). A surprising number of the
9th graders said it was a waste and many kids didn't want them (they already
had phone to get whatever distraction they wanted).

The principal finally took him aside and said "I'm not going to discuss your
points. The fact is if we don't adopt them the parents will complain and
enrolment (in that private school) will drop as we appear to be behind the
times."

Years before I was on the school board and the parents were the biggest
problem. For example there was a panic that "technology" must be added to the
curriculum (apparently the inclined plane or pulley weren't considered
"technology"). The pushback came from the engineers and computer programmers
on the school board, and the computing teachers at the high school level. But
time was taken from something else and all the 2-6 grade kids learned to use
Powerpoint and Word which essentially none of them (now all college age) have
used in years.

~~~
watwut
Then again, engineers and computer programmers routinelly introduce their kids
to scratch, hour of code, code combat, general programming, hacking things and
what not.

At the high school level, kids of my collegues (especially boys) have
significant advantage compared to kids of other people.

~~~
gumby
indeed, but I wouldn't say "then again": I'd say that teaching kids Word isn't
giving them any kind of computational thinking. Teaching them to write a small
piece of code (and that exquisite feeling when you finally get it working) is
very powerful.

It's similar to how mathematics is typically taught to kids in the systems I'm
familiar with (US, DE, AU): mostly as syntactic transformations unattached to
anything useful. Apparently the teachers have a propensity to be "afraid" of
maths which is one reason they might choose to go into early education. The
kids may be able to pass a simple maths test but not really have and feel for
what it is.

~~~
watwut
Yes. But "computer should wait till high school" and "this is bad curriculum"
are not the same complaints.

And also, basic knowledge of word will not harm them. They are not taught word
in deep details, they basically learn few basics - that files exists and can
be opened with it. For many kids it is first encounter with anything remotely
like that.

Again, it is stuff that programmers kids just know by osmosis living with
parents, that is why it looks pointless to teach. But many kids simply dont.

------
dlkf
There is some irksome editorializing, namedropping of irrelevant "theorists",
and some egregious use of anecdata, but for all its many flaws, this is
fundamentally a compelling essay. The author cites legit data as well, and
makes concrete recommendations.

I am grateful to have gone through school before the internet and mobile
devices became mainstream. I think kids today have it significantly harder
than I did.

------
bitwize
I heard of an OLPC-like program in Peru that builds a wooden laptop with a
Raspberry Pi brain to be used to "improve education". While the Peruvians
deserve all props for being able to mass-produce a low-cost laptop for even
the poor in their community, my hot take was, if they wanted to improve
education, give each kid a THEC64 and limit their exposure to an hour (okay,
maybe two) a day. Have them spend the rest of their free time outside.

I think computers have the most to teach us when we are the ones teaching them
(i.e., programming them), and that the promise of 1980s computers was that
they could do whatever you want (that was within their capacity), the drawback
being that they came with very limited functionality out of the box and must
be programmed (or loaded with external software) to be useful; whereas today,
computers and computer-like devices such as phones come with lots of
functionality out of the box, but they do things that might not be what you
want. (Crash due to brittle OS/drivers, sudden UI or functionality changes due
to "mandatory updates", DRM, spyware...) This plus the ready accessibility of
obscene or offensive content makes me very wary about giving internet-
connected devices to the very young (< 14 years or so). If kids are to be
exposed to computers, we should teach them to be their masters, not their
slaves. And we should strictly temper screen time, because their growing
bodies and minds need time outside more than they need time in front of a
screen.

------
temporallobe
I am gravely concerned about using too much tech in early education, as this
will assuredly hinder the development of critical fine motor skills such as
handwriting, drawing, painting, sculpting, among many other skills, all of
which I learned as a child. Not to mention all of the physical play we had. As
a child I remember having to invent games, stories, and adventures. In other
words, we were forced to use our imagination, for everything. Perhaps I’m just
a cynical and aging critic, but I feel like the overuse of technology in
general will make future generations of children lazier, and therefore less
creative. I already feel that my own life has been impacted in this way.

Case in point: The widespread use of Grammarly is dumbing down everyone. Why
actually learn proper grammar, spelling, common idioms, and syntax, if AI can
basically do it for you? What as a society do we gain from such things? I
can’t help but imagine that at some point our understanding of language will
become so simplified that we’ll need a proxy language to express “real”
phrases so that all we have to do is bang out basic ideas on some kind of
modified keyboard which will translate it to real language.

