[ExI] big rip in education

Fri Mar 1 16:09:37 UTC 2019

Whatever happened to programmed learning, with each student sitting at a
computer and following along at his rate and taking tests at his own rate?
(lots of small ones which point at a problem and refer back to that
subject)  First suggested by B F Skinner, I think.  The teacher wanders
around the room helping students get over a hump in their work.  bill w
(sorry to hear about the Ted talk - still think you have something to offer)

On Fri, Mar 1, 2019 at 9:26 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

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> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *John Clark
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> On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 4:10 PM Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com>
> wrote:
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>  > > *I'm not interested in equality of outcome at the expense of all
> else. *
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> >… it might lead to a more peaceful civilization if the wealth gap were to
> stop growing or at least stop accelerating?...John K Clark
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> I recently set up a Ted Talk on what could be titled the Big Rip in
> Education, but after thinking it through, decided to decline the
> opportunity.  I realized the intended audience already knew (better than I
> do) the problems and challenges.  I only talking about embracing the
> problem, but wasn’t offering any solutions.
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> John talks a lot about the coming big rip in economic status, a model
> which holds some merit one might suppose.  The span of wealth ownership is
> increasing.  I differ from John in that the big resentment I see isn’t on
> the part of those at the bottom, but rather on the part of those in the
> middle: millionehhhs hate billionehhhs.  Shrugs.  I don’t have anything
> against them.
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> My aborted TED talk was about how we are seeing a big rip in education as
> more and better online materials come available.  There is an ever widening
> gulf between the students who use it effectively vs those who do not.
> Before I expand further on that, I will comment that we are seeing the same
> thing in other areas in which I am involved: Boy Scouts, Science Olympiad
> and American Math Competition.  All of these areas are experiencing big
> rips, which I may expound upon at a some future date.  It is astonishing to
> watch it unfold.
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> In the education area, I have been watching closely for the past 8 years,
> since my son has been a consumer.  In that time, I have witnessed the local
> public schools really get with it, supplying a computer to every student
> and sufficient bandwidth to drive all of the machines simultaneously.  They
> have adopted an experimental curriculum called PLP, developed by Summit
> Learning.  That might be a step in the right direction, but it is very
> limited and mainstream-ey.  Plenty of the students have discovered better
> online material such as Khan Academy.
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> The result of these developments is an ever-accelerating big rip in
> academic achievement.  A yawning gap is forming between those who use the
> online resources effectively and those who do not.  This is not to say
> there are fewer students in between, for there are plenty there too.  But
> the extremes are getting more extreme with time.  We see it happening, but
> I have no particular insights on how to deal with it.  I don’t see any
> particular resentment against those who are super-achievers on the part of
> those who are not.
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> At the same time, I recognize that the job of the teacher is getting
> harder with time, at least in some ways.  In other ways, it has gotten much
> easier, particularly in curriculum planning (that is done for them) and the
> grading process.  The software package takes into account the online
> achievements and automatically generates the grades.  (!)  The report card
> isn’t what you and I brought home, but rather several pages of stuff,
> including text, much or most of which is generated by the software.  (!)
> The teacher can add commentary if (s)he wishes, and it uses speech to text,
> making that aspect of teaching easier.
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> A new twist I hadn’t seen before was rolled out this year.  Instead of the
> usual parent-teacher conferences, the students now make up a set of
> PowerPoint charts and present these to a parent, in a big room with about a
> dozen other students simultaneously pitching their accomplishments to their
> parents, while the teacher is present in the room but not interacting
> directly with any of the students.  (!)
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> In all this, we are seeing an astonishing divergence in accomplishments of
> the top end vs the bottom end students.  The big rip in education is
> already ripping wildly.
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> In some ways this makes the job of teaching harder, for while there are
> plenty of students still plodding along the old-fashioned way, with plenty
> of parents insisting on the old educational models, it becomes very
> difficult to even keep up with the best students, while they are still in
> the middle and even lower grades, such as… seventh.  I can show you
> examples of students who already have zoomed past their teachers at least
> in some areas, particularly math and software development.  Cool!  (…If
> your own offspring happens to be way out there on the right end of the bell
> curve and accelerating to the right… (otherwise, not so cool.))
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> spike
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