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People are getting dumber...

I think we can all agree that we're all a little dumber for just being here, no?

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Hm, but the thing is, we talk about standards being HIGHER... I mean, my kindergartener is writing persuasive essays and informational essays and doing geometry with 3D shapes...

Maybe it is just the WRONG standards? My wife works in child development, and she is just so sick of what is happening with schools... she feels that we have completely unrealistic and useful standards and expectations. She is FURIOUS at how much play has been eliminated from school, especially with younger ones, as she feels that play and human interaction that comes with it is one of the key things that help young people develop people skills and grit and problem solving and all of those vital, but untested, skills.


BTW, an aside; the #1 thing my wife rails against is day care. Part of one of her jobs is to go to nursery schools and day care centers and help them improve... she literally says that having children being raised and growing up in a 1 adult : 10 kid environment rather than what was a 1:1 or 1:2 or 1:3 family unit is completely destroying our society, but that we haven't figured that out yet. I will say, looking at this study, it does make sense...

I don’t think we can have the “education standards are too high” conversation until we even sniff the top 10 in basic test scores among industrialized nations.

I came up through public middle school and high school - in a part of the country that no one really cares about - during the peak of the No Child Left Behind debacle. There was no question that standards got looser. We sat the bar on the floor so that we could incrementally step over it every year and claim progress.

I do agree that kids need more socialization with other kids, especially with the amount of screen time most kids have at home. I think it’s key in developing empathy and some sense of community.
 
Past tense, right?
B/c he already backed off that gif:


You ought to think (present tense) the same thing about this:
Give me an f’ing break. His kindergartener isn’t doing geometry. He may be drawing 3D shapes, but that’s not geometry. Look, you and are have been very civil lately and I apprecite that, but I honestly think he is a POS. I’ve never seen someone try soooo hard to get people to believe that he’s something he’s not. He’s a complete liar and distorts all truths to make himself look good. Now he’s using his kids. It’s sickening.
 
Give me an f’ing break. His kindergartener isn’t doing geometry. He may be drawing 3D shapes, but that’s not geometry. Look, you and are have been very civil lately and I apprecite that, but I honestly think he is a POS. I’ve never seen someone try soooo hard to get people to believe that he’s something he’s not. He’s a complete liar and distorts all truths to make himself look good. Now he’s using his kids. It’s sickening.
You've "honestly" said the same thing about me.

How hard is he trying, exactly? And how do we know what he's not? It could be that just like people you agree with here, he has his own style that you'd give a pass if you liked his politics.

Yeah, calling it "geometry" and "___ essays" as opposed to "being introduced to geometric principles" and "different writing strands" is a bit misleading.
 
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You've "honestly" said the same thing about me.

How hard is he trying, exactly? And how do we know what he's not? It could be that just like people you agree with here, he has his own style that you'd give a pass if you liked his politics.

Yeah, calling it "geometry" and "___ essays" as opposed to "being introduced to geometric principles" and "different writing strands" is a bit misleading.
I think there are plenty of smart people here. Lots of diverse backgrounds and lots of people with good amounts of general knowledge. He is the only one that tries to pass off how "smart" he is or how high his IQ is. It's strange. I call BS on it. I genuinely think he's a bad person.

And yes, calling it geometry and whatever type of essays is misleading/exaggerating which is why I called him out for it. My youngest son could be reading a book about the stars and black holes but that doesn't mean it's correct for me to say he's studying astrophysics.
 
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I think there are plenty of smart people here. Lots of diverse backgrounds and lots of people with good amounts of general knowledge. He is the only one that tries to pass off how "smart" he is or how high his IQ is. It's strange. I call BS on it. I genuinely think he's a bad person.

And yes, calling it geometry and whatever type of essays is misleading/exaggerating which is why I called him out for it. My youngest son could be reading a book about the stars and black holes but that doesn't mean it's correct for me to say he's studying astrophysics.
oh man...this killed me. lol

Also---that kids hand writing is better than mine after 30 plus years of practice.
 
My 6 year old son just finished his thesis on his favorite season, summer. He drew a sun and grass with crayon then wrote a horribly misspelled sentence about the summer.

still struggles wiping his butt though.
I'll email you my sons dissertation on the cause and effect of a warm bath on his bladder. He tries to maintain a certain PPM urine/bathwater
 
I genuinely think he's a bad person.
You've said the exact same thing about me repeatedly for the better part of two years, including constant personal attacks invoking my children -- the people I would sacrifice my eternal soul for. I don't care how many sentences you write around it trying to convince me just how sincerely you mean it about anyone else; that's a sticking point you will never be able to gloss over.
 
Holy hell, talk about desperation.

My six-year-old calls it persuasive writing. That’s what it is. It is writing something with a thesis sentence and supporting details in order to get what you want. It isnt argumentative writing because they do not shoot down a point from the other side. And I’m pretty sure the front of the book says geometry. Not even sure why anybody would argue about this… I’m literally telling you what six-year-olds are learning. I literally took a picture to show you.. I don’t have skin in the game; as a parent, I’m chiming in on what we are discussing through personal experience. And that is bad why…?