~~~
js8
Young people just use their motor skills differently, for example for computer
games or juggling (pen spinning, cardistry). These skills are now much more
available thanks to YT and Internet in general.

I think there is a good case to be made that kids actually learn much faster
than ever, thanks to things like YT and Wikipedia. Before the Internet, it was
very difficult to connect to really skillful people in the world, there were
pockets of talent but really disconnected. If you were outside the pocket, you
were pretty much screwed. Today it's not the case.

Of course you can question usefulness of the skills learned, but that is a
separate question, I think. Fashion in these skills is probably faster than in
the past, for better or worse.

------
daxfohl
I half think that the entirety of Common Core Math is designed by lobbyists
promoting the type of technology presented in the article. "Carry the one" is
the simplest thing to explain with a pencil and a blank piece of paper. All
the new Common Core techniques seem to require some kind of visual
representation, either via the games sold to the schools and onward to the
parents, or via the overpriced blocks sold to teach these techniques. Yeah as
a parent I could draw it all out, but then you end up doing 90% drawing and
10% teaching; it's pretty impractical. So I could see cynically that whether
it ends up helping students is moot; it helps put money into a lot of
lobbyists' pocketbooks and that's all that matters.

NB Even when I'm trying to be positive about it, I find it a bit backwards. I
think giving beginning students a dozen ways to reason about the answer only
adds to the confusion. IMO the better teaching method is give them one rote
mechanical way to get the answer and explain that as best you can. Once
they've mastered that, then start looking at additional ways to reason about
it (if necessary).

~~~
mrr54
What are these 'common core math' techniques? I went to primary school in New
Zealand. In around 2005 they introduced a new way of teaching mathematics that
we referred to as the 'numeracy programme'. It wasn't very popular with
students and parents obviously all thought it was crap because parents are
naturally scared of change in education negatively affecting their kids.

But when we actually did it, it was basically fine. Obviously everyone still
learnt the standard place value algorithms (by that point we already knew
them, and they didn't stop teaching them to younger kids), but people also
learnt other strategies like: if I'm adding 47 to 54, I can simplify that by
instead adding 50 (47 + 3) to 57 (54 + 3), which is 107. It was about learning
what you to terms like 47 + 54 without changing the value.

Another one I think I remember being mentioned was thinking of 124 x 52 as 100
x 52 + 20 x 52 + 4 x 52. Of course, that's exactly what you're doing with the
standard algorithm! The 'algorithm' you learn when you're 5 is just the same
as the 'strategy' you learn when you're 10, but presented as something you do
on paper rather than something you do in your head.

I also remember learning about ways to approximate these sorts of things. So
you want to work out 4241 x 1245 - well you can work it out, but you should
probably also work out what 4000 x 1000 is and use that to check that your
answer is of the right order of magnitude. And if you're just working
something out quickly, then maybe all you need is 4200 x 1300, that's
obviously close enough for any practical usage.

I don't remember exactly what I learnt then which to me is a sign it was
probably very effective: I internalised the strategies, some of which I was
probably already using, some of which I probably didn't remember but thought
about again later. It all seems very obvious now, of course, but it's
different when you're 10.

~~~
daxfohl
> if I'm adding 47 to 54, I can simplify that by instead adding 50 (47 + 3) to
> 57 (54 + 3), which is 107

47+53=107???

Haha, okay I get it, it was a slip. But it's kind of the point from my
perspective. All these different techniques of moving stuff around seems
fraught with ways to misunderstand it or muck it up. At best they should be
supplementary skills, and shouldn't be taught as the primary techniques. Per
Common Core guidelines, or at least per the stuff my first grader is bringing
home, it seems like all these tricks are taught as the foundation, which seems
backwards.

