Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every generation writes this about the subsequence going back to ancient Greece. There's never any truth to it.

Yes there is. When they worried in ancient Greece that writing would lead to people no longer memorizing the entire Illiad, they weren't wrong about that. I doubt there's been a human being alive in centuries, maybe even millenia, who has memorized the Illiad, but the Greeks used to do it. What the ancient Greeks could not have forseen was the positive benefits of writing for other things would (I think) outweigh the loss of that much memorization.

Will social media culture have benefits that are equivalent to writing? It...sure doesn't seem like it.

People definitely still memorize the Iliad

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My siblings a college professor. He says it’s really bad for years and gotten worse. Critical thought is dead and there is no interest in reviving it. It’s bad news

That's because we no longer teach kids in a way that makes sense to teach them critical thinking. First stuff their heads with facts in elementary (so they have a basis from which to even begin to think), then teach them logic in middle, then teach the persuasion in high school. Dorothy Sayers was right.

They're now being taught persuasive writing in elementary school. That's one of the things that is leading to all these unintended consequences. Research is no longer about gathering general information that then gets analayzed. Research nowadays is entirely about finding support for the argument they come up with first.

Persuasive writing is a standard written format that has been around since I was a kid (and I just mentioned ditto machines in one of my posts, so that's a long, long time). There is nothing new about it. The skill being taught is not research - it's crafting a written argument so that one supports one's statements. It's about learning the logic of what can soundly support a statement and what can't. Only when one understands that can one actually read and understand research. Researching is a completely different skill, and writing a research paper is a much more elevated and advanced form of writing. Learning how to support an argument is vital - and supporting some stupid idea that you came up with on a whim, perhaps even supporting a stupid idea you don't even agree with, is a very important skill. It's sometimes called "debate." And I'm sure you've heard of that - definitely not new.

Thank you for your condesencion but I am fullt aware of what persuasive writing is and it is beyond stupid to teach persuasive writing before expository writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my daughter's elementary school conference I asked a few questions regarding prepping for upcoming state tests and the teacher (who I love btw) said "we can't do it that way anymore as the kids don't have the attention spans."

On my end, I have worked hard to ensure that my kids have not become technological zombies. However, I feel like they are doomed anyway because they will never be challenged or have high learning standards placed on them as they are dumbing down their public school experience. It just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Homeschool or send them to a private school.

DP. I DO homeschool. We primarily use textbooks. I am more concerned about ability to think than attention spans. There is a lot of development that is not happening inside the brain of kids today that is necessary regardless of their ability to access google instantly on their phones. There will be huge consequences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every generation writes this about the subsequence going back to ancient Greece. There's never any truth to it.

Yes there is. When they worried in ancient Greece that writing would lead to people no longer memorizing the entire Illiad, they weren't wrong about that. I doubt there's been a human being alive in centuries, maybe even millenia, who has memorized the Illiad, but the Greeks used to do it. What the ancient Greeks could not have forseen was the positive benefits of writing for other things would (I think) outweigh the loss of that much memorization.

Will social media culture have benefits that are equivalent to writing? It...sure doesn't seem like it.

I wouldn't trade having the Internet for the ability to recite the Iliad from memory, that's for damn sure.

I love books but now I mostly read on the Internet because it keeps my brain busy making all sorts of connections and pursuing broad interests. I barely watch recorded/broadcast media, even videos, because I like controlling the speed with which I move through material instead of the speed at which it is shown to me. So I've been heavily influenced by a smartphone-based world even though I'm a heavy reader.

I think the current crisis in advanced literacy is not due to social media. It's due to the crisis in K-12 education. I don't blame the teachers, although I think teacher quality has dropped because we don't respect teachers as we should, they are low-paid, and bright women have a lot more job options now. I also favor back to basics and getting tech out of classrooms. I don't think it does much. See Amanda Ripley's Smartest Kids in the World book for insights on that.

