Thread: The loss of basic skills in school

Step 1: Learn the basic skills
Step 2: Learn the tools to use the basic skills in the most efficient way possible

Technology has come up with some absolutely brilliant tools. Like HNSB pointed out, without these tools people like Stephen Hawking could have never expressed their genius.

Things start getting problematic when you go to Step 2 without doing Step 1 first. You “learn” something without any kind of thought process being involved. Unless you’re naturally inclined to want to figure out how things work, you’ll just end up being a button pusher.

There will always be brilliant people that will just end up knowing just about everything there is to know and there will always be people that don’t know anything. This will never change.

But I believe that the majority of people are in between, and 2 things can happen:

1- They can easily be taught how things really work and how to think for themselves to get things done.
2- They can easily be taught how to press a bunch of buttons to get what they want done.

Both ways work, the end result will be the same. Which one do you prefer ?

Originally Posted by tekbow

recent riots in the uk... ...

Sorry. I should have been more clear.
I meant has any study been done to show causation? I do believe that kids today are more ignorant about a lot of things (and things they shouldn't be ignorant about). I don't believe that they are dumber, and I don't believe technology is the cause of their ignorance.
It's easy to say: Kids are ignorant. Kids use technology more. Therefore, technology causes ignorance.
That is bad logic.

Originally Posted by Sailor

Not many seriously believe that youngsters would be dumber than previous generations but obviously computers really change the human behavior a bit. We had to learn to use our memory to store all kinds of important and less important information, but nowadays it is so easy to store it in your laptop or phone memory. Not a big change, maybe, but how many of us really remembers that much of phone numbers or birthdays than we did before computers and laptops? This is just another example.

Now there's huge lot of scientific researches telling that your memory gets weaker if you don't use it frequently. Poor memory means certain difficulties in logical thinking and learning.
For what i think, younger generation doesn't really use it as much as we did (or they use it more selectively). Nowadays even schools doesn't force you to use your memory as much. You don't need to remember all the flowers and plants there is as you can always search it from the net. And so on.
Of course we dinosaurs do this too but kids of today have done it since they were born.

I'm not that sure about Einstein but that is a thing we can never know.

So kids today aren't memorizing the names of flowers and plants. I would say their memory is getting exercised in other ways though. It's impossible to use all this technology without remembering LOTS of things about it. Just ask a senior citizen that's learning to use a computer.

Originally Posted by Goggles

I'd say at least one other thing: scope. Even the smartest kid will still be ignorant if you only teach a narrow cross-section of the world... [stuff supporting this idea] ...

I fully agree with that. I just don't believe technology is to blame for it. In fact, I think technology makes it easy for motivated people to be less ignorant.


I used to teach adults. I did some education at a college, where the typical audience was 18-25 years old. I did teaching outside the college where the typical audience was 25-55 years old. IN GENERAL, students at the college definitely had more of an attitude of entitlement and lack of personal responsibility about learning than those outside the college.
I can only speculate about the cause of that difference - I have a few ideas, and none of them involve technology having rotted the brains of the youth.

Originally Posted by HNSB

I fully agree with that. I just don't believe technology is to blame for it.

Me neither, meant to imply the opposite. The number of different things I can learn about in a single sleepless night thanks to the internet is fantastic.

Originally Posted by tekbow

recent riots in the uk. We can talk to anyone anywhere on the planet instantly, we have the ability to roughly understand what anyone speaking mostly any language is saying through online translators. We can convert and understand idea's in unfamiliar unit systems and express oursleves in a million amazing and wonderful ways. And what do we chose to do with this gift?

Ram raid a dixons and nick a hi def telly..

Or, you know, organize an epic revolution.

well yeah, i think there's a good difference between the government in those countries and the uk, but that's a different thread..

Originally Posted by ndw76

If you Americans are afraid that you may be being left behind by the super smart Asian kids, you have nothing to worry about. Here in Thailand we are working hard to make sure that no student graduates from high school with the ability to concentrate for more than five seconds. We have achieved this by putting an iPhone or Black Berry in the hand of each student. Many students have an iPhone in the left hand and a Black Berry in the right hand. The government also has plans to stop children learning by giving each student a tablet computer that can do nothing but play Angry Birds.

On top of that, just in case any student gets the idea in to his or her head to learn something, we have a no fail policy. Even the stupidest student with the mental incompetence to be considered mentally disabled gets a passing mark.

