Where Educational Technology Fails: A seventh-grader's perspective

Where I disagree with you is that I do think it is true that some things are addictive and are designed to be addictive (social media is), but its the things people do on devices that are addictive, not the devices themselves.

I agree "dopamine release" is not a bad thing per se, but when businesses hire psychologists to figure out how to get people to spend more time on their app people are being manipulated in a disturbing way.

Edit - inserted missing "not"

Other stuff we slog through just because we've decided it makes a student well-rounded. I like reading fiction, but I never liked reading "literature" and then trying to write an analysis of it. It was absolutely a slog, and even 40 years later I cannot see that my life is any worse off because I never loved reading Homer or Shakespeare or Chaucer or Tolstoy.

“guranteeed technology access for students” - that’s great, and was useful during covid remote learning, but that was an exceptional circumstance. I don’t see why a computer lab with 5-10 year old computers isn’t sufficient to learn how to use a word processor? Since we’re setting the tech literacy bar that low…

My impression is this is a gigantic headache with very very little benefit: https://www.edweek.org/technology/chromebooks-short-lifespan...

Don’t think we’ll see eye to eye on this. :) thanks for the thoughtful response though.

Bad laws are:

- Controversial. For example, prohibition. Such laws also tend to be hard-to-enforce and “immoral”, but even with effective enforcement and moral justification, they’re bad because they decrease societal QOL and cooperation.

- Vague. For example, a law that allows a cop to search your vehicle if they “smell drugs”. Since in theory cops aren’t allowed to arbitrarily search people’s vehicles, and this seems to be something most people believe; except “smell drugs” is entirely subjective, so bad cops use it as an excuse to arbitrarily search people’s vehicles anyways. Likewise, it may not be common, but a cop can choose to ignore a vehicle that obviously contains drugs, by claiming they can’t smell anything. If there was a specific criteria like “X ratio of drug particles in the air…well, technically cops aren’t required to enforce laws, but at least it would be easier for bystanders to prove they deliberately weren’t enforcing that one (vs the current law, the cop can argue and may actually have a weak sense of smell).

- Hard to enforce. Specifically when the cost of enforcement surpasses the benefit from the law existing (by definition).

These are the laws that are most affected by loopholes.

- People purposefully ignore loopholes to controversial laws that break said laws in spirit, if not outright (“loopholes” not in a law’s text but in its enforcement).

- Judges side towards innocence, so borderline (in theory) violations of vague laws are (in practice) effectively allowed. Even non-borderline violations require more evidence to convict. Also, while all laws are selectively enforced, vague laws tend to be moreso, because proving selective enforcement is itself proving something vague. “Borderline violations” are loopholes, “selective enforcement” is sometimes loopholes (the loopholes are the parts that aren’t enforced).

- Laws that are already hard to enforce, enforcers don’t have the effort or ability to target loopholes. Some laws are hard to enforce mainly if not entirely because of certain loopholes.

Also, my argument (and analogy to the article) isn’t just that some laws are bad, but that laws aren’t enough to prevent crime. Because some crimes are accepted by large parts of society, some can only be defined vaguely, and some are impossible to enforce (without severe downsides, like an authoritarian police state, if not literally impossible). Another way to mitigate crime is through norms; teaching people not to do things, by explaining why and/or just telling them, without formal enforcement. That’s analogous to convincing students not to play video games in class by their own volition, instead of only blocking video games, because not all “games” can be blocked.

That corrupt/bad people ignore laws doesn’t make every law pointless, but it means the rule of law isn’t enough to stop corrupt/bad people. And good-intentioned people who rely on the rule of law too much create laws which, still aren’t all pointless, but cause more harm than good.

Even using computers in class, which I endorse, involves acceptance that many of the uses will seem boring.

Making everything as entertaining as commercial media is too much to ask.

In a sense, the most important thing school does is to build up within students a tolerance of boredom and an appreciation of the fact that most work is potentially boring.

We already have people say they wish they'd learned how to do their taxes or balance budgets - imagine what 12 year olds might think is uninteresting that comes up later, right?

This forum has plenty of past comments from people who have learned a programming language for fun when they could have spent that time watching a TV series.

I suppose we often have to do painful things to maintain stability, or advance, and indirectly therefore they're necessary as part of a strategy to continue learning. Like, I don't know, work a terrible job to pay the rent. But that's indirect, not intrinsic to learning, so those things don't count.

If one chooses the modern life, then they're stuck within the constraints of society. You could be nearly self sufficient, but that would be even more difficult.

Education should attempt to somehow tap into that as a core motivation, though that will surely not be enough or good for everyone.

But learning is work, and there is no way around that.

Probably most people. 6 hour days, lunch provided, recess with your friends, no real responsibilities. Sounds better than most jobs.

Rocks are easy to turn into fun since they're physical things and you can go over knapping flint, etc.

Heinlein is right in principle but its a big ask. can do quite a bit of that list, but I have never butchered a hog or conned a ship or planned an invasion. I am pretty sure I could pitch manure but finding out whether you can die gallantly is likely to be the last thing you find out.

No human has the capability to learn to do all the things necessary to sustain a modern technological lifestyle solo, with the limited time we have on this planet. At best, someone who's wealthy enough not to have to do all the boring, time-consuming parts might be able to learn a decent subset.

Heinlein's purported philosophy fits very well with the all-too-American "rugged individualist" perspective that every person should be completely self-sufficient, but it doesn't actually hold up if you study psychology, sociology, or history.

It is, perhaps, also relevant that this quote is from the book "Time Enough for Love", whose main character, Lazarus Long, has been alive for many centuries.

Brains continue developing throughout our lifetimes.

The study that appeared to show them stopping development at 25 did not have any participants older than 25.

It would be convenient to have a specific age we can point to where we can say "now you're fully adult!" based on biological factors, but I'm afraid we'll just have to use our flawed human judgement and draw imperfect lines.

That said, it is fairly well-understood when various of the structures and functions in the brain responsible for certain basic capacities (like discipline) first develop, on average.