With my own kids, I think they would have learned a lot more and liked school better if their schools and classmates were more functional. I think their writing has been most impacted by the short nature of the assignments, low expectations of quality, very little red ink correction, and poor choice of topics. Over their entire K-12 years, I've hated their best practices writing curriculums since about 1st grade and my views are shared by many parents in my district. The single worst offense is too much writing related to one's own self instead of fiction or impersonal non-fiction assignments. Kids don't really like all this journaling and navel-gazing self-analysis that educators believe kids find relatable and fun to write about. We've come a long way from writing about "My summer vacation".

I'm expecting my oldest to get lower marks for writing skills when he goes to college but I will be directing him to the tutoring center & writing center. He will likely be an average writer incoming and possibly outgoing from college. However, I think he will easily be at the level of my average coworkers so I am not worried. We have focused on remediating math during high school and haven't had time to work on other, more subtle pandemic-related deficits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My siblings a college professor. He says it’s really bad for years and gotten worse. Critical thought is dead and there is no interest in reviving it. It’s bad news

That's because we no longer teach kids in a way that makes sense to teach them critical thinking. First stuff their heads with facts in elementary (so they have a basis from which to even begin to think), then teach them logic in middle, then teach the persuasion in high school. Dorothy Sayers was right.

They're now being taught persuasive writing in elementary school. That's one of the things that is leading to all these unintended consequences. Research is no longer about gathering general information that then gets analayzed. Research nowadays is entirely about finding support for the argument they come up with first.

PP. Persuasive writing is not the problem. I understand what you're trying to say but in my school district there's not enough persuasive writing to create little spinmeisters. There's just not enough factual non-fiction and analytical writing. There are more explicit media literacy units though - those are actually useful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What grade? I teach kindergarten and so many kids are brain damaged from too much technology. Their eyes can barely focus on a picture in a book or on words. They haven't been able to watch a short animated movie for many years.

It was a college course.

I don’t know, OP. I teach at a medical school, and teaching is very different than it was in 2010. Students aren’t going to listen to you just present the facts anymore. No matter how good you are at distilling down complex information and making it digestible, there is someone on YouTube doing it better.
You will have better luck if you make the class more interactive and expect they will get the fact-based data somewhere else.

Does that not seem crazy to you?

No. It doesn’t seem crazy. If I want to talk about psychopharmacology, I do a case presentation and answer questions about people I have seen in clinic. Maybe talk about it in part of a panel discussion/Q&A with patients who have schizophrenia. I don’t talk about dopamine pathways anymore. I tell them it’s going to be on the exam and put up a YouTube link that they can go to.
Why would they listen to me if they can listen to someone who teaches it better? If the goal is to teach students and not to stroke your own ego, it’s perfectly reasonable.

But they are tested on dopamine pathways anyway, and you haven't provided any support? Yeah, I wouldn't be happy about paying $74,000 ish per year for something the kids could just watch on Youtube. If they want to talk to schizophrenia patients, send them to Union Station.

[Anonymous]

Learning By Chromebook is a big reason why we moved our elementary student to private school - where textbooks are still used.

There's no reason for students to be on computers all day, every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My siblings a college professor. He says it’s really bad for years and gotten worse. Critical thought is dead and there is no interest in reviving it. It’s bad news

That's because we no longer teach kids in a way that makes sense to teach them critical thinking. First stuff their heads with facts in elementary (so they have a basis from which to even begin to think), then teach them logic in middle, then teach the persuasion in high school. Dorothy Sayers was right.

They're now being taught persuasive writing in elementary school. That's one of the things that is leading to all these unintended consequences. Research is no longer about gathering general information that then gets analayzed. Research nowadays is entirely about finding support for the argument they come up with first.

PP. Persuasive writing is not the problem. I understand what you're trying to say but in my school district there's not enough persuasive writing to create little spinmeisters. There's just not enough factual non-fiction and analytical writing. There are more explicit media literacy units though - those are actually useful.

Maybe your district is different than mine. In mine it is almost entirely persuasive writing with a little bit of narrative. Kids, starting in at least fourth grade, are constantly asked to provide their opinion on subjects that they do not have anything close to the background knowledge needed to have an informed opinion.

