Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
daedalus wrote: My brother and I played "beat the gak out of each other with sticks" outside. It was a cheap game to play.
Sticks were the best toys, my friends and I seemed to like throwing the flowers of this plant at each other http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanthorrhoea apparently the aborigines used them as fish spears, after being hit in the jaw with one and being an inch from losing all the teeth from my mouth I am doubting the veracity of those claims , or optionally the fish they hunted with them were shark sized.
Manchu - "But so what? The Bible also says the flood destroyed the world. You only need an allegorical boat to tackle an allegorical flood."
Shespits "Anything i see with YOLO has half naked eleventeen year olds Girls. And of course booze and drugs and more half naked elventeen yearolds Girls. O how i wish to YOLO again!"
Rubiksnoob "Next you'll say driving a stick with a Scandinavian supermodel on your lap while ripping a bong impairs your driving. And you know what, I'M NOT GOING TO STOP, YOU FILTHY COMMUNIST"
I'm sort of leaning on Daedalus' side slightly, however, this thread has gone 3 pages without an obligatory XKCD, so this must be remedied.
However, to put my own spin on things... Born in the mid-80's as well, that video did raise my hackles.
In any case, here's a few half-formed opinions from me.
There's an argument that this is the reality star / fame hunting and that this is a new thing. I really do not believe this. Kids today want to be the next Ronaldo or whatever. Kids 60 years ago wanted to be the next George Best.
If it's not One Direction, it's Take That or it's Westlife or it's The Beatles.
Justin Bieber, nah, it's Justin Timberlake, or Michael Jackson or Bob Dylan or Johnny Cash or Elvis. (Albeit, the music quality is different...)
Sitting in all day playing X Box? Nope, it's sitting in all day playing your Spectrum. Or it's sitting in and reading comics. Nah, you know what, it's just sitting inside reading.
There's been an argument that part of the issue with schools is that some aspects are behind the times. Perhaps it's no good complaining about kids just copy pasting things (although, I admittedly, I have no answer for the 'its too hard' comment, I'll need to think about that) but instead adapt lessons.
Perhaps less focus on memorising information but instead teach lessons earlier about the best way to access information. Don't say, 'wikipedia is bad, wikipedia is always wrong' (Wikipedia just came about in my 2nd to 3rd year of uni and that was the general response from any lecturers) but instead instruct kids on how to use citations, the skills in critical thinking to decide, 'whether this guy is talking rubbish' or 'this is a genuine nugget of knowledge' and including that original citation and its sources into your text.
In a somewhat similar case to Daedalus, I struggled for years with maths, unfortunately I didn't work out factorising (I didn't even know it was called that until tonight, to be honest) numbers until I was well into my warhammer years. I think it was actually working out Army Lists that ended up making maths click a bit for me.
I remember my English lessons at school were swamped with dealing with imagery, symbolism, metaphor (see what I did there) and all sorts of really heavy, dull sounding, boring as heck things like that. Nowadays, I'd argue that the first stop for an English teacher trying to get their kids interested in Creative Writing or Critical Reading or the like is... TV Tropes. It's no good just telling a kid, "sprawled is a common term for someone sitting on a lounger on a sunbed thereby showing the juxtaposition of a body lying on a battlefield being described as it." And expecting them to remember that.
Instead, a bit of a discussion about, say, the TV Tropes Dramatic Irony page, which has examples from the kids lives could help more.
In any case, that was a bit of a 1:00am ramble, so I'm off to bed.
Anyhow, it seems fairly natural for people to look at the youth and observe that they're pretty stupid. That seems a fairly accurate assessment.
But then they start thinking that back when they were a kid and that they didn't seem stupid, and nor were the other kids their age. What they don't realise is that while they didn't see themselves as stupid, that's just because, like all stupid people, they didn't know what they didn't know.
But the thing about kids is that they get older, and as they do so they learn more. Same happens in every generation. And when this generation of idiots grows up and stops being stupid, then they're going to look at the generation younger than their own and notice how stupid they are, and falsely assume that it's the product of some magic 'generation' affect, and not just the result of being kids.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ensis Ferrae wrote: Murder rates may be going down as a whole, but you still have areas of the US where it's either level, or still increasing slightly
What kind of an argument is that? "Oh sure, overall that may have gotten better, but in some places it's worse therefore I'm going to continue believing things are getting worse overall"
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kilkrazy wrote: There is long time-series data on large population cohorts that shows fitness of young people (school age) has declined.
Sure, no argument there. Note, though, that it is the result of both reduced exercise and increased food intake.
There is long time-series data on large population cohorts that show that skill levels in maths and grammar of college entrants have declined.
