2023: “Things change, and they don’t change back.”

General Chat
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I am not saying “every parent today is worse”. I knew many overbearing parents when I was in elementary and jr high, but I didn’t understand. I am saying that it is quite clear to me that parents who are overbearing are likely doing more harm than good to their kids. Obviously, there is a threshold where “too much freedom” is bad. This is independent of the decade by the way.

Anyway, considering we played gameboy during class, listened to cd players during class, and had flip phones and texted each other in class… instead of having pockets full of stuff, you just have your phone now. I don’t see too much of a difference between now and then. Things are actually better now since kids have access to better and interesting learning tools. I was taught exclusively on a blackboard in elementary, and then it swapped to a whiteboard. In university, in 2009, professors were still using blackboards and overhead projectors… Now kids can see animations/videos, have interactive blackboards that they can use to explore things, phone apps that let them compete in knowledge games… I think it’s all been an upward trend in the quality of educational tools.

However, the educational theory is still a “no phones, no internet, no nothing, shut up and listen to me” mindset. I have found much greater success in both creating an easier classroom management situation for me, and for a statistically significant increase in grades, by being reasonable and actually talking to students honestly about how to best use phones and the internet. Many students start off by repeating the mantra of “we shouldnt have our phones in class”, but can’t give an answer when I ask them “why not?” (except for the cheeky ones who say because they were told to). If you take it one step further and have an actual discussion, then students start to take some ownership on their learning. If you set up agreed upon classroom rules, one of them being “I can go on my phone quietly, if I complete all my work and don’t disturb others that are working”, then many problems begin to solve themselves. Students on average work harder because they have an immediate, tangible goal they want to reach: their phones.

People are going to “sneak in some facebook time” regardless. Adults that work in the office do it all the time, why should they punish kids when they do the same thing? I see it all the time in the military. If people aren’t actively working, they go on their phones. So, if you complete your work and you do it well, then why not take 5 min at the end of class to do something fun or relaxing? When I teach in the military, I still have adults in their 30’s asking me “can we look this up on our phone”? I mean unless you have memorized every NATO symbol or equipment specification… The mindset of “am I allowed to use a tool to aid me in my endeavor to produce something good and worthwhile” is strange to me.

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I was reading some polling data analysis. I don’t think it’s very reputable and looking at how many variables they polled for I have doubts whether they accounted for randomness properly. I mean even just on the surface they use causative language for their correlations so suspicious. But one of their conclusions was that belief that you can affect your own life correlates with higher support for the military operation and some other statements of similar taste. It makes so much sense it’s funny. People who think they control their own lives and nothing bad will happen to them because they can just make right decisions and if something bad happened to other people it’s their fault are totally the types to support all this. I always knew self-confident buttholes are a menace to society.

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It might depend on the context. I think I find that I tend to offload remembering information if I know that I can look it up when I need it.

That said if you’re in a situation where you just need to know it, there’s not time to look it up, or you’re likely to be in a situation where you can’t look it up, then it makes sense to learn to remember it without aid.

Probably certain professions like doctors and nurses needing to assess quickly and accurately something in a hospital, maybe there’s some military situations where you also need to make quick judgements without consulting a book of symbols, or don’t have internet access etc might require you to learn things without tools.

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Well, of course not :slight_smile: They just have more tools.

Too much of everything can become poison, so I agree with that as well.

We were much more “analog” and threw pieces of paper from one desk to another, but I understand the point that kids everywhere have similar tendencies no matter the decade. I will agree with that too.

The difference is the effectiveness of the tool/distraction.
For example, you had a CD or a gameboy. Those things had limits. A phone is 1000 things in one. Much more distracting.

And then there is this:

The quality sure is going up, at least in how easy, interactive, fast or well designed those tools are.
But are they more efficient/effective in their actual goal which is learning? I have my doubts and, to my best of knowledge, there hasn’t been any studies that prove that. Most people automatically assume that “better technology means better learning”, but that is not necessarily true.

For example:
A blackboard/whiteboard are definitely archaic, however they give time to the students to process what the teacher is writing.
Taking notes in a paper notepad is definitely archaic instead of, for example, taking photos of the board or even having a dictaphone app record the lecture or getting the notes in epub or some interactive means, but, again they give time for the student to write and think and process what is being written and discussed, instead of just looking at it.

I am not just running my mouth here. I’ve been a teacher for almost a decade and I have tried emulating some of the interactive stuff. Wrote a whole complete solution on the board before the students arrived and revealed it gradually, printed the solutions so they could focus on the solution without losing time by taking notes, let them take photos of the solution, record video of the lesson, the lot. I never saw any of those doing any good, despite the students being very excited at the time to be rid of the traditional whiteboard/paper notes combo. On the contrary I noticed that the more digital things were, the less the students were inclined to actually study them.

Of course this is just my experience with it, but it is enough to make me sceptical of the “it is better because it is new” enthusiasm.

There is definitely a lot that can be improved on that model, no argument there.

If you ask me that is a great approach and the success of this is mostly attributed to you being a good teacher that likes to talk and interact with the students. :slight_smile:

Very true.

Some days I wonder what they used to do on their downtime before the advent of computers, internet and phones.

The only worry I have with this is when the tool replaces the understanding part. The tools we have now are very powerful, but if we do not sharpen our minds first, then their usage is dulled.

