>And yet more than half of these same seniors reported being accepted to a four-year college.
Well… yes. The loans are secured, so it is within the college’s interest to make 13th grade.
>showed that the mere presence of a participant’s smartphone — whether that be face down, powered off, untouched, or across the desk out of vision — measurably reduces available working memory and fluid intelligence on cognitive tests
Claim without data that I see, but ok… going on…
>Eighty-three percent of LLM users could not quote a single line from essays they had written minutes earlier.
Well, this makes sense. They didn’t write anything. This isn’t ground breaking, they let the students cheat.
>districts replaced sustained reading with the practice of pulling “evidence” from disconnected short passages, the same format used on the standardized tests that increasingly determine school funding
I remember this first hand.
>The students who cannot read a 20-page article today are the voters who will not be able to read a bill, or the jurors who cannot follow a closing argument, tomorrow.
I’m certain I remember my parents complaining about the same with my generation…
There are probably excellent points around these topics. But… this article doesn’t make the point as well as that kid getting his classmates failing to read a simple sentence on video.
> The students who cannot read a 20-page article today are the voters who will not be able to read a bill, or the jurors who cannot follow a closing argument, tomorrow.
Obviously literacy is super important but these are examples of things where literacy plays very little role, because ~nobody can read a bill, or follow a written legal argument. I mean a very literate person can get something out of reading it, which is nice until they then completely misinterpret it, or hear what their friends say about it and get onboard purely based on vibes.
I feel like it matters more for the economy and the future of knowledge work which, uh, is a little uncertain these days.
Yes, and there are sometimes many layers to it, which is why you can think "cool, I get that" while still missing something important that would be obvious to an expert.
I can confirm this from community colleges in both California and Oregon over the past two years; every non-science, non-math general education class (n=10+) has at least one student who cannot read or write at more than a couple sentences per minute. They’re perfectly able to keep up verbally but their education passed them through standardized tests without requiring reading and writing at a reasonable velocity.
We really need to make high school diplomas mean something again. However, this means something like a 35% fail rate.
Unfortunately, the populace would not accept that and so every credential gets inflated to worthlessness.
90%+ of all people in undergrad and 50% of grad school probably shouldn’t be there. They just want the credential, to get the job, to get the money. This is understandable but there is no interest to actually go deep or learn anything. Socratic style seminars are silent. Deep critique or wrestling with a topic only if pandering or grade related. Humanities watered down to irrelevance compared to STEM which has to keep some rigor or the bridges collapse and lights dont turn on. Academia is inflated by, wasted on, and ruined by them. They would be much better served by a high school diploma that wasn’t meaningless
The US has a really bad problem with parents thinking they should have deity-level say over every single aspect of how their kids are raised. This is very ironic, since the US also has a really bad problem with other parents thinking they can tell people how to raise their kids (witness all the "free-range" children who have innocently gotten their parents in trouble because some other parent saw them alone and called the police).
It should be less stigmatized to fail, study, try again, and pass. This way more people would have the credential because they have the knowledge as more people would have the knowledge. The credential would mean something, even though most people would have it.
It's not so much that they can't read, it's just that they have a short attention spam, which is an even bigger issue. And yes, I blame Tiktok and co. Your students couldn't sit through Ben-Hur.
Yep. Smartphones and social media were the jab, jab, and now AI is the knockout punch. We're raising a generation of people who quite literally do not know how to think for themselves and completely lack the motivation (and attention span required) to even try.
I use the term "programmable people" for people like this, in that they believe what the screen tells them to believe and they do what the screen tells them to do. It bothers me that it won't be long before these programmable people represent the overwhelming majority of voters. Not sure what happens then but history tells me it won't be good.
There was a study "They don’t read very well: A study of the reading comprehension skills of English majors at two midwestern universities" last year where they had university students try to read the opening of Bleak House by Dickens, they couldn't do it at all.
Text: "it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill."
Respondent: "It’s probably some kind of an animal or something or another that it is talking about encountering in the streets. And “wandering like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.” So, yup, I think we’ve encountered some kind of an animal these, these characters have, have met in the street."
I think it's just the culture. I'm old. I used to regularly read long books. Now I can't even get through a 20 minute video unless I'm walking or driving. I mean I could if I had to, but I wouldn't do it for fun.
39 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 66.8 ms ] threadI suspect that has something to do with it.
Well… yes. The loans are secured, so it is within the college’s interest to make 13th grade.
>showed that the mere presence of a participant’s smartphone — whether that be face down, powered off, untouched, or across the desk out of vision — measurably reduces available working memory and fluid intelligence on cognitive tests
Claim without data that I see, but ok… going on…
>Eighty-three percent of LLM users could not quote a single line from essays they had written minutes earlier.
Well, this makes sense. They didn’t write anything. This isn’t ground breaking, they let the students cheat.
>districts replaced sustained reading with the practice of pulling “evidence” from disconnected short passages, the same format used on the standardized tests that increasingly determine school funding
I remember this first hand.
>The students who cannot read a 20-page article today are the voters who will not be able to read a bill, or the jurors who cannot follow a closing argument, tomorrow.
I’m certain I remember my parents complaining about the same with my generation…
There are probably excellent points around these topics. But… this article doesn’t make the point as well as that kid getting his classmates failing to read a simple sentence on video.
Obviously literacy is super important but these are examples of things where literacy plays very little role, because ~nobody can read a bill, or follow a written legal argument. I mean a very literate person can get something out of reading it, which is nice until they then completely misinterpret it, or hear what their friends say about it and get onboard purely based on vibes.
I feel like it matters more for the economy and the future of knowledge work which, uh, is a little uncertain these days.
You can read while still being illiterate
Unfortunately, the populace would not accept that and so every credential gets inflated to worthlessness.
90%+ of all people in undergrad and 50% of grad school probably shouldn’t be there. They just want the credential, to get the job, to get the money. This is understandable but there is no interest to actually go deep or learn anything. Socratic style seminars are silent. Deep critique or wrestling with a topic only if pandering or grade related. Humanities watered down to irrelevance compared to STEM which has to keep some rigor or the bridges collapse and lights dont turn on. Academia is inflated by, wasted on, and ruined by them. They would be much better served by a high school diploma that wasn’t meaningless
https://archive.ph/XvPXE
Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM (5 days ago, 866 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48309233
If you can read cursive, the Newberry has a job for you (62 days ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47607255
Kids rarely read books anymore, even in English class (5 months ago, 346 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46259233
US high school students’ scores fail in reading and math (8 months ago, 1089 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45182657
Ask HN: How to gain the ability to read with focus and learn? (11 months ago, 39 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44346359
Scores decline again for 13-year-old students in reading and mathematics (2023) (41 days ago, 292 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47867755
It sure looks like phones are making students dumber (2.5 years ago, 151 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38695500
UK surgery students ‘losing dexterity to stitch patients’ (7.5 years ago, 172 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18339299
Several Baltimore schools have no students proficient in state tests (9 years ago, 101 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14385703
Many McGill education students cannot calculate an average (11 years ago, 274 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9080665
- abolish teachers unions
- fail / keep back students who don't meet standards, in a completely objective fashion with no regard for racial / ethnic / gender sensitivities
Text: "it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill."
Respondent: "It’s probably some kind of an animal or something or another that it is talking about encountering in the streets. And “wandering like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.” So, yup, I think we’ve encountered some kind of an animal these, these characters have, have met in the street."