Sure, because we've massively expanded the number of people attending college. When you open the doors of college from 10% of highschool graduates to 30% (or whatever the exact numbers are)... then obviously you're going to reduce the quality of your college graduates.
But that says exactly nothing about the overall education level. When you do look at the overall education level, once you adjust for the issues with the data (we now measure the full population while in previous generations we didn't measure certain population groups) you just do not see a reduction in ability. Not at all.
Interestingly, the second data set also shows that self-assessed levels of competency have increased. In other words, young people today think of themselves better than earlier young people did, although their skills measured by objective standards have declined.
Which is only a problem if you assume the amount of confidence used to be exactly the amount of confidence people should have. But the thing is, I know people of my parent's generation who are very talented, very hard working, who spent their whole lives slaving their guts out in lower rung jobs because that's what they were flat out told was their lot in life. The old protestant work ethic just hammered in to them so hard they had no confidence to get out and create and lead, despite having ample ability to do so.
Sure, this generation is full of over-confident incompetent people... but I'm not sure the world has ever lacked for those idiots. But maybe this generation might at least have a lot more confident, competent people ready to compete with those idiots...
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2014/03/21 03:06:49
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Manchu - "But so what? The Bible also says the flood destroyed the world. You only need an allegorical boat to tackle an allegorical flood."
Shespits "Anything i see with YOLO has half naked eleventeen year olds Girls. And of course booze and drugs and more half naked elventeen yearolds Girls. O how i wish to YOLO again!"
Rubiksnoob "Next you'll say driving a stick with a Scandinavian supermodel on your lap while ripping a bong impairs your driving. And you know what, I'M NOT GOING TO STOP, YOU FILTHY COMMUNIST"
Ensis Ferrae wrote: Murder rates may be going down as a whole, but you still have areas of the US where it's either level, or still increasing slightly (like Chicago, DC and other "anti-gun bastions", ironically)
There is still plenty of crime in DC, but it is a far cry away from the days of the early 90s when there was 479 homicides.
There were 104 homicides in Washington, D.C. in 2013. That number includes the 12 people gunned down in the Navy Yard shooting, a newborn smothered by his mother, a four year old beaten to death by his babysitter, a four year old girl who died when her house was deliberately set on fire, a college kid stabbed to death during a robbery, and a pregnant woman stabbed to death by her boyfriend.
Violent crime as a whole decreased in DC, like it has since the early-to-mid 1990s (when it was at its highest). Not only that, but the population of the District has also been growing for the first time in 60 years.
d-usa wrote: "When the Internet sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending posters that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing strawmen. They're bringing spam. They're trolls. And some, I assume, are good people."
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Compel wrote: I'm sort of leaning on Daedalus' side slightly, however, this thread has gone 3 pages without an obligatory XKCD, so this must be remedied.
My trouble with this is that its a horrible work of propaganda, its doesnt put forward an argument it puts forward both sides of an argument but from only one perspective. One side can talk, the other remains dumbfounded, one side can state unsupported 'facts' while decrying statement from the other side. It also continues to end in an ad hominem attack, anyone seeing the other side of the perspective is socially inferior.
Handled this way you could put a good case for anything.
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
Manchu - "But so what? The Bible also says the flood destroyed the world. You only need an allegorical boat to tackle an allegorical flood."
Shespits "Anything i see with YOLO has half naked eleventeen year olds Girls. And of course booze and drugs and more half naked elventeen yearolds Girls. O how i wish to YOLO again!"
Rubiksnoob "Next you'll say driving a stick with a Scandinavian supermodel on your lap while ripping a bong impairs your driving. And you know what, I'M NOT GOING TO STOP, YOU FILTHY COMMUNIST"
3. Because 'textwalls' exist like its' a problem. If people cant be bothered to read textwalls what will they do when they come to read chapters.
I had solve some math problem. After reading walls of text from my calculus (I also tried different editions) I just gave up, typed a keyword in youtube search bar and watched a 5min video which explained everything I needed to know.
When I need to read chapters I just watch few 5 min youtube videos.
I'm exactly the opposite. I can not stand to watch video tutorials. I would rather read a wall of text, even if I have to pause midway through to think about what I just read, than listen to somebody drone on. Mainly I think, because if I need to go over something again, it's easier to skip back in a paragraph than a video.
Mannahnin wrote:A lot of folks online (and in emails in other parts of life) use pretty mangled English. The idea is that it takes extra effort and time to write properly, and they’d rather save the time. If you can still be understood, what’s the harm? While most of the time a sloppy post CAN be understood, the use of proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling is generally seen as respectable and desirable on most forums. It demonstrates an effort made to be understood, and to make your post an easy and pleasant read. By making this effort, you can often elicit more positive responses from the community, and instantly mark yourself as someone worth talking to.
insaniak wrote: Every time someone threatens violence over the internet as a result of someone's hypothetical actions at the gaming table, the earth shakes infinitisemally in its orbit as millions of eyeballs behind millions of monitors all roll simultaneously.