Obviously it is not the sole problem but the elevation of opinion above fact has knock on effects that we see all over the place

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My siblings a college professor. He says it’s really bad for years and gotten worse. Critical thought is dead and there is no interest in reviving it. It’s bad news

That's because we no longer teach kids in a way that makes sense to teach them critical thinking. First stuff their heads with facts in elementary (so they have a basis from which to even begin to think), then teach them logic in middle, then teach the persuasion in high school. Dorothy Sayers was right.

They're now being taught persuasive writing in elementary school. That's one of the things that is leading to all these unintended consequences. Research is no longer about gathering general information that then gets analayzed. Research nowadays is entirely about finding support for the argument they come up with first.

PP. Persuasive writing is not the problem. I understand what you're trying to say but in my school district there's not enough persuasive writing to create little spinmeisters. There's just not enough factual non-fiction and analytical writing. There are more explicit media literacy units though - those are actually useful.

Maybe your district is different than mine. In mine it is almost entirely persuasive writing with a little bit of narrative. Kids, starting in at least fourth grade, are constantly asked to provide their opinion on subjects that they do not have anything close to the background knowledge needed to have an informed opinion.

Obviously it is not the sole problem but the elevation of opinion above fact has knock on effects that we see all over the place

Yes. Sounds very different. There have been occasional persuasive writing units over K-12. And way too much "small moments" slice of life writing, journaling, and "about me" ridiculousness. Boys hate this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My siblings a college professor. He says it’s really bad for years and gotten worse. Critical thought is dead and there is no interest in reviving it. It’s bad news

That's because we no longer teach kids in a way that makes sense to teach them critical thinking. First stuff their heads with facts in elementary (so they have a basis from which to even begin to think), then teach them logic in middle, then teach the persuasion in high school. Dorothy Sayers was right.

They're now being taught persuasive writing in elementary school. That's one of the things that is leading to all these unintended consequences. Research is no longer about gathering general information that then gets analayzed. Research nowadays is entirely about finding support for the argument they come up with first.

PP. Persuasive writing is not the problem. I understand what you're trying to say but in my school district there's not enough persuasive writing to create little spinmeisters. There's just not enough factual non-fiction and analytical writing. There are more explicit media literacy units though - those are actually useful.

My son is in high school now in fcps and at least since middle school he has had nothing but non-fiction and analytical writing. In fact, it's almost too much. He spends hours doing exercises that involve reading something and then writing paragraph-long answers to questions where he has to quote the text and cite his sources, and then writing a short paper or presenting something based on that. He has to come with a hypothesis and everything. He has never had a persuasive writing assignment, unless it was in elementary and was done in class where I didn't see it. He does this for both English class and History. It's so similar that I have concluded this is the focus of the current curriculum, so it's probably the same way throughout fcps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every generation writes this about the subsequence going back to ancient Greece. There's never any truth to it.

Yes there is. When they worried in ancient Greece that writing would lead to people no longer memorizing the entire Illiad, they weren't wrong about that. I doubt there's been a human being alive in centuries, maybe even millenia, who has memorized the Illiad, but the Greeks used to do it. What the ancient Greeks could not have forseen was the positive benefits of writing for other things would (I think) outweigh the loss of that much memorization.

Will social media culture have benefits that are equivalent to writing? It...sure doesn't seem like it.

People definitely still memorize the Iliad

Find me someone who has memorized the entire thing - I'd love to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My siblings a college professor. He says it’s really bad for years and gotten worse. Critical thought is dead and there is no interest in reviving it. It’s bad news

That's because we no longer teach kids in a way that makes sense to teach them critical thinking. First stuff their heads with facts in elementary (so they have a basis from which to even begin to think), then teach them logic in middle, then teach the persuasion in high school. Dorothy Sayers was right.

They're now being taught persuasive writing in elementary school. That's one of the things that is leading to all these unintended consequences. Research is no longer about gathering general information that then gets analayzed. Research nowadays is entirely about finding support for the argument they come up with first.

