Having taught and being observant I do not at all think it is a myth - though I truly wish it was.....Well it was useful in the other thread where the defense against scoring so poorly in math, reading, writing, and science internationally was that (false dichotomy) improving there would require sacrificing our creativity and innovation.
The top Asian scorers were under attack for having students remember so much stuff. The article cited in that thread conflates drill and memorization in subjects that absolutely require them with "authoritarianism".
Memorizing the alphabet is not "authoritarianism". There is no creativity and innovation about it. The poster there claimed it was a myth that US educational performance has atrophied.
The poster there claimed it was a myth that US educational performance has atrophied.
Having taught and being observant I do not at all think it is a myth - though I truly wish it was.....
An amazing number of Americans have managed to be successful by being good in one or more of those things and still managed to be quite creative and innovative. It's a skill....
Exactly.The_Animus said:However, I constantly work with people who are twice my age but are worse at doing just about everything. I'm constantly fixing their mistakes. I have to remind them how to do things that they should know, especially considering they've worked there years if not decades more than I have. Many are also abysmal with technology and have no ability to figure things out on their own and can basically only do what they've been trained to do step by step.
There's nothing new under the sun. Our generation is on Facebook--older generations played cards. Our generation is on Twitter--older generations were on CBs, or telegraphs (Thomas Edison springs to mind). Our generation has YouTube--older generations had TV and radio shows. They are functionally equivalent; they fill the same role as time-wasting irrelevancies. Sorry, but it's simply a myth that younger people waste more time or that older generations were more dilligent. It's particularly ironic that you say that in the same post where you dismiss the argument of another for not having sufficient research to support it.AlaskaBushPilot said:There is no doubt that the older people spend less time on facebook, twitter, or youtube - but if you ask what the young people are doing with their time on them maybe that explains why the older people did better on "problem solving" with technology.
Our generation is on Facebook--older generations played cards. Our generation is on Twitter--older generations were on CBs, or telegraphs (Thomas Edison springs to mind). Our generation has YouTube--older generations had TV and radio shows. They are functionally equivalent; they fill the same role as time-wasting irrelevancies.
Not EVEN close!
Yep, Socrates was waxing poetic about the decline of youth a couple millenium ago:I may have the specifics wrong, but the general concept is pretty firmly established. I invite anyone who says otherwise to look at the debates about the decline in morals, industry, etc. in ANY time period. I've read Roman speaches about this very topis. Sorry, but every generation thinks the next is lazy, uninterested in developing useful skills, disrespectful, wastes time, and so on. It's cliche, and it's ALWAYS wrong.
I may have the specifics wrong, but the general concept is pretty firmly established. I invite anyone who says otherwise to look at the debates about the decline in morals, industry, etc. in ANY time period. I've read Roman speaches about this very topis. Sorry, but every generation thinks the next is lazy, uninterested in developing useful skills, disrespectful, wastes time, and so on. It's cliche, and it's ALWAYS wrong.
I can only assume you did not read the linked article.
I can only assume you did not read the linked article. While it did find that Millennials did poorly on job-related skills compared to us old farts, the major finding was that US Millennials did worse than their age-group cohort in other countries as well.
I can only assume you did not read the linked article. While it did find that Millennials did poorly on job-related skills compared to us old farts, the major finding was that US Millennials did worse than their age-group cohort in other countries as well.
It is fact. Data. The older people scored higher - on technology they did not grow up with. You can't increase the scores of the young with an argument. They are lower. There is a reason for that too. Maybe they would care to enlighten us as to what that reason is.
. . .
What they need to be explaining is why the old people are better on the NEW technology the kids are supposed to be so much better at.
What they need to be explaining is why the old people are better on the NEW technology the kids are supposed to be so much better at.
30 years of conservatism is why education is so horrible now.
That's such a vague assertion as to be entirely useless. Do you care to clarify or provide evidence?
this report suggests that far too many are graduating high school and completing postsecondary educational programs without receiving adequate skills
As a country, we need to confront not only how we can compete in a global economy, but also what kind of future we can construct when a sizable segment of our future workforce is not equipped with the skills necessary for higher-level employment and meaningful participation in our democratic institutions.
Perhaps the simple fact that older people have had more experience with the technology?
[qimg]http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn180/lirajeanlogan/numeracy_zpshuo9twgo.png[/qimg]
Sometimes it helps to be confronted with it visually.
Well sure math nerds love to define "intelligence" or "skills" as number mastery because that is what they are good at. Of course I might be biased the other way because I struggled with math all through school while doing well in just about every other subject.
Well, I was born in 1970 which makes me a Gen. Xer. I grew up with computers; I'm pretty sure I was less than 10 years old when I encountered my first one.
