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.

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.

  • thedevisinthedetails@programming.dev
    120·
    11 months ago

    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.

    • Hyperreality@kbin.social
      46·
      11 months ago

      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.

      • otp@sh.itjust.works
        24·
        11 months ago

        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

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
        4·
        11 months ago

        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.

        • IamSparticles@lemmy.zipEnglish
          9·
          11 months ago

          when I am helping my kids with the New Math I am mentally screaming “why did they change this!?”.

          I’m not sure exactly what you mean, but if you’re anything like many of the parents I’ve heard complain about modern math curriculums, you were probably taught that there’s a correct way to do every math problem and if you aren’t doing it that way then you’re doing it wrong. What modern curriculums do is teach children that there are multiple ways to get to the correct answer, so they can choose the methodology that is easiest for them to understand. Because not everyone’s brain works in the same way, and the old style of teaching sets up barriers for some students.

          I got poor math grades when I was a teen because I didn’t always do the problems the way the teacher wanted us to do them, even though I got the right answers. I had come up with my own process. I scored almost perfect on the math SAT and ended up in computer science. Now, when my kids ask for help with their math homework, I see that they’re learning a bunch of different ways to do the problems. Not all of them are intuitive to me, but some of them are basically what I figured out on my own. I think it’s great.

    • Fandangalo@lemmy.world
      12·
      11 months ago

      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 socially inept to process. i’m trying to be helpful.

    • Dicska@lemmy.world
      5·
      11 months ago

      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.

    • hansl@lemmy.world
      4·
      11 months ago

      This guy not understanding “decline” does a better job at explaining this article.

  • cheese_greater@lemmy.world
    22·
    11 months ago

    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

    • rbesfe@lemmy.ca
      26·
      11 months ago

      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.

      • cheese_greater@lemmy.world
        2·
        11 months ago

        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.

    • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
      2·
      11 months ago

      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.

  • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
    19·
    11 months ago

    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.

  • DieguiTux8623@feddit.it
    13·
    11 months ago

    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.

  • terryblanc@kbin.social
    1·
    8 months ago

    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.