Banning iPods Cheating Our Children?

Easy solution:

Ban portable electronic devices in the classroom, with the exception of the barest of essentials. Something like a TI-30 scientific calculator is all the students need.

Computers should be available only when appropriate, such as for computer science, programming, or classes where programs are essential (such as using ChemDraw for organic chemistry, etc).

People who assert that they "need" their cell phones tend to forget, that the school does have land lines available, and that parents can always call the school if their child needs to be notified about something. The students can use the phones if the situation is that important, as I have never seen anyone be denied the use of the land line when appropriate.

You go to school to learn, not to socialize.

Those who are caught cheating should be suspended for a week. Those caught a second time should be expelled.

The important thing is that students should actually do the work. That's how you learn, and that's what will grant you the knowledge. Maybe if they actually do the work, and become more knowledgeable, we won't have to keep adjusting the damn SAT scores by inflating them (aka "readjusting the average").
 
By the logic of the article poster we should all carry around PDAs and everything we do or think should be in there. Better yet we should all get cyber brains... actually I'd favor that but I digress.

Memory is a large part of what we do and who we are, we need it for simple tasks to the most complex. No matter what the better or memory the better aptitude can be.

Example:
I can assume that we all here like language spoken and written correct? Reading and listening on their basic levels is an exercise and memorization and recall. You were not born with knowledge of this language it was only through many exercises that your learned what the characters are, what they make in these predefined groups. What the groups or words mean. Listening is much the same, when you were young you had to listen to the words spoken by others and the actions that followed to associate their meanings. Short things such as "baba" become remembered connections thats you'd receive your bottle when you where hungry/thirsty, "mama" would most certainly get the attention of your mother.


This is just a short example, we could go to higher levels of reading listening, writing and speaking, or even to more active subjects such as, driving, cooking, manufacturing, travel and anything else. Memory is the largest building block of a humans ability for interaction.
 
So many people here don't understand what's going on in schools grades K-12. They simply aren't designed for learning.

Don't believe me? Listen to what I have to say, I've been intensely interested in this subject for a long time and have done an exhaustive amount of research.

Our entire current system of modern schooling came directly from Prussia (financed by industrialists and well off businessmen). The philosopher August Comte was contracted by Prussia after their defeat at the Battle of Jena to reorganize their schooling system to be more effecient. His stated goal was "to create a useful proletariat by breaking connections between children and their families, their communities, their God and themselves". How did he do this? By implementing several changes into the Prussian school system which we adopted hook, line, and sinker - compulsory attendance, state-appointed teachers, a "standardized" grading system, age seperation, the idea of a new teacher every year, and many other smaller changesb. By adopting those very same changes we've unwittingly (or wittingly, depending on who you believe) adopted his stated goal, to create the perfect proletariat. This is all fine and good if you're trying to make the average person mediocre at everything and excellent at nothing, but personally, I'd prefer or my little "proletariat" to maintain his connections to his family, community, God, and himself.

Still don't believe me? Take it from Rockefeller's mouth, one of the most vocal and supportive founders of modern schooling:

Rockefeller Educational Board said:
]“In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands.[/B] The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.”
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Pretty scary, isn't it? It's almost like the Borg. I strongly encourage you to read the book "The Underground History of American Education" by John Taylor Gatto (3 time teacher of the year, 50 years in the classroom). It provides an excellent, 100% factual lineage of education in America without going into conspiracy theories. I guarantee you that you will never look at education the same way again if you do.
There is simply no way in hell that the state knows what's best for our kids when we're the ones that live with them every day of their young lives. My child will be put in a Sudbury school.
 
The articles cites the anecdotal situation of rote memorization in high school. Sure, I did my fair share of blind memorization and copying of homework before it was due, but what made my high school learning experience truly worthwhile was the conceptual information learned. Yeah, history is still "in year XXXX what happened", but along with the memorization comes the WHY. In-depth reasoning and other skills and attributes contribute to a good and quality education.

I'll say that I didn't read every post before this, jut a bit here and there, but it seems that a number of people get the point that this article is very one-sided. There was a reference to the Calc AP on page one, and personally, for my AB (calc 1) exam, I used a regular TI-83. Worked fine, but then the next year I got an 89 titanium. My Calc BC class was much easier, but it didn't help on the exam. The non-calc section seem MUCH harder after relying on my calculator for a year. In the end did it really make a difference? No, not really. I got 5's on both exams, and I didn't feel like either one was too hard. Did my TI-89 help me in school, you bet. But it all depends on the student. It's like having and answer key for homework. Diligent student will do the homework, then check. Others will do the homework with the answers open. Even other will blind copy. It all depends on the student.

