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Comment by chasing | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, what do those stupid professors know about education? How dare they attempt to engineer an environment in which students can engage with new ideas and information, even if it's a little dry or difficult to understand at first. You should totally be allowed to waste their time and energy and occupy a seat in their class that could've gone to someone who might've valued the experience a bit more.

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That's fair - the intentions of the no-screens policy are really good, and I hope that students do respond favourably and end up getting more out of their classes because of it.

I do think the intentions are good. I know Clay Shirky and have taken several classes from him. He's very thoughtful about the decisions he makes in his classes. On top of being someone who has a very good rapport with his students and is very talented and making class interesting. If he thinks this will help, I am strongly inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

You also happened to tap into one of my pet peeves about education: Students being weirdly condescending to their teachers for having the audacity to try to make them learn.

Thanks for your reply! I admit that I've spent the last 10 years teaching, TAing, and being a student, and I'm probably a tiny bit skeptical about what it's possible to get students to do, which coloured my initial reaction. Anyway - hopefully Clay is right and the learning process improves screen-free! :)

Sure -- thanks for not (appearing to) take offense to my snarky tone. :-)

I've also spent a fair amount of time on both sides of the classroom, as student and as teacher. It's really tough for students to understand the classroom from the teacher's perspective.

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