My generation probably actually was better at using computer technology than the one that came before it, because they didn't grow up with it, but Millennials don't really have that same edge over Gen. Xers. And even my parents use computers every day now, so the situation is different than 20, 30 years ago, when very few people over a certain age had much familiarity with computers. Cell phones are also ubiquitous nowadays. Almost everyone has one. So no longer the case that mostly young people are familiar with the technology.
Exactly.
Millenials may have the least skill at tasks that previous generations had, but that's because they have the least need to use those skills. Millenials are coming of age in a world where contact is constant, where you can send an email and just assume the other person sees it in ten minutes. Where hand writing is irrelevant for 99% of jobs, but typing (once a fairly specialized skill) is required. Where you can work with someone for five years before you ever see their face. These require a unique set of skills we simply don't know how to test for at this point.
There's nothing new under the sun. Our generation is on Facebook--older generations played cards. Our generation is on Twitter--older generations were on CBs, or telegraphs (Thomas Edison springs to mind). Our generation has YouTube--older generations had TV and radio shows. They are functionally equivalent; they fill the same role as time-wasting irrelevancies. Sorry, but it's simply a myth that younger people waste more time or that older generations were more dilligent. It's particularly ironic that you say that in the same post where you dismiss the argument of another for not having sufficient research to support it.
The fact of the matter is, no generation has had as much information at their hands as the current one. Ever. But humans are humans; there is a lowest common denominator among human entertainment. Some people will use the internet to listen to philosophical lectures or read up on how to improve obscure skills for the sheer joy of it; others will use the internet to watch guys get nailed in the nuts by 2x4s. But the thing is, I've seen my grandfather's box of dirty business cards, and I've read a great deal about what kids did for entertainment in the past. The past generations were no different.
In a country in which half of the population thinks barney flintstone is a real historical figure this is not(if true) a shock.
Also, "being familiar with technology" means something a lot different today than it did 20, 30, or more years ago.
When computers first came out, the user interfaces were so bad that you really had to be able to understand a lot about the device to use it. As time went on, you had to know less and less. A person using Facebook, or this forum software, today isn't really using computer technology in any meaningful sense. You don't really have to know anything about your computer to sign on to Facebook, or even make a plane reservation on the internet.
When I first communicated via something vaguely like a forum, you had to know what a "modem" was, and how to put your phone line into it, and how to follow the instructions for editing "autoexec.bat", and probably win.ini. It's not the same today.
Did you read the article? It wasn't just math that US young people were bad at. They ranked very low in literacy, too.
In 2013, NAEP reported that 74 percent of the nation’s twelfth graders were below proficient in mathematics and 62 percent were below proficient in reading.
across all levels of parental educational attainment, there was no country where millennials scored lower than those in the United States
Literacy is where we did the least badly, but scores over time have declined in the USA. . . . . . . They're still in last place, and most everyone else declined, but here is the one place where literacy scores have actually increased.
If you read this report it is alarming, not "alarmist". They report that this decline is being seen across the board in the various measures of educational performance in the USA. <snip>
In a country in which half of the population thinks barney flintstone is a real historical figure this is not(if true) a shock.
You keep using the term 'decline' but I'm not sure it is that clear cut. The scores between 2003 and 2012 did not change, and that is in line with PISA which has not shown a decline in America's scores in the 12 years it has been used. Was 1994 the first use of the test? If so then a comparison should be made with other countries to see if they also experienced similar changes to the scores between 1994 and 2003 -- if there were it may indicate that the test was slightly different or there was a slight change to the calibration, not that the US specifically was in decline.
And I don't think you should use ranking when discussing these kinds of tests ("tied for last place"). Was there statistical significance in the difference between America's scores and the scores of countries near them on the list?
Why are all the would-be excuses in one direction, and why not just look at the report yourself? Why are you challenging the word "decline" as if I was making this up myself instead of relating what the report is saying itself?
What if the test is easier now? What if the questions are culturally biased towards the US experience? What if the normal distribution is incorrect for significance testing and we should use a tighter distribution instead? What if the U.S. kids were fresh and the foreign kids were tired? What if the US students cheated? I can rattle off endless reasons why it could be worse.
Was 1994 the first use of the test? If so then a comparison should be made with other countries to see if they also experienced similar changes to the scores between 1994 and 2003 -- if there were it may indicate that the test was slightly different or there was a slight change to the calibration, not that the US specifically was in decline.
Why do you trust the scores being the same between 2003 and 2012, but have contempt for the decline relative to 1994?
Was 1994 the first use of the test? If so then a comparison should be made with other countries to see if they also experienced similar changes to the scores between 1994 and 2003 -- if there were it may indicate that the test was slightly different or there was a slight change to the calibration,
I understand the defensiveness. But that's all it is.
If people want to challenge the results of this very sobering report that is not only careful about statistical significance but in every aspect of test design in order to root out bias - then do your work.