- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
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It’s upsetting how it has become.
Our child is ready to start kindergarten. Do you know what they want as supplies?
No crayons, no pencils, no notebooks. No playdough, no shaving cream. Not even paper towels to clean up the inevitable mess.
Headphones. That’s it. A pair of corded headphones with the child’s name on it. WTF???
Their day was to be divided into hourly slots of apps. Followed by “recess” which was watching PBS Kids in the auditorium. I can’t even… What are they doing?
We are going to try to homeschool because I can’t imagine I can do worse than that.
That isnt the norm, thats insanity. My kid comes home everyday with arts and crafts. I think they might be responsible for a notable decline in tree cover at tis point.
Mines the same, its a lot of paper per kid. I never see a paper delivery truck though…
We had computers in elementary school. Around 3 or 4, they were standing in a corner of the classroom. I think my teachers husband just brought them in after his workplace decommissioned them. When you finished a task early, you were sometimes allowed to play around on them. I remember Paint, playing Pinball and Solitaire, and just clicking around/discovering the Windows UI. This was around the year 2000, we had no Internet, the computers were running Windows 95/98. I am not sure if we used them for any class-related activities. WordPad was installed, but no other Office stuff, I believe.
I am glad that I grew up when computers were still understandable. Nowadays, kids get iPads, which teach them to be obedient consumers, but they will learn nothing about computers themselves. Too many layers of abstractions, all intended to obscure the underlying technology, and lock down the devices.
Children have a natural desire to explore, which is completely wasted with modern devices. Let them open Paint.exe with Notepad and see what happens!
Similar case for me but I am a little younger (early to mid 00s for me). Around that age we had a Windows XP computer to mess around with in kindergarten sometimes but very rarely. We really started using computers a lot in the lab around 2nd or 3rd grade but only to teach us typing and to take tests. Ironically most of our tests were for reading quizzes called AR tests and we would earn points which would allow us to win some sort of reward if we acquired enough points by getting good scores on the quizzes. They should bring that shit back because it worked for me.
I would argue that similar tech in our lives causes similar issues. We don’t write things down anymore - just scroll on, with a fragmented mish-mash memory of what we’ve seen. Some capacity for retention gets exhausted in a given day. Just what I’ve observed in myself or among friends/family.
You don’t write things down anymore. I very much do not have the option not to write things down. I cannot remember my ass or my elbow without writing things down. Having ADHD just be like that sometimes.
But I’m gonna also say that a lot of it is about scrolling media that’s visual instead of written. If you watch tik Tok and post photos or scroll photos instead of content where things are written and require other people to read, you get stuff like this.
When I was a kid there was a poll about what kind of books kids liked to read. An overwhelming majority of those kids selected that they did not like to read (and this was before full fledged internet service in every home and cell phones in every pocket).
So you’re right that you don’t get better at what you don’t practice, but I think there’s more to it than “people don’t write things down anymore”.
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This is more about using pen/pencil and paper instead of laptops rather than phone distractions.
I should dig it up, but I remember there’s a connection between handwriting and memory. Handwriting can help reinforce ideas and commit it to memory better than typing.
Meh, typing has other advantages too.
Like to memorize a random password or something, type it a couple times and when you need to remember it consciously you can just type it or even imagine typing it.
But “muscle memory” helps you remember the password better than as a string of unrelated charecters.
We just know the advantages of writing because it’s been around so long.
The advantages of typing, aren’t proven or even discovered yet.
But yeah, the answer is never one or the other, it’s both.
Oh of course typing has its own advantages! It would be wise to utilize a combination especially in educational settings. Plus children should be taught how to type and utilize all sorts of tech.
I’m not a parent totally opposed to the use of laptops in school. And honestly, my kid’s school does a pretty good job at balancing the tech with older school methods of learning. But it does no good to insist on transitioning kids into using tech only.