Maybe my opinion will change as my kids progress. I'm by no means married to
my stance on the approach, and would be happy if it does indeed lead to better
understanding. But now I'm not seeing it as a great approach to math, and the
cynical side of me can imagine that there's more money and politics there than
people think.

~~~
IggleSniggle
I dunno. Having an intuition for _why_ 12x6=72, etc all the way on up through
integrals, Taylor series, and the rest of K-12 math just seems a lot more
intellectually stimulating, and therefore useful to the development of the
mind to me.

I never understood the kids who "just wanted to know how to get the answer."
Like, any monkey can follow a protocol. Why does it work? That's the brain
muscle worth growing.

Mathematics is a foundation for systematic logical thinking. Rote memorization
comes in so that you don't _need_ to work through the why once you have
mastered the why of that problem; to enable thinking about more complex
relationships. But if you didn't really get the simpler relationship, maybe
it's not time to move on...

Disclaimer: I have zero personal experience with Common Core outside the kind
of anecdotes I come across like in this thread

~~~
daxfohl
I agree in principle. Just the implementation of common core seems backwards.
My kid is struggling to make sense of it, and I don't have any good way of
helping her because it all seems backwards to me. I did teach her carry the
one, like I learned, and she picked it right up. But I stopped that too
because I didn't want to confuse her. So now I'm somewhat clueless what to do
to help. The teacher recommended those dumb video games, after we've worked
all our lives to limit her screen time.

That's why I say common core, even though the goal is more understanding and
less memorization, actually leads toward the opposite.

------
devmunchies
Article mentions Waldorf. A good, old article about Waldorf in Silicon Valley:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-
sch...](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-school-in-
silicon-valley-technology-can-wait.html)

I just started my son at Waldorf in the Sierra Nevadas. Would recommend to
anyone if you have one near you.

~~~
wiredfool
Waldorf does a lot of good things for pretty bonkers reasons. It kind of
depends on what the philosophy your particular Waldorf school if that’s an
issue or not, and what kind of side effects that has.

~~~
sitkack
We did a Waldorf tour and a Montessori tour as I am Piaget constructivist fan.
Waldorf was kooky-dooks, the specific Montessori had no soul, I am sure most
probably do.

We ended up going with a preschool that was a chaotic hodgepodge, the best
part of which they had two mandatory outside play times, no exceptions for
weather.

Waldorf is extremely conforming. Good intentions with the wrong focus.

------
zemo
the whole "computers in schools aren't working" part of the article is being
overly focused in these comments. the important part of the article is this:

> STEM ideologues and real educators are pursuing very different goals. The
> purpose of edu­cation in the sciences is to cultivate children as knowers in
> and of the world. The purpose of STEM programs is just to create more of a
> certain kind of worker.

as someone with a computer engineering degree currently working on an MFA, I
couldn't agree more. I have learned more about the consequences and impact of
my work in a half year of MFA studies than I did in five years of engineering
studies.

------
thrower123
Once we got laptops in high school, almost all of the down-time after
completing assignments that I used to spend reading in middle school was
converted to playing Flash games or screwing around with GarageBand.

~~~
Nasrudith
I remember how it was before - they just screwed around in different ways such
that doodling violent or rude stick figures was one of the better uses of the
down time compared to outright mischief.

------
type0
Such a gobbledygook of an article, sure some tech spending isn't helpful and
may even be harmful to education but this author doesn't even fully explain
what he means by "technology".

~~~
zemo
the entire "STEM Against Science" section is about what he means by
"technology" so I am really not convinced you've read the article.

> The sciences and mathematics have a historic place in the cur­riculum, and
> technology does not, for the simple reason that the latter is not inherently
> “about” anything. Absent human contributions on specific topics, cut off
> from the subject matter of academic work, technology is nothing—an electron
> microscope without any samples, darkened VR goggles, an empty spreadsheet.
> Specializing in techne as such means trying to teach people to be good at
> “making” without having any idea of what to make, or why to make it.

~~~
type0
I don't have to convince you of anything, that quote is exactly the terrible
nonsensical word salad that don't explain his premises. Jumbling all
technology as if it is a single phenomenon just makes the author sound high on
his own rambling intellectualism.

edit:

> technology is nothing—an electron microscope without any samples,

Pretty sure there's actually not many electron microscopes and quite a lot of
samples in schools.

------
duxup
I think 'education' is largely just not aware how best to USE tech.

Teacher's struggle with whatever applications were selected for them.

Schools struggle to pick good systems / programs to use.

It's early stages.