As far as using computers in class, my judgement behind that is based off a Applied Business Statistics class I took last semester. My professor was awesome; professional statistician for Boeing, taught EMBA students, etc... and he treated our class with respect and a level of intellect that I hadn't felt since coming to college. Our exams were open book, open note, open laptop. Pretty much everything was at our disposal (except the internet), and yet the test were IMPOSSIBLE. I won't forget getting my first test back and i got a 35%. I nearly passed out, that was until I saw the average was a 28% with a standard deviation of 8%. I literally got a B+/A- with a 35%. In the end, my average for the class was ALMOST 50%, and I got an A. Sure, this may be a specific case, seeing as how I only used Excel and Minitab in that class, but if teachers are to implement 21st century technology into the class, they have to make sure that the students are able to use that technology properly and that academic performance must be correlated to the technological advantage.

Anyway, so, yeah, just my ideas. I don't think technology should be banned. I'm taking a class that doesn't allow laptops to take notes, and in my opinion it's pointless. Sure, a number of students are on AIM or random websites (ie: [H]ardforums :D), but that's their choice. Albeit I'm in college now, so furthering my education is dependent on myself and not my professors. But even in grade school, laptops can be used in the classroom as learning material. Imagine interactive applications, or better yet, if teachers and students used powerpoints to present material. Why shouldn't that be the case? I think that 7th and 8th graders should be taught not only how to touch-type (probably the best thing I learned in middle school), but also how to use basic applications like word-processing, spreadsheets, and presentation programs. It's an INVALUABLE education; the ability to present material in an exciting way so that you can get and idea across is rare these days. Plus, it fosters other skills like public speaking.

Okay, now I'm done. Thanks for listening.
 
mason.kramer said:
This is flawed logic. It doesn't go both ways. It only goes one way. Anyone who can design a CAD program to assist in the planning of speaker cabinets is going to be able to use that program to design speaker cabinets. And because they understand the principles which underlie the design, they will be able to come up with some very creative solutions, whereas some automaton who is simply clicking buttons and using templates is much less likely to do that because he would just be getting lucky.
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It may not go both ways in your one specific example, but as a general rule, it does go both ways. The more complexity there is to a hierarchy of knowledge, the more of an advantage there is to be gained by splitting it up into domains for specialization. This is happening in every single field. You have to recognize the trend and plan accordingly. Things are getting more complex, not simpler. Following your logic, there would be no specialization in major academic fields. Someone with the title of "Engineer" would be expected to be able to design racing cars just as well as computer LCD's. Hundreds of years ago, at the dawn of the Scientific Age, your ideas might have held sway. In today's world, everyone knows that is ludicrous, and that's why the system has evolved the way it has.

The division and specialization of labor is a characteristic of advanced economies and necessary for civilization as we know it. This is an old debate. Thousands of years ago, people realized that they couldn't do it all by themselves.
 
Lord knows, we must not deprive our children of IPods. Hell, let us take a cue from Michigan and use state money we don't have to buy them IPods while their parents continue to be unable to find work.

We must not also deprive them of clothing that advocates the assassination of the president. Oh, but we can't have shirts that call abortion murder. (A student here in madison was sent home and told not to come back with such a shirt on, which he wore to a health class where Planned Parenthood was attending to outline options for pregnancy)

We must not also deprive them of computers, because lord knows we never got along without them. (I'm not talking about all students...if students study computers, fine.)

We must not only not deprive children of graphing calculators, we must FORCE students who are attending public high school to buy them in order to take Geometry. (was forced myself) Lord knows, those crazy people who used to do geometry with a protractor and compass were intellectual midgets. Smart people push buttons.

You know what? Just give them all As. We can not make them feel like anyone is better than anyone else.

Sadly, that too has been considered in the Pacific Northwest of this country. :rolleyes:
 
Al Shades said:
Someone with the title of "Engineer" would be expected to be able to design racing cars just as well as computer LCD's.

The division and specialization of labor is a characteristic of advanced economies and necessary for civilization as we know it. This is an old debate. Thousands of years ago, people realized that they couldn't do it all by themselves.
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This is ridiculous. Where did I claim that we shouldn't divide labor? In fact in another post on this thread I've explicitly advocated for greater specialization in the cirriculum. However, there is a difference here. I don't expect every engineer to be able to design both a racecar and a computer LCD. In fact the specialization goes way beyond that. I don't expect every software engineer to be able to handle all the different levels of complexity that exist in a computer system. What kind of fool would demand that kind of thing? Certainly not me. Everyone has their special areas of expertise and that is how we've been able to develop systems which are much more complex than a human mind.