Talk about ****ing desperate and obsessed. Sheesh. WWJD, right? People like that are why I wouldn’t put my real name online… Most normal people, it wouldn’t matter, but holy stalker...
 
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I don’t think we can have the “education standards are too high” conversation until we even sniff the top 10 in basic test scores among industrialized nations.

I came up through public middle school and high school - in a part of the country that no one really cares about - during the peak of the No Child Left Behind debacle. There was no question that standards got looser. We sat the bar on the floor so that we could incrementally step over it every year and claim progress.

I do agree that kids need more socialization with other kids, especially with the amount of screen time most kids have at home. I think it’s key in developing empathy and some sense of community.

No Child left behind was a disaster. Well-meaning, but any test that everyone can pass is a failure. There are just some people who are going to be left behind if you have any sort of rigorous standards. Unfortunately sometimes we are too soft to accept that.
 
Holy hell, talk about desperation.

My six-year-old calls it persuasive writing. That’s what it is. It is writing something with a thesis sentence and supporting details in order to get what you want. It isnt argumentative writing because they do not shoot down a point from the other side. And I’m pretty sure the front of the book says geometry. Not even sure why anybody would argue about this… I’m literally telling you but six-year-old are learning. I literally took a picture to show you.. I literally took a picture to show you. And that is bad why…?

Talk about ****ing desperate and obsessed. Sheesh. WWJD, right? People like that are why I wouldn’t put my real name online… Most normal people, it wouldn’t matter, but holy stalker...
Love this guy trying to persuade everyone after he got called on his bullshit...


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I took a big poop last night. It was solid. By wife said that she read that solid oop is good so she has a background in gastroenterology.
 
Give me an f’ing break. His kindergartener isn’t doing geometry. He may be drawing 3D shapes, but that’s not geometry. Look, you and are have been very civil lately and I apprecite that, but I honestly think he is a POS. I’ve never seen someone try soooo hard to get people to believe that he’s something he’s not. He’s a complete liar and distorts all truths to make himself look good. Now he’s using his kids. It’s sickening.

I don't get that from him and several people actually know him from this board. When people usually say stuff like this it's because they're hiding behind their own insecurities.

Kinda funny that you seem to have an issue with the way he discuss his kid on this board. Why does that bother you?
 
I don't get that from him and several people actually know him from this board. When people usually say stuff like this it's because they're hiding behind their own insecurities.

Kinda funny that you seem to have an issue with the way he discuss his kid on this board. Why does that bother you?

I have more of an issue of the way he talks about underage people in general.
 
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I think there are plenty of smart people here. Lots of diverse backgrounds and lots of people with good amounts of general knowledge. He is the only one that tries to pass off how "smart" he is or how high his IQ is. It's strange. I call BS on it. I genuinely think he's a bad person.

And yes, calling it geometry and whatever type of essays is misleading/exaggerating which is why I called him out for it. My youngest son could be reading a book about the stars and black holes but that doesn't mean it's correct for me to say he's studying astrophysics.

I watch YouTube videos about black holes and tell people I'm studying astrophysics. So, there's that.
 
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Btw, @jhmossy makes good points about genetics. I find it hard to believe humans are dumber merely based on the fact that humans have access to more information today than any point in history. I can find out about things in 2 minutes that would've taken a guy in 1550 three weeks. Retention might be less important, but I'd think most humans will retain quite a bit of that type of information over a lifetime.

Although, social media is a train wreck.
 
I watch YouTube videos about black holes and tell people I'm studying astrophysics. So, there's that.

Okay. I don’t get it.

We were talking about education and schools.

I shared what my six year old is studying in school as part of a discussion of changing, and often more “demanding” standards, and if they are making things better.

One of the things he is studying is geometry, which is the study of shapes. His book discusses it, as they sit there analyzing 3D shapes with names like rectangular prisms and cylinders and counting faces and edges and measuring them and stuff like that.

Another of the things he is studying is writing, and two specific types: persuasive writing and informational writing, which are two types of writing all teachers are familiar with. In fact, I myself am an elementary school teacher who teaches argumentative writing (differs from persuasive in that you include a counter argument) and informational writing. He literally calls it persuasive writing and informational writing. In fact, looking back, you can see “Persuasive Writing 2018” written on a sticky note from his teacher that is stuck to the front of that packet of work.

Obviously he is studying them in kindergarten. At no point did I say he is taking a high school course on the subjects.

Clearly everyone should understand that.

It is still geometry (the study of shapes) and persuasive writing. His own words.

It is different than what most of us older folks did in kindergarten, which is the entire point of the point.

I even provided a few photos to give folks an idea of what it looks like.

I am baffled that this is being argued still. There is nothing to be argued. He is literally studying geometry and persuasive writing. I don’t gain or lose anything by him studying those things; I am merely sharing what is being learned in my sons kindergarten class as part of a discussion of schooling and standards. I did not invent the terms geography and persuasive writing, nor did I assign them to what they are studying.