~~~
sitkack
We have had Apple II in the class room from what the mid 80s? It is not early
stages.

~~~
duxup
One computer in a room is dramatically different than today.

~~~
war1025
I graduated high school in 2007. My entire K-12, we would occasionally go to
the computer lab to do things. The lab had enough computers for everyone in
the class to use one.

Granted, that's a lot different from each student having a computer in class
all the time.

I think the school did actually buy a cart of portable laptops that teachers
could check out for doing assignments in class. Mostly I found it to be
unproductive. Then again, I found a lot of teaching techniques to be
unproductive.

------
dpeck
its because the people who are making these programs don't actually have an
understanding of technology (just like technologists don't, as a general rule,
understand education).

These folks so that successful people are using computers and think that using
computers is the goal, not just a handy tool for doing stuff that we're slow
at really fast.

To quote Dijkstra, "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy
is about telescopes"

------
virtuous_signal
>The sciences and mathematics have a historic place in the cur­riculum, and
technology does not, for the simple reason that the latter is not inherently
“about” anything. Absent human contributions on specific topics, cut off from
the subject matter of academic work, technology is nothing—an electron
microscope without any samples, darkened VR goggles, an empty spreadsheet.
Specializing in techne as such means trying to teach people to be good at
“making” without having any idea of what to make, or why to make it.

I wonder what STEM education would have been centuries ago -- a 60-minute
class period learning about the inner workings of a steam engine? or how to
operate a spinning jenny? It would certainly look out of place in a school
curriculum, and better learned on the job or in an apprenticeship.

As a counterpoint to the author, I would point out that universal public
education is a recent thing. Sure, maybe classroom education should focus on
"the good, the true, and the beautiful" but then why should we expect everyone
to do it?

~~~
throwaway023421
I studied engineering in a country with a non-idiotic university program.

Books (in b/w), pencil and paper. Lessons using a whiteboard or blackboard
with chalk. Desks and chairs.

Some of the rooms where exactly the same used a century ago.

You learn theory, not how some "new technology of the year" works.

> I would point out that universal public education is a recent thing.

"recent" as in french revolution.

> Sure, maybe classroom education should focus on "the good, the true, and the
> beautiful" but then why should we expect everyone to do it?

Yes.

------
kingkawn
It is important to prioritize interpersonal interactions from a young age.
Screen time is indirect interaction. It is essential for them to learn how to
resolve conflict, play together, and make friends. activities with other
people are invaluable to Social, emotional, and intellectual development.

------
Hermel
In case you understand German, it is worth reading the books (or watching the
talks) of psychologist Manfred Spitzer. He makes compelling arguments on why
in particular our children suffer from “digital dementia”. Among other things,
he argues that our brain learns much better when writing with pen and paper
than when writing on a keyboard. This resonates with my own experience at
university: I remembered stuff much better when I took notes on paper than
when I did so using a computer.

Links: [https://www.amazon.de/Digitale-Demenz-unsere-Verstand-
bringe...](https://www.amazon.de/Digitale-Demenz-unsere-Verstand-
bringen/dp/3426300567)
[https://youtu.be/MRrPbNLhEuQ](https://youtu.be/MRrPbNLhEuQ)

------
cryptica
Everything I learned came out of a computer so these statistics certaintly
don't apply to me.

I found human teachers terrible at explaining things. Their explanations are
often full of holes and they expect you to move at their pace - They don't
give you the time to absorb the content. I felt that math class was just for
show. I never learned anything from it.

I failed math in my final year of school, then I went to university and I got
distinction in math. The difference was that at university, I was watching
videos online and using free online interactive graphing software and
programming matrix transformations.

The problem is not technology in general. It's using the wrong technologies.

------
tmaly
I agree with parts of the article such as the issue with common core
requirements that make it easier for computers to grade.

I do not see STEM being taught as an issue as I think science helps move us
forward as a species.

Connecticut passed a statue last year requiring inclusion of computer science
in curriculum. The one issue I have with this is they want to retrain the
teachers and make them subject matter experts in computer science.

Public Act 19-128 (“An Act Concerning The Inclusion Of Computer Science
Instruction In The Public School Curriculum, Programs Of Teacher Preparation
And In-Service Training Programs For Teachers”)

------
rosstex
>American colleges graduate 50 percent more students each year than are hired
into fields like computer and information science and engineering.

I've been told the opposite many times by many different people. Is this true?

------
emmelaich
My kid made a small complaint about missing out on the laptop refresh for his
year; it happened the next after he had left the school.

I pointed out that you don't need a laptop at all to learn.

Abraham Lincoln famously used the back of a shovel to write on! (occasionally)

[https://www.lincolncollection.org/discover/ask-an-
expert/qa-...](https://www.lincolncollection.org/discover/ask-an-expert/qa-
archive/did-the-young-lincoln-do-his-homework-writing-with-coal-on-the-back-
of-a-shovel/)

