When asked why they universally point the finger at phones. This affirms my confirmation bias but seems plausible as well.
Teachers universally believe all sorts of things that turn out (or long ago turned out) to be false or detrimental. They may be right about phones or they may be wrong, but I'd guess their professional intuition on stuff like this is no better than random chance.
Really?
Professionals keep up with developments in their field, insist on scientifically valid studies to inform their methodology, and so on.
In this case we are not talking about professionals, we are talking about teachers.
They pick a theory that sounds good then ignore any evidence that it isn't valid.
https://www.educationnext.org/stubborn-myth-learning-styles-...
For this reason, when they say X is caused by Y, it may well be, but not because I put any stock in their pedagogical expertise.
The repairman's techniques are immediately assessable. If you pick up your car and it doesn't work, his technique failed.
A teacher's results are not obvious until many years after the fact.
It is for this reason that when purchasing a car, we expect manufacturers to use engineering processes informed by scientific study that lead to longer-lasting cars. When mistakes in their quality are discovered, their cars develop particular reputations and sometimes have to be recalled.
All in all, the schooling system issues are analogous to those of the industry. How often do I read about devs complaining that management is stupid and academics are in ivory towers and know nothing of the front lines? Certainly, many teachers are quirky, but people dismissing them altogether live comfortably in their fantasy world.
Something as simple as testing which Math textbook to use is never part of the process.
That's ironic, because amongst the group of teachers that's much of their discussion. They've also been poo-pooing the learning styles business that you linked to as long as I can remember.
Now, these are high achieving teachers, winning state academic competitions with their students and what not, so I'll admit they might not be the norm.
Teachers are required to do a ridiculous amount of ongoing education, inservice stuff, credentialing. Typically on their own time with their own money.
Whatever your obvious grievance is with teaching, it's not for lack of professionalism or training.
Veritasium did a very interesting video on the subject: https://youtu.be/rhgwIhB58PA
I do feel bad for kids whose symptoms were ignored or mitigated by interventions as described, and therefore were not diagnosed, only to discover at age 30 or 50 that the reason they've struggled so much through life is because they have an executive function disorder, the methods for effectively managing it have existed for decades, and they could've made use of them if only people didn't dismiss them in childhood as "rowdy kids" in need of more exercise.
"One such factor [of increasing ADHD prevalence] may be audiovisual media exposure during early childhood. Observational studies in humans have linked exposure to fast-paced television in the first 3 years of life with subsequent attentional deficits in later childhood." [1]
but also
"The diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among children and adolescents has increased considerably over the past decades. Scholars and health professionals alike have expressed concern about the role of screen media in the rise in ADHD diagnosis. However, the extent to which screen media use and ADHD are linked remains a point of debate. (...) The available evidence suggests a statistically small relationship between media and ADHD-related behaviors. " [2]
I bet the same children could produce great results with a complete gamified test that used various tricks to pull their attention back to it.
Focus/Attention and patience are the skill that is degrading and proficiency in it is probably the pre-requisite for any successful growth in most other academic skills.
I'd be curious to see if those skills are being explicitly taught in preK and Kindergarten.
My kids play some gamified educational games and loved them.
Society has changed a lot. Compared to a few decades ago, in more households both parents are working. Moreover, I would assume that we (parents) spend more time working or thinking about work when we are at home. Which leads to less time focussing on family.
My wife sees several symptoms of this: parents expect the school to fix/improve behavioral issues in their children (iso them). Parents now come with excuses for their children not doing their homework. Plenty more examples like this..
This could be the typical trope of "things were better when we were young". I do feel like parents these days spend less time raising their children. (which perhaps is partly due to.. phones, but I think is due to a much broader societal shift)
E.g. here's one random analysis - https://qz.com/1143092/study-modern-parents-spend-more-time-...
I guess my assumption was based on the fact that women are increasingly more active in the workforce in the past few decades: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/female-labor-force-partic... (roughly from 40% to 60%)
"Parents expect the school to fix/improve behavioral issues in their children"
Of course we do. The kids spend 7 hours a day in class and their behaviors directly impact what and how they learn. Regulating behavior is a life long skill that you learn. We send our kids off to school at age 5 typically.
I am tired of the blame the parents trope. We know and have therapies and interventions to reinforce positive behaviors and the schools should be working with parents to help them learn how to apply these in both the home as well as school.
I know. I've got two kids and a third one on the way.
I should have chosen my words better. Both parents and the school system are responsible for educating & raising children.
There are some parents that expect the school to do most of that work. On the other hand, there are also parents that go above and beyond. Likewise some schools and teachers do an amazing job and can have a huge positive impact on our children, while other schools and teachers barely seem to care at all.
I'm not sure what my take-away is. I'm just very disappointed whenever I hear (some) kids say that their parents barely make time for them. The parents typically say they are just "too busy".
A smartphone is an easy scapegoat, but I think its role is greatly exaggerated. People simply like to complain about things they are not used to. It does not mean it is not the root cause, only that a “gut feeling” reasoning can easily be wrong. Not so long ago teachers were still trying to “correct” left-handedness.
That said there are certainly many issues surrounding modern use of smartphones (starting with microtransactions), but I doubt that it is the main issue there.
By the way: While I can’t find the website where I read it, there was supposedly a period before widespread TV, when reading too many books was considered a developmental issue for a child.
Ah yes, the old days before the mobile phone was invented, when teenagers everywhere were writing novels in their spare time.
Teenagers who didn't want to be writers weren't writing back then. Same as now. Although the average teen is almost certainly "writing" more than ever because the primary mode of communication now is typing, not talking.
I was, and my friends were. Still have a big box of old letters up in the attic someplace
* anecdotal data from me and a dozen or so friends. I assume results will depend a lot on the human's manufacturing date. Mine's in the 1980's :)
Before computers could fit into your pocket the same was done using paper and called "passing notes".
The skills to read txtspeak are the same as to read normal english. The grammar and vocab rules are slightly different but its still fundamentally reading.