On a totally different thing, on topic, and something that does not change is more actual cynicism from politicians ( for @gennan ):

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Translation:
Cynicism from Georgiadis (minister of investments - Greece): If Karamanlis (the minister of transport that resigned for a month due to the train crash) had admitted in the Parliament that there was a safety issue on the trains, then no passenger would get on them".

For the record, there is video for that statement (the context being that “of course the minister could never admit to such a thing and ruin the business model of the trains”) and a few days before the crash the minister of transport had said in the Parliament that he wanted for the other people to apologise to him for saying that there is a safety issue on the trains. (there is also video for that)

Yes, the minister that was responsible for the safety, wanted an apology from the people that told him that the trains were not safe. Quite cynical, eh?

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I think that it’s important to know things exist and where to find them, but we have to learn them first, not jump straight to “I can find it online”.

I don’t agree with parents who say “my children shouldn’t have to study geography now, if they need to find a river they can google it”.

Because, in my experience, people who lack the foundations of knowledge rarely google knowledge stuff.

For example, I’m on my phone googling stupid US gossip stuff or watching sitcoms, but that’s because I put in the time to learn English in a structured way, not in that “immerse yourself” nonsense, preaching that you don’t really need to learn the language to, you know, learn the language.

People tend to treat the Internet like the ultimate “hack”, and all those stupid hacks that go viral are always fancy but failed ways to cut corners. I very much support making our lives easier, I’m Lazy. I wing things regularly at work. But you gotta get the foundation first.

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We’ve been having an issue at work, trying to establish if something is A or B. The answer, though unclear, is in a Commission Regulation. The Regulation is about 100 pages. I don’t know it by heart, but I did take the time years ago to read it, and study some of the important parts.

Now, someone who hasn’t read and refuses to read it, relying only on the shortest of “cliffnotes” version, cannot and will not understand what I’m saying, because they think they can substitute actually knowing what we’re talking about with a 2-minute Google search and the bold letters.

So, we just reach no conclusion and argue for nothing. :woman_shrugging:t2:

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This more or less summarizes most historical situations.

I think I’ve read that the more we force our brain to remember the more things it keeps to the “not important stuff” level and burns them. I’m ready to believe it.

I find it normal. Who in their right minds would expect a public person to say somthing controversial, unless it was a well-studied PR move?

Or if they do, they do it in the wrong way and with the wrong mindset.

In my experience, those who are afraid of these tools are the ones who misuse them.
I once told a professor that her students may be using their phones to record the class/ take notes/compare information/bookmark important points/schedule homework and all things they would do in a notebook and she was shocked! (I could even call it a cultural shock for her) She was offended when they used their phones because she thought they are disrespecting her and, as someone who only used the internet for things like “why my ex is browsing his ex’s friend list”, she could never fathom that there are other, more “decent” reasons to look at your phone.

Very true.
For some people, it is also a scary thought, that they’d actually need to put in some effort.

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Oh, I file it under the “to be expected” to be done by shameless people without conscience like these, but it is not normal to admit to such a thing (even from a PR standpoint) when the dead from your actions are now a variable with a number between 57 and 111.

It is cynical (in the modern sense of the word) to actually publically admit the fact that another minister was lying on purpose to protect the profits of a company, resulting to a deadly accident. Again, it is expected of them to do it because they do not care, but it is definitely not normal.

If the attitude “hey, people might die, but I’ll protect some profits, huzzah!” is somehow “normal” now, then we have a big problem in our hands as a species.

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Ministers exist only to initiate and/or facilitate and/or terminate ugly contracts. That’s their only purpose and the society never expects them to apologize or even disguise it in any way other than legal immunity.
It is the rule, the everlasting situation and the expected (probably desired) outcome. It’s bad, yes, but society more or less bears with it and periodically applauds it. I call that ‘‘normal’’. So, yes, I guess we have serious problems. :woman_shrugging:

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Speaking of ministers and the internet and phones and education:

Let the children learn how to live with the internet and their phones, or they will end up like this guy.

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The Venn diagram of people who don’t know how to attach a file in gmail but know that they can use Snapchat for “delete after view” messages could be a near-perfect circle.

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To be honest, immersing myself and unstructured learning did miles more for my English than structured school/university lessons that I had. On one hand that might speak more about the quality of those lessons, on the other hand what is even there to learn in a structured way in English. At least, within the scope of US gossip. Of course, some people take it way too far and say that you don’t need to learn basic grammar and so on.

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That’s what I mean “in a structured way”.

We immerse ourselves after we learn basic grammar.

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People who believe that usually can’t get their meaning across and rely on their interlocutor’s good will and indulgence.

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Laptop hard drive failed, one and a half months short of seven years of service.

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I replaced my HDD with an SSD a few months ago, laptop got a second(-ish) life.

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I don’t know what’s going on in Georgia but transparency law would be cool. So people can see that their movement for the brighter future is actually sponsored by China, independent journalists get funding from US for some reason and both ruling and opposition parties receive money from the same oligarchs.

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These voices sound almost real. Tons of deepfakes and such on the internet still have those voices with metallic sound. This one is almost there.

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I wonder how far we are from video evidence being inadmissable in courts :thinking:

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