PP. Persuasive writing is not the problem. I understand what you're trying to say but in my school district there's not enough persuasive writing to create little spinmeisters. There's just not enough factual non-fiction and analytical writing. There are more explicit media literacy units though - those are actually useful.

My son is in high school now in fcps and at least since middle school he has had nothing but non-fiction and analytical writing. In fact, it's almost too much. He spends hours doing exercises that involve reading something and then writing paragraph-long answers to questions where he has to quote the text and cite his sources, and then writing a short paper or presenting something based on that. He has to come with a hypothesis and everything. He has never had a persuasive writing assignment, unless it was in elementary and was done in class where I didn't see it. He does this for both English class and History. It's so similar that I have concluded this is the focus of the current curriculum, so it's probably the same way throughout fcps.

That doesn't mean it's expository rather than persuasive writing. Persuasive writing is any assignment that asks for an opinion. Expository writing on the other hand is pure compare and contrast informational without opinion.

I started noticing it in ELA. Every assignment, no matter the subject, asked for an opinion supported by citations. And what's more most of the readings themselves were persuasive instead of expository.

Honestly, I think this was done to try to make things easier for the kids and promote self-advocacy. It's just like every reading assignment seems to be some sort of first person historical fiction. I get why they started doing it, trying to make events more interesting, experiential and personally relevant. But there are tradeoffs to those benefits and now we have a society where debate replaces analysis and subjectivity replaces objectivity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That matches what teachers are saying on the teacher sub-reddits. It’s concerning.

I went to a series of presentations for schoolchildren recently, too, and found that today's kids have little patience for some speakers. It's possible that some subjects aren't very engaging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every generation writes this about the subsequence going back to ancient Greece. There's never any truth to it.

Yes there is. When they worried in ancient Greece that writing would lead to people no longer memorizing the entire Illiad, they weren't wrong about that. I doubt there's been a human being alive in centuries, maybe even millenia, who has memorized the Illiad, but the Greeks used to do it. What the ancient Greeks could not have forseen was the positive benefits of writing for other things would (I think) outweigh the loss of that much memorization.

Will social media culture have benefits that are equivalent to writing? It...sure doesn't seem like it.

I wouldn't trade having the Internet for the ability to recite the Iliad from memory, that's for damn sure.

I love books but now I mostly read on the Internet because it keeps my brain busy making all sorts of connections and pursuing broad interests. I barely watch recorded/broadcast media, even videos, because I like controlling the speed with which I move through material instead of the speed at which it is shown to me. So I've been heavily influenced by a smartphone-based world even though I'm a heavy reader.

I think the current crisis in advanced literacy is not due to social media. It's due to the crisis in K-12 education. I don't blame the teachers, although I think teacher quality has dropped because we don't respect teachers as we should, they are low-paid, and bright women have a lot more job options now. I also favor back to basics and getting tech out of classrooms. I don't think it does much. See Amanda Ripley's Smartest Kids in the World book for insights on that.

With my own kids, I think they would have learned a lot more and liked school better if their schools and classmates were more functional. I think their writing has been most impacted by the short nature of the assignments, low expectations of quality, very little red ink correction, and poor choice of topics. Over their entire K-12 years, I've hated their best practices writing curriculums since about 1st grade and my views are shared by many parents in my district. The single worst offense is too much writing related to one's own self instead of fiction or impersonal non-fiction assignments. Kids don't really like all this journaling and navel-gazing self-analysis that educators believe kids find relatable and fun to write about. We've come a long way from writing about "My summer vacation".

I'm expecting my oldest to get lower marks for writing skills when he goes to college but I will be directing him to the tutoring center & writing center. He will likely be an average writer incoming and possibly outgoing from college. However, I think he will easily be at the level of my average coworkers so I am not worried. We have focused on remediating math during high school and haven't had time to work on other, more subtle pandemic-related deficits.

LOL you clearly have never even read it.

[Anonymous]

You're pretty dismissive of something you clearly know nothing about. Earphones are a commonly used accommodation for kids with disabilities. Usage allows them to show up and participate.