I too, will take some of these and comment wittily.
Witty, but also depressing. I thought I was jaded.
1- If only my students understood enough about what is being researched to even copy/paste, it'd be a start. They just tell me "It was too hard, so I gave up, give me the failing grade." Multiple times. Today. Affluent suburbs of Montreal.
Please tell me youre joking and these are ghetto kids. If this attitude is mainstream what is there left to be?
2- Again, back to comprehension issues addressed in #1. Context is wasted on my batch. Might as well give them soundbites from the Simpsons.
The Simpsons might teach them something. Lisa does ok.
4- Not even. I find you need to actually care about how you spell to even use or understand what spellcheckers are telling you. Not a given.
Never jaded enough to think of it this way, until now. Spell checkers are irrelevant.... thats depressing. I thought they were problematic as a crutch.
5- Yup, but it often comes down to personal discipline, which again can be instilled, but often isn't anymore. Why should we be harsh with them, it screwed us up, so we're not going to ever, ever let them feel like they can't have their heart's desire.
So the root causes are sense of entitlement and bad parenting?
7- I can only speak locally. 49% of Quebecers cannot read or understand simple sentences, let alone a string of them. The study projects that that number will increase by at least 10% over the course of the next 12 years, as the "reform" students hit the job market.
How much of an exagerration is this?
8- Someone earlier said that it was irrelevant. If it was an isolated complaint, I'd say yes, but unfortunately, students now write "like they speak." And our speech (locally) is anything but stellar. Students are shocked that I actually grade on grammar, spelling and syntax.
In fairness most internet posts are speech in text form as they are a conversation. When typing online diction is more important than syntax. You didn't comment that my list all began senstences with the word 'Because', that is acceptable diction, but appalling syntax.
10- Bigger fish to fry, but on the whole, there must be a good way to use communication techs. I strongly believe that.
You are right and Cheescat made a similar point. It appears that I am calling mobile phones bad because people use them. I should have been more clear, mobile phones can be bad if people use them so extensively they fail to develop face to face communication skills. Too much phoning, too much texting, not enough face to face conversation. Phones are great for long distance communication but are often used for same room or local communication which manes that the technology in a real way divides people. When the youth are concerned and the social skills are not developed as a result the consequences will be negative and long lasting. Teen pregnancies excepting, the first generations to have been linked to mobile phones from the cradle has yet to have reproduced in sufficient numbers to make up the majority of the adult breeding population , the real rot will be apparent over the next decade. When the generation gap turns and the pre-mobile phone generation begins to fade.
11- Boys will still kick a ball for hours on end rather than have to do arts, or write 5 sentences stringed together, or show me any kind of respect. The problem I see with this is that it stopped being a sport or a hobby, and has been fantasized by their community as the acceptable way to go through life. We have 200 boys in the "hockey track" at my school. From the coaches' briefings and reports (and our sad scores) I'd say none of them are particularly good at it. Yet they all believe they will end up in the NHL, so screw that high school diploma.
I don't think communications technologies are the problem here as much as the sense of entitlement. students are not expected to fail so they all believe they are winners. I can see why the idiots who instilled this dogma did so, it staves off feelings of inadequacy through failure, but it also staves off reality, and the pressure to actually achieve. I am not surprised that as a consequence too many believe they are destined to become pro-sports players, self delusion is powerful.
The proper way to handle this is to have acceptable failure. For example rather than have a sport non competitive it remains highly competetive but encouragement is given to those lagging behind. So instead of a foot race where all the kids get the same reward ribbon, you have winners and a winners trophy those who do not win do not get. But runners at the back of the pack gain buddies to jog along with them help them cross the finish line and cheer when they do. They receive no condemnation, only encouragement, but their bad race times are not papered over when the results are posted.
Sorry, big weekend at the store. And a customer cheated me (I admit, I was distracted) out of 100$. The scumbag could have been nice and pointed it out, but he bolted instead.
Anyhoo. I wasn't joking about the "it was too hard, just fail me please" bit. Ethics is not a required class to get your degree, not even once, in your 5 years of high school. You have to be there, but only because you have to be in school until your 16th birthday. They only realize that their "general average" is very low once they are in grade 11. Let me 'splain: In Quebec, you can fail every grade until grade 8 and you are automatically promoted, unless your parents strongly object, for social development reasons. To get to grade 9, you need to have passed half of your classes, of which either French, English or Math must be two of those. Then and only then do you get promoted to higher grades only if you get passing grades. And no, those kids are from a very affluent suburb. I used to teach in one of the worse ghettos of Montreal, and at least they would roll up their sleeves and give it a good try.
