Mathematics, reading skills in unprecedented decline in teenagers
Mathematics, reading skills in unprecedented decline in teenagers
Teenagers' mathematics and reading skills are in an unprecedented decline across dozens of countries and COVID school closures are only partly to be blamed, the OECD said on Tuesday in its latest survey of global learning standards.
Its them dang tiktaks
1 out of 4 were low performers in maths, reading and science
So the bottom 25% were all in the bottom 25%?
Let’s say “low performing” means you scored 20% or lower on the test. We’d write that as “25% scored 20% or lower.” But you could move the measure of “low” to whatever.
It’s not “the bottom 25% were in the bottom 25%.” It’s “25% met the criteria for low.” Those are different things.
…unless this is a /s that I’m too tired or social inept to process. i’m trying to be helpful.
Kind of, but if you take a bunch of maths PhD students, the bottom 25% will still get decent scores. I guess this just meant the bottom 25% was performing poorly not just compared to the top 75%, but also compared to a fixed limit.
This guy not understanding “decline” does a better job at explaining this article.
I never trust articles with adjectives like "unprecedented" or "worrying"
Its political season folks, gird your loins
This is a good point. Thank you for pointing it out
I feel like kids (hell, I would also) have been smarter if they used platforms like Reddit/Lemmy etc to learn and discourse constantly. I learn way more in these environments than I ever learned in school. I write (not quite essays but still extended body of writing) just by willingly engaging here. You would have had to pull teeth most of the time to get anything out of me in any comparable sense back then. YMMV
Part of that may be just that you're older and more mature now than when you were a high schooler. Encouraging kids to go on Lemmy and Reddit would just lead to most of them screwing around and looking at memes, not learning.
While some of that is true, as a kid I got involved in online forums and the exposure to ideas there, I think, did help broaden my horizons and spark interest in topics that school would not necessarily have cultivated in me in the same way.
I did a decent amount of learning as a teen. I'd have done more if not for the depression
Nah, it was lack of awareness of it (like nobody ever "showed" it to me so I didn't know to look for it) and lack of a good 3rd party app to make it palatable. Apollo was revolutionary to me when I discovered it in that regard.
There's the underlying basis that, on Reddit etc, you're generally viewing and discussing topics that you're already interested in, which is a massive hurdle.
I'm presuming you haven't learned much about the Kardashians on Reddit. You could, if you cared about them. I don't see how it's meaningfully different for math or anything else.
Hard not to think that's intentional. Ruling elites don't need educated masses which are harder to condition and control. Populisms don't need people to have critical capacity.
"The equivalent of losing three quarters of a year of learning"
"COVID probably played some role but I would not overrate it"
:thonk:
Cognitive decline appeared in article writing as those illiterate, illogical people found work.
Controversial take: go back to pencil and paper and less screen time.
Before anyone thinks I hate computers, I’ve a BSCpE and am an active sr developer.
Controversial take: Pay people what they're worth so only 1 adult in the house needs to work 1 job for 40 hours to provide for the family. This will free up that parent (in a single parent household) or free up 1 parent (in a dual parent household); to help with schooling.
Controversial take: keep the populace ignorant so they don’t get ideas.
It is absolutely true that increasing income can improve parenting and by extension the outcomes of kids, but there is also evidence that using computers too much can be detrimental for their education.
Really it's no different than how these things affect us adults: We all know that social media is trying to monopolize our attention, and that it's affecting our attention spans and mental health. Although arguably for kids it's even worse since their brains are still in development.
Solved.
I think we should go back to abacuses and sundials.
You might not always have paper and pencil.
The future Republicans want.
It's not the first time I read something like this. But it's not always because of COVID, school closures and so on.
A lot of things depend on a student, and if they are not interested in education and do just the minimum, of course, such skills like reading, writing, math, and so on will become worse and worse. I'm at university now, and my brother is at school. His skills and knowledge at that age are worse than mine. And I don't know why it is so, but you know, if he doesn't know how to do tasks, he just skips them, and teachers are quite okay with that. But I can't do it. When I can't finish something, I'll do my best to do it. The hardest thing for me is writing something, but I look for examples, tips, and so on. Yesterday, I was working on my paper, and this site https://gradesfixer.com/essay-types/process-analysis-essays/ helped me out because I was stuck. That paper type is not that hard, but I had no idea what to write. I found some useful resources, and these examples helped me out.
Reading is important.
Math is not.
That's just not true. Math helps build the basics of mathematical thinking which is useful throughout your whole life.
Basics of mathematical thinking? You mean problem solving?
Mr. Goldenfold is not amused.
Wow whole bunch of old man takes about computers and not a single one about public schools being systematically defunded, dismantled, and squeezed in every way possible.
I worked as a teacher for a while until quite recently.
99% of public discourse on education, is based on the (traumatic or positive) individual experiences of people who went to school years if not decades ago, not people who actually know much about what they're talking about.
But what about the LGBT agenda that's replacing math and reading education where children learn how to vote Democrat instead of learning how to read or multiply? /S
Sounds about right. I really do make an effort but when I am helping my kids with the New Math I am mentally screaming "why did they change this!?". I do like the sightword system however. So yeah if I am getting a bit annoyed there are probably parents who are getting less annoyed and other parents getting very annoyed. Bell Curve.
In what world do you think children have fewer resources at their disposal now than they did decades ago?
Because teachers are picking up the slack at the expense of their own financial and mental health.
Sure but that's definitely not the only reason.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/06/podcasts/the-daily/reading-school-phonics.html