Someone help me out; why is this a thing?
 
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Btw, @jhmossy makes good points about genetics. I find it hard to believe humans are dumber merely based on the fact that humans have access to more information today than any point in history. I can find out about things in 2 minutes that would've taken a guy in 1550 three weeks. Retention might be less important, but I'd think most humans will retain quite a bit of that type of information over a lifetime.

Although, social media is a train wreck.

Social media is doing such massive damage to our society... as bad as we think it is, I think it will turn out to be much worse.
 
I think of social media sites the same way I fantasized about the potential of video tv while watching the Jetsons

I guess some take it more serious.
 
Eh.

So yesterday was a hard, hard day. Literally had a sixth grade girl who comes from a brutal home life (had her two sisters as well... there is abuse in the house, Mom just got arrested for beating one of them... a really bad scene) get really nastily bullied by some local girls on her Instagram page about a boy... you are a whore, you are ugly, that whole thing. She responded to them with a few sentences, first trying to stick up for herself, then giving in, and ended with, in tiny little font, “Girls like you are why girls like me kill ourselves.” We found out, and I had to spend the second half of the day yesterday under orders from my boss watching her (we had a graduation party) to make sure she wasn’t alone so that they could come pick her up for a eval before she did anything.

That was just yesterday. Breaks my ****ing heart:(

So yeah... social media is doing a ton of damage. It can be great for things (GoFundMe, etc) but Jesus the damage it is doing to our young, vulnerable people is mind blowing.
 
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Eh.

So yesterday was a hard, hard day. Literally had a sixth grade girl who comes from a brutal home life (had her two sisters as well... there is abuse in the house, Mom just got arrested for beating one of them... a really bad scene) get really nastily bullied by some local girls on her Instagram page about a boy... you are a whore, you are ugly, that whole thing. She responded to them with a few sentences, first trying to stick up for herself, then giving in, and ended with, in tiny little font, “Girls like you are why girls like me kill ourselves.” We found out, and I had to spend the second half of the day yesterday under orders from my boss watching her (we had a graduation party) to make sure she wasn’t alone so that they could come pick her up for a eval before she did anything.

That was just yesterday. Breaks my ****ing heart:(

So yeah... social media is doing a ton of damage. It can be great for things (GoFundMe, etc) but Jesus the damage it is doing to our young, vulnerable people is mind blowing.
Imagine if Social media sites had a minimum age restriction. Or parents could block sites.
 
Remember bullying prior to the internet?

Dude. Please.

Yes, I remember it. I remember that it generally ended at 3:00, that you didn’t have every single person you knew following you into your home, able to communicate with you... that you could go to bed at night without worrying about suddenly being drawn into some social thing that promised to keep you up all night.

It’s different, man. Gimme some basic credit here, as someone who deals with this day in and day out, and has for 15 years. The idea that, at 11:00 at night, a kid can suddenly get a text or see an Instagram post that suddenly throws their entire social existence into turmoil, that suddenly they can be part of a massive and ongoing dialogue involving their friends, their enemies, kids they don’t know, kids from other towns, all behind a screen where people present their absolute worst self, keeping them up all hours of the night while it grows and consumes them... it is, without question, doing a type of damage that we’ve never experienced before, it’s a type of social interaction that we’ve not really figured out, and it’s constant nature, the fact that it is always lurking, every second of every day, without any real time of reprieve... it’s bad.

I can only assume, Lurker, that you don’t have kids or deal with kids, right?
 
You are a parent or something, and you don’t see what social media is doing to our young people? Are your children still very young?
I guess I see more positive. TBH, you kind of sound like a mother from the 60's when they first heard Rock n' Roll.:D
 
Not really, in fact, I am very careful about that sort of thing… Every generation has always been convinced the next generation is worthless and shit, and I generally don’t buy into that… Every generation is just different than the last generation. I’ve never been that type.

But I am experiencing firsthand all the time the effects of social media is having on young people, and I talk to their parents every single day, And other teachers, and the police, and the kids themselves, and other teachers, and the police, and every single adult who has a kid of that age is in agreement… It is ****ing shit up.
 
Social media is doing such massive damage to our society... as bad as we think it is, I think it will turn out to be much worse.
I actually 100% with this. I think about completely deleting my social media accounts all the time. Will pull the trigger at some point.
 
How old are your children by the way?
No offense, but I'm not giving details. Maybe it's just me but asking specifics about children seems odd. And it's not just because you asked, I wouldn't give details to anyone.

But back to current topic. Yes, online bullying is real,a great support system does wonders.
 
Sure, that’s fine… I assume they are young enough not to be on social media?
 
Sigh. Again your assumptions are wrong.

Well then, you are a distinct distinct minority… I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to a parent who does not lament what social media is doing to children. The best they can usually say is that they are glad their kid does not get caught up in it.
 
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