It was incredibly depressing. We decided to send our kids elsewhere.
[1] Nothing against digital art, but I strongly feel young kids should be working with actual physical materials.
Any time he had the chromebook out, he just played webgames. Not an exaggeration, he would go back on task when the teacher corrected then switch tabs the moment the teacher was not looking over his shoulder. I told the teacher to take the chromebook away if he did that and the teacher said "but then he can't do the assignment." The obvious reply was "he also can't do the assignment if he's playing games on the chromebook" but that somehow didn't compute.
We finally got him a plan under section 504 of the ADA that stated if he was off-task on the chromebook, then it must be removed. The teacher ignored this. We complained. The teacher still ignored it. We paid a lawyer to draft a scary sounding letter and the teacher finally complied. We sent his younger sibling to a private school.
5 of these teachers had zero issues keeping him off of the device (now an iPad). The sixth was (from what we could tell) just not particularly gifted at classroom management in general. Anyway missing out on some unknown fraction of 1/6th of his education was much less of an issue than missing out on 90% of the classroom time (thankfully there were no chromebooks in PE or Music class yet; surely they'll find a way to do that too at some point).
And the worst part is that this isn't new. Back when I went to elementary school (early 90's) this already happened in the computer lab. A few years later my mom volunteered in the computer classes; one had internet, so naturally as soon as she turned her back there was a gaggle of kids around it to look at nudes.
But they haven't learned. And they got a bag of money post-covid to help kids catch up on missed classes, which they spent on computers and IT, and some opt-in external homework help.
Kids's attention spans (and their parents, for that matter) are all over the place, giving them any screen will just trigger their dopamine hit seeking automatisms.
I mean yes, everyone needs to learn how to use a computer - a lot of these kids didn't know what a file is - but make it focused, make it supervised, and lock these systems down.
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/210566-house-gop-blocks-d...
I don’t use it so this isn’t directly relevant to me but I’d been looking forward to some Colorado-style boosts of tax revenue other than my property taxes.
We left appalled. We sent him to a public school instead, where they use screens much less (although they do use them, sadly) and they have books. I don't know to what extent this is a voluntary choice or just because they have less money to buy gadgets, but the result is better anyway.
Preschools definitely brag about having no toys with electronics and the posher the elementary school, the less screen time they have.
At best, it's a mixed bag.
When we visited schools, we were also very surprised at how many schools encourage screen time. One of the most reputed school near us require each child to have an ipad at 6 years old. I'm completely against that. I see no value in introducing an addictive locked down device this early on. Instead, we chose a Montessori school that forbids electronic devices on campus except for the computing room where primary school children can go with a clear objective in mind (research, robotics project).
But, it was really surprising to me that that school is the exception and most highly ranked school have significantly more exposure to screens even at a very young age
On the other hand, these kids will eventually end up in a world saturated with displays and maybe even AR, so there's some argument for getting them involved with digital stuff at some point.
And that's how the argument usually goes, but I don't buy it: every one of us who attended schools without devices learned to pick up that skill some other way. And usually without any problems.
In my opinion, the trade-off swings hard into the wrong direction: there's much more downsides to using devices in the classroom than upsides for the most part.
Everyone? You sure? That has not been my experience at all. (It's also a very bold statement on your part to be speaking for a whole generation of people.)
My experience is that people who are not absolutely raving mad about tech do not, in fact, pick up computer skills on their own. My parents have been struggling with technology their whole lives (even basic things like writing in Word, keeping an email address book or bookmarking websites). I picked up these things as a child but I was also interested in programming and networking and more complex tech things, and it was blindingly obvious to me that this is rare because there was maybe one, at most two other kids like that in my school. Nobody else in class had the faintest conception of what programming is really like.
Even today, while talking to people online as well as offline, I am constantly reminded of this. People do not pick up tech skills, period. That includes people in intellectual fields (math teachers, puzzle enthusiasts, what have you), so it's not a matter of intelligence.
Now, I want to make clear that I'm not saying people need tech skills, or that tech skills should be taught in schools, or that a lack of tech skills is somehow an indication of some sort of lack or decline. I'm actually of the opposite view: I think most things taught to children in schools are useless in later life and I think we are squandering children's talents, curiosity and creativity by trying to force, coerce and mold them. As such, I agree with the sentiment that sitting every child in front of a screen for hours every day is detrimental. I just wanted to clear up this vast misunderstanding that just because you picked up certain skills without being taught, everyone would. It does not work that way. You picked it up because you were interested and passionate about the subject. Not everyone is.
What’s easier and cheaper than opening a book, writing with pen and paper?
We ended up going to a private school. Our thought was bad habits are hard to break.
I think, if you went back to the origin of the term "AI" and tried to teach an introduction to the very fundamentals, this could actually be a fun and inspiring class - one that might not even need a lot of computer knowledge.