Good catch on the one. But it still serves to illustrate my point that spellcheckers aren't the be all end all. Especially since mine is always in French, because this is the language I prepare my material in, hence I get the most milleage out of it.
I agree about an internet forum being a different media, and thus different rules being used to communicate. My point was that my students are not able to differentiate between social situations and thus always use the same voice. If you had a college level French, I'd share Facebook posts from my Wall. Truly scary. And beginning a sentence by "and" can be acceptable, depending on the impact you want to have, or the emphasis you want to place on it!
Entitlements and bad parenting... not sure about sweeping statements. I think life changed a lot and parenting models from the past, as well as the idealism born out of being subjected to it, are becoming less and less adequate. Questioning authority is generally good. But out of rebellion, it accomplishes little.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/03/24 01:26:40
GamesWorkshop wrote: And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!
I would like to second the statement that people have always been celebrity chasers; there is proof that back in ancient Roman times, women would wear the sweat of their favorite gladiator as perfume. Riiiiiiiight.......
Also, please don't bring Ethics class into this. I signed up for Ethics class but alas was too late to actually get in. So I went to the class anyway, asking if the teacher could make room for me as I really, REALLY wanted to be in it. He told me to keep coming to class, as people would more than likely drop out in the next couple of days.
Second day, his speech started as "In your high school career, and in most of your college classes, you have been taught what to think. In this class, I will teach you how to think". Do you know what we did for the rest of the semester? We sat around looking at arguments people made on Abortion/Suicide/Religion/Gay Rights/what-have-you. We didn't get to formulate arguments of our own, even. When we had in class "Debates", we would literally sit there and regurgitate what we had read instead of writing any sort of "This argument is wrong, here is why", or have an actual debate between students. Ethics class was abhorrently worthless.
Also, you guys do have to remember, that while students are becoming worse and worse at doing things, they are also having more put on them to do; Because Calculators allow for so much easier mathing, younger and younger kids are doing more and more intense mathing
I've never feared Death or Dying. I've only feared never Trying.
Slarg232 wrote: I would like to second the statement that people have always been celebrity chasers; there is proof that back in ancient Roman times, women would wear the sweat of their favorite gladiator as perfume. Riiiiiiiight.......
The sweat was also incorporated, very often, in "medicine."
Also, please don't bring Ethics class into this. I signed up for Ethics class but alas was too late to actually get in. So I went to the class anyway, asking if the teacher could make room for me as I really, REALLY wanted to be in it. He told me to keep coming to class, as people would more than likely drop out in the next couple of days.
Second day, his speech started as "In your high school career, and in most of your college classes, you have been taught what to think. In this class, I will teach you how to think". Do you know what we did for the rest of the semester? We sat around looking at arguments people made on Abortion/Suicide/Religion/Gay Rights/what-have-you. We didn't get to formulate arguments of our own, even. When we had in class "Debates", we would literally sit there and regurgitate what we had read instead of writing any sort of "This argument is wrong, here is why", or have an actual debate between students. Ethics class was abhorrently worthless.
Students in my cohort would have loved this. My Bio-Ethics class was usually in this format: 1 hour of theory, then 2 weeks of genuine case studies and teachers desperately trying to ellicit a response. We'd hear the neons buzzing for long periods of time. Even if I was going completely astray, at least I could get almost one on one time with a teacher or TA, in front of the whole class. Good times. For me. And yes, a lot of students drop out of those. I made it all the way to Ethics 2 ( a rarity for a future teacher, they usually only do Intro to Ethics, the hardcore ones do Ethics 1) and had to admit that the nuances were leaving me a bit lost. This was a very intense experience, as the class was only 18 students. and I squeeked by with a C+.
Also, you guys do have to remember, that while students are becoming worse and worse at doing things, they are also having more put on them to do; Because Calculators allow for so much easier mathing, younger and younger kids are doing more and more intense mathing
Not quite, at least locally. In grade 11, I agree. They see vectors whereas I never did and I did science math (which I promptly forgot once I selected the humanities in cégèp*) In the general track, though, math teachers are required to provide times tables to students until grade 8. I had to memorize that gak in grade 4. I'm not arguing for strictly rote memorization, but some of it is useful. It's mental gymnastics that can be part of the toolkit. How else do you remember all of your 40K stats otherwise?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/03/24 13:01:14
GamesWorkshop wrote: And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!