However, there is a big difference between specialization, and not learning the fundamentals. Every scientist and engineer should know calculus. The mathematical principles of calculus have an application to almost every scientific and engineering field. They should not only be able to do the math, but they should embody the principle. The same goes for any discipline of math which is relevant to a person's specialized field, as it is for every scientific principle which is relevant to a specialist's field. In fact, students should understand the principles involved at so fundamental a level that they are able to apply those principles to their problems in new and creative ways. It is only with that level of understanding that there is a chance to do really new and effective research. (Here I acknowledge another poster and mention that this notion of the goal of academic education is idealized and ahistorical). However, even considering the possibility of allowing students to bring iPods to exams because "in the real world" they would have access to iPods betrays the dismal reality of our education system: we are self-consciously producing automatons that are able to function like cogs in an economy of production-consumption. At this level of understanding, nothing new or exciting takes place.

Let me put it another way. In a music conservatory, not every guitarist is expected to know every song. However, it is expected that every guitarist knows how to read music, do chord progressions, and etc. We don't allow our guitarists to use tabs just because they can't read music. Similarly, we shouldn't allow our engineers-in-training to use integrating calculators just because they don't know the rules.
 
You are trying to make a subjective point, whereas I am trying to establish a framework of objective principles. That's the difference in our thinking and the source of our dispute.

You can argue that calculus may be ubiquitous today but that may not be the case tomorrow. Over time, methods have changed and will continue to do so. One thing won't change, however: that is the goal of obtaining results. That's why I say, let people use whichever methods they want and judge them only by their results.

Nobody can say exactly what constitutes a "fundamental principle" and what is a matter of "specialization". It is not written in stone anywhere. It is a highly subjective gray area that shifts with the tide of human knowledge.

You are a little too devoted to your present system of knowledge. People like you are the religious evangelists of science and technology. What's "true" today could be false tomorrow. If that happens you will become a dinosaur.

mason.kramer said:
Let me put it another way. In a music conservatory, not every guitarist is expected to know every song. However, it is expected that every guitarist knows how to read music, do chord progressions, and etc. We don't allow our guitarists to use tabs just because they can't read music. Similarly, we shouldn't allow our engineers-in-training to use integrating calculators just because they don't know the rules.
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At the end of the day, every guitarist is expected to play his assigned part in symphony. That's what it boils down to. If you can't see that, we're not going to be agreeing on much of anything.
 
Aelfgeft said:
Lord knows, we must not deprive our children of IPods. Hell, let us take a cue from Michigan and use state money we don't have to buy them IPods while their parents continue to be unable to find work.
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Please read my earlier post in this thread. No-one is using state money in Michigan to buy students iPods. It hasn't happened, and it isn't going to happen. Please read more about this before stating something that is not true. Two Michigan lawmakers got razzle-dazzled by Apple and woke up to reality upon returning home, and that's all that really happened. And yes, I'm from Michigan, and do know a little bit about this.

As for the real reason I came back to this thread --did anybody see the CNN video link about school violence in Germantown, PA? A kid actually assaulted a teacher (who suffered a broken neck) because the teacher took his iPod away after the student repeatedly defied requests to turn it off and put it away (the student was also listening to it at a volume level loud enough, even through headphones, to disrupt a class). I was pretty shocked that things have gotten that bad over there.

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=local&id=5062501
 
DASHlT said:
Let them use a Calculator and thats it.

Don't remember using an Ipod or Cell phone during my time in school?....if we didnt need them then, why is it a MUST to have them now?

Just excuses to let them be lazy imo

DASHlT
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I agree calculators are Ok. When I'm outside of class I'm going to use it, to do the problem or even double check my work. There isn't going to be anyone to stop me. And every time I do a problem on the calculator it will come out 100% correct unless there was an input error.

kevlinsky said:
This article is retarded. Kids who put notes on their ipods aren't all that creative. People have been sneaking notes into tests for years. I remember writing dates and names on my forearms and palms prior to history tests. In fact, technology is causing kids to be slackers nowadays. Consider the AP exams for calculus. Back when I took it, graphing calculators were allowed, but they weren't as powerful as modern day ones. Even then, there were many people using them as a crutch. Nowadays, the TI-89 graphing calculator is allowed on the AP exam. I like to consider the TI-89 a "Mathematica Light." The thing will do symbolic differentiation and integration, and teachers are not teaching kids calculus, but teaching them to use their TI-89. So basically, you can have a kid who'll get a 4 on his AP exam, but in reality will not know how to do calculus.
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In my college classes they recommend we get a ti-89 or higher. I refuse to as I know they can do all sorts of complex problems. I get the cheap $10 scientific calc and use it for multiplication mostly. Im there to learn math, not calculators.