~~~
MadWombat
> I pointed out that you don't need a laptop at all to learn

I am going to assume that, being a good parent, that is what you do. That when
you need to learn something new, you do not research it on your phone or
laptop, you go to a library, check out a number of books and reference
materials, read them and take notes (maybe not on a shovel, but on a physical
writing medium of some sort).

That you did not blow off your kid's concern and left a smug comment about it
on HN.

~~~
emmelaich
Well, yeah. We have a ton of books, including a set of the Encyclopedia
Britannica. There is a very strong tradition of learning in our family.

That said, it was no "blow off"; having a slightly newer laptop is not
something a student should be concerned with. And they understand that.

But also ... I think researching with your phone or laptop is perfectly fine
as long as it is done with care. And is not the only method of research!

ps Chrome spelling checker flagged "Encyclopedia" as a misspelling. Hmm.

~~~
yorwba
It's properly spelled "Encyclopædia Britannica"
[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Encyclopaedia-Britannica-
En...](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Encyclopaedia-Britannica-English-
language-reference-work)

~~~
emmelaich
It was flagged before I started typing the "Britannica" bit.

------
nl
Can anyone find a source for that "Give Students a Laptop to Knock off Half a
Letter Grade" graph?

It is credited to PISA, but isn't mentioned in the references section and
isn't obvious in the PISA publications list: [https://www.oecd-
ilibrary.org/education/pisa_19963777?page=1](https://www.oecd-
ilibrary.org/education/pisa_19963777?page=1)

I wonder if technology here is actually a proxy variable for country?

~~~
Quiark
Also can't find it, even if I google the label. All I can get is another study
which finds the same but attributes it to distraction

~~~
nl
Isn't it ironic that the complaint is about technology, and yet none of us can
find anything to back up the claim?

------
partingshots
TV is rotting children’s minds. We need to ban television!

------
ravedave5
"the use of technology in schools actually lowers test scores in reading,
math, and science, damages long-term memory, and induces addiction" \-
citation needed.

~~~
fenwick67
There are 38 citations in TFA

~~~
Ensorceled
Also, this is a claim in the essay's introductory paragraph and the claim is
supported by paragraphs and citations in the rest of the essay. This knee jerk
"citation needed" on HN is getting tiresome.

~~~
yorwba
The claim that "technology in schools actually lowers test scores in reading,
math, and science" is not supported by identifiable sources, so some
skepticism is warranted.

~~~
Ensorceled
Later in the essay, the author has supporting examples AND references for his
opening claims. For lowering test scores there are two examples that I found
in a few moments of looking.

> In a study of over seven hundred students at West Point, those with
> computers in class had test scores 0.2 standard deviations below those of
> students who did not.12

> In one study, the final exam scores of students whose class permitted
> electronic devices were 5 percentage points lower than those whose classes
> did not.13

~~~
yorwba
I was talking about the figure claiming to show changes in PISA scores caused
by various technologies, for which I can't find the source.

I didn't look closer at the West Point study, but I did read reference 13,
which by the way required the use of electronic devices for in-class testing,
so it did not actually compare classes permitting electronic devices against
those that did not. Rather, it had a proctor remind students to put their
devices away when they weren't using them for the lecture.