There are a number of board games with "self-playing" antagonists that are governed through clever sets of game rules.
There is also the historical predecessor of computer science, cybernetics, that dealt with self-governing analogous control systems, like thermostats.
Finally, there are the classical pathfinding algorithms (Depth-First/Breadth-First, Dijkstra, A*) which I still think are some of the most "bang for the buck" algorithms in terms of "intelligent-looking" behavior vs simplicity of the algorithm.
All that stuff could be engaging for high school students in the author's "hands-on" way.
All that of course if the "AI" class is really about giving a broad introduction to the field, and not just "we have to put ChatGPT into the curriculum somehow".
> After all, flashing screen surely release more endorphins than non-interactive physical exhibits
The irony is that this might not even be true. In the article, the author observed that the physical exhibits were much more interesting to the kids than the screens.
And this, Turing, and Shannon predate the Macy conferences / Ratio Club by a few years, so I'm not sure I'd call cybernetics a predecessor so much as a defunct offshoot. Though where math stops and CS starts varies depending on the scholar you talk to.
[1]: https://jontalle.web.engr.illinois.edu/uploads/410-NS.F22/Mc...
Modern example: Donkey Kong Bananza[1]
Thank you for sharing :)
No idea if the game was actually fun to play “competitively.” But as a tech demo it rocked.
I politely refused, of course, but I did ask why we'd even want that. The reason was simple: we receive government funding to do 'educational stuff', and kids like computer games, right?
Having employees (or volunteers in our case) to educate visitors during all opening hours is a massive challenge for most museums, so an interactive screen/game sounds like the logical solution to ensure the funding is approved each year again.
I hear the same thing from other musea that we collaborate with. Reality is that these systems are broken more often than not. Typically designed on a budget by an external developer, who is no longer employed or paid to maintain it. Employees/volunteers don't understand how the system works, so the screen just stays off.
It will not end well.
- schools being pressured to do “something” but being clueless about how education works - IT vendors exploiting this and happily selling them piles of digital something
The same cycle happens on political levels - “I know nothing about education, but I guess screens mean progress because everyone (= IT vendors) says so, so let’s give schools money earmarked for screens.
And of course the IT vendors happily support it by marketing and bribes.
This teacher won all kinds of teaching awards from district, state, etc. The administration loved him.
even teaching favors the promoters over substance.
I'd love to be able to sell location-based XR experiences to museums: like you go to the paleontology museum and put on a headset and now the museum is a mixed reality Jurassic Park. For that matter I'd love to set up a multiplayer VR park in a big clean span space. There are a lot of difficulties like the cheap headsets don't really have the right tracking capabilities for a seamless location-based experience [1] plus getting together and paying a team which can deliver that sort of thing. A museum with really robust funding could probably afford an XR experience and subsidize development that transfers to other museums but I can't see the economics working for turning an old American Eagle at the mall into a VR experience park: malls have unrealistic ideas about their spaces can earn and most of them have posts in them that player would crash into.
[1] It already knows where it is the instant you put the headset on and it doesn't have to retrain like the MQ3 would.
The article was about real analogs or actual world objects. The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is a fantastic example, as is the Field Museum there. Kids are full of screen time already. Is that all there is?
They also both host overnights - bring your sleeping bag and pajamas and spend the evening with tons of activities, sleeping among the exhibits, and a morning breakfast. Have done both with my kids :)
https://www.msichicago.org/explore/whats-here/events/science...
Yes, Sweden was doing so as discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42715841
We also had a course in "computers" in high school. We had to know by heart the contents of "File" and "Edit" menus for Paint in Win3.1. Windows95 was just came out that year, so naturally the curiculum had not adapted yet. Anyway, guess how useful that was. The only one student who knew how to program got an F in the course :)
It was, of course, a way to teach nontechs how to use computers, as misguided as the material was. So, in that light, starting with AI makes sense. Would be nice to also include a bit more technical course, but apparently knowing where and when a poet was born is more important.
While I personally suspect that social media and by extension phones are detrimental: what you're writing here is opinion, not fact.
Just like adding tech was an experiment which seems to have been accepted all over, removing the tech again is - at least to my knowledge - in experiment phase, too.
And because a real experiment would take roughly 12-20 years (students performance from start to finish, until they're gainfully employed)... Neither of these approached have really been validated. It's all speculation, because there are so many other reasons that could explain the issues we currently have in our schools
And frankly - even though I honestly believe that social media is bad for them - I sincerely think its nowhere close to being the main reason for dropping performance, inability to take responsibilities or whatever else people are saying about the current children.
Do you not consider the period prior to the tech? It was a significant amount of time.
My hole point was that you cannot isolate it to phones. Phones probably are net negative, but even if you removed them: our society has changed and wherever the removal will be positive for their development is hard to isolate, hence it's purely based on opinion