Elstaf said:
Why in the world would a school system allow students to bring iPods to class in the first place? Isn't that tantamount to saying, "Here, listen to this while I lecture for no apparent reason since no one is actually requiring you to pay attention or learn anything."
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They allow em because it will keep the students quiet and content sitting in the back of the class not disturbing anyone.
 
God I remeber when I was in school. We were not even allowed a calculator in class. We had to do all our math the old fashioned way, we had to actually think it out. So kids not being allowed to have an iPod or, cell in class is understandable. You are there to learn, you arent there to text of listen to music.
 
CyberDeus-RagDoll said:
So does valium. Should we start medicating our kids? Oh, wait.. we do that already...
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Heh...sad but true.

Jimmy can't sit still? Give him drugs. Jimmy can't pay attention? Give him drugs. Jimmy can't sleep? Give him drugs...to counteract the drugs he took earlier. Jimmy is strung out? Take anti-depressants and deny it is your fault for medicating him in the first place.

:D
 
Al Shades said:
So what? It goes both ways. The math people probably choose to do math over designing speakers because that's what they're good at. Maybe the fields are connected to a certain extent. It's highly ambiguous.

Hate to break it to you, but in the "real world", every person stands on the shoulders of everyone who came before him. You did not discover electricity. Does this fact haunt you every time you flick a light switch? I would hope not. Never in the history of mankind has there existed so much information about so many fields. Nevertheless, we are still mammals whose primary tasks are to nest and procreate. Originality doesn't exist, "intellectual property" is a joke that is going the way of the dinosaurs.
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No, I did not discover electricity, but I understand how it works, why it works, and can even (and do) create it myself.

Originality may not exist, and it CERTAINLY will not exist if we don't teach people to think.
Knowledge without intelligence is nothingness & chaos.
Intelligence without RELEVANT knowledge is just Naïveté.


Our ENTIRE educational system, IMHO, is worthless, and pointless, and should be completely restructured. Those 12 years of regular school are a waste, as is evidenced everywhere in our society. I'll give you a perfect example

"Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?"
It's not that the people on there (the adults) are stupid. It's that they DO NOT REMEMBER any of this stuff they learned when they were a kid. Why teach kids about the difference between sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rock unless they are going to be doing something along that line as a life choice? Yes, of course a 3rd grader doesn't know what he wants to do with his life, but I think our educational system wastes WAY too much time on "general knowledge".. unless you are going to be an archeologist, who the hell cares about dinosaur knowledge, yet, I remember 2-3 YEARS of my life spent on that subject (as part of the mix of other useless things).

I happen to be gifted in so much that I have a photographic memory and actually remember this stuff (that's why I always do well on trivia games) yet, MOST people do not, so filling their heads with worthless information is just a waste of time, money, and resources. You came from a family of farmers, and are going to be a farmer? Well, then agricultural school is the school for you, from grade 1. Why does a future farmer need to take a programming class? Now, if you're going to become a web designer, that's a different story..

On the same note, if you are going to go into medicine, unless you are going to be an herbal remedies naturist, you don't need ag classes, or world history..

"But that's what college is for!" you say.

Well, When I went to college, I had that EXACT same shit to deal with. Computer Engineering, yet I needed to take English Comp, and, a Phys Ed! class was REQUIRED for my degree.. (I took handball)

"But, the K-12 helps you decide what you want to do, and expand your horizons to other options"
Maybe, maybe not.. I am never going to sew something in my life, yet I had to take half a year of home-ec. I knew how to cook 5 years before then, so, the class was a waste for me.


Our children today do not have intelligence.
Kids today are NOT smart.
Kids today have basic knowledge of stuff that's "beyond" our generation, and therefore APPEAR smart. They can use a computer well, so that makes grandpa think that little britney with her coach bag and prada glasses and minolo blahniks is a genius. She isn't, she's retarded. There are SOME smart kids, but the majority of them are a waste of oxygen.

I know I contradict myself above about the "lack of knowledge" but my point is, we need to have more FOCUSED education, so that people learn what they need to learn, not what "everyone" needs to learn (which, in fact, is something nobody or only "someone" needs to learn)

teach the computer geeks the computer stuff
teach the rednecks the redneck stuff (farming, construction labor, ford f-150 pickup repair)
teach the artists the art stuff
teach the musicians the music stuff
teach the future housewife the housewife stuff
teach the secretaries the secretary stuff
teach the doctors the medical stuff..

etc..

This *CAN* be done pre-college.
 
^^ Exactly my point. I don't remember a lot of the things from math
last year and I've been forgetting Spanish since day 1 because i speak English.
People aren't going to have enthusiasm learning something they have no interest,
need or reason to learn it. The things i know well i learn on my own.
 
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