The testing however, is not standardized. I write my own tests based on what I have taught. The Thai teachers teach write their own tests, which are just copied from locally produced text books, mistakes and all.

As for the quality of the teachers, it is well known that it is almost impossible to be fired from a public school in Thailand. Physical beatings causing lasting harm are not enough to do it. Nor is it enough that the teacher in question wasn't actually qualified to be a teacher.

So don't worry, your nuff nuffs are still going to be smarter than our average students.

I am quite surprise to have read your post because I always felt that Asian students had more self discipline and desire to learn. Are you speaking only about the students in Thailand or Asian students in general?

Originally Posted by tinkersd

The only answer that I see is to let the technology take care of itself. If the American Educators are dead set going to use nothing but mind numbing devices' to educate our children then the only way to do the right thing is to make up the rest at HOME!
Thats right, teach them what's right and what's wrong, moraly and other wise.
Do the basics with your kids right from BL**dy jump street, Number, shapes, ARITHMATIC, colors and social studies world studies and why things like bullying and stealing and the rest are just PLain wrong!! They will teach what they will at school, the rest is up the the parent and guardians of our chilren and the futures.

Forgive my most pompast tirade, hit a sore point with me that's all.

From the desk of an irate citizen, tinkersd

Your points on the basics and teaching right from wrong are correct. However, some families expect the schools/teachers to teach their children those basics as well as discerning what is right and what is wrong. Some parents get caught up with their communication devices and do not focus or even spend time with their children.

My wife and I were not the perfect parents, however, we made ourselves available to our son.

What mistakes I made in raising my son? Judging his friends, meddled, his mother and I were over protective, and sometimes we were too lenient on some things.

Originally Posted by HNSB

I used to teach adults. I did some education at a college, where the typical audience was 18-25 years old. I did teaching outside the college where the typical audience was 25-55 years old. IN GENERAL, students at the college definitely had more of an attitude of entitlement and lack of personal responsibility about learning than those outside the college.
I can only speculate about the cause of that difference - I have a few ideas, and none of them involve technology having rotted the brains of the youth.

My Freshman year of college started when I was 30 years old. And while most of my classes were night school on the base, by the time I reached my Junior and Senior years, I ended up having to attend classes on campus at lunch time. In my case most of these classes were at McMurray University in Abilene, Texas. My classmates were typically of a very different demographic there. Young kids mostly, while many were clearly very intelligent people, it was clear that lots of them were there simply to party while Mommy and Daddy paid tuition and gave them spending money. They'd show up for a class or two, never do any of the work and then complain to the professor when they got a bad grade in the class. I think the difference between them and older students (like me) was that the older students understood the value and importance of what they were doing. For many of the younger kids college was just a four year party break on Mommy and Daddy's dime. This fact was evidenced by their academic performance (or lack thereof). I'm sure many of my classmates may have been smarter and/or more talented than I but there was absolutely no one that wanted a degree worse than me.

PS: Speaking of errosion of basic skills...OMG!

Originally Posted by pmburk

I am quite surprise to have read your post because I always felt that Asian students had more self discipline and desire to learn. Are you speaking only about the students in Thailand or Asian students in general?

The only Asian I have taught are Thais. The Thai education system is seriously screwed up. The Thai students do work hard, but most of what they are being taught is crap. Most Thai students will start school at 8am and keep going until 4pm. Then they will go to evening classes until 8pm. Then on Saturday many students will have a three hour English class and maybe an hour or two on other classes.
The sad thing is that the teachers who are paid to teach during the week deliberately do a bad job because they can charge to teach the same stuff after school and on weekends.

I can imagine that the Asian students who are studying in Australia and America study very hard because they can see how hard their parents have had to work. They can easily recognize the value of a good education.

I'm going to take this thread in a related direction and discuss the issue of why the basics or even our over-all educational system has suffered.

To me it is no circumstance our educational system is in the state it is in. Things happen for a reason. If the powers that be wanted the educational system to be top notch the money would be there the same as it is for our defense budget. I have always maintained the reason things have gone down hill at an ever increasing pace is because the powers that be want it that way. After-all if you were a captain of industry and a super rich dude you want to be able to control the political process and have your people running things in Govt. Would you want a highly educated electorate, people who can analyze facts, consider history make valid conclusions about who to vote for? Maybe you want stupid folks who will believe what they are told be it true or not. Folks who will decide who to vote for on one issue and who can be easily manipulated and directed.

There will always be the privileged who will get the education to do the technical things and be trained to take over the future but for the masses out there...well...