For a long time I've been wanting to write an essay about this exact topic. Once you start paying attention, it's everywhere: the automatic upselling attempts at self-service kiosks, the automatic pre-filled tipping inputs in the card payment terminals, and some horribly long forms that require extremely pedantic input filled just correctly, that no human would bother on paper.
I've come to think of this as a kind of automated tyranny. Few real humans would have the heart to keep trying to upsell with such persistence when most of their customers reject the sale. And very few humans would dare to ask every single human to tip a pre-filled amount of 10% or even up in such a bold manner. But because "the machine does it", there's no alternative but to accept it, or to boycott the machines.
My condolences to the author for having to witness their children live through such an experience. It sounds like hell.
We've informed teachers, nicely but firmly, that we will not be doing any of it at home. Some of them have pushed back, but barring any real consequence, I am not going to subject anyone to this counterproductive torment.
> A teacher, faced with a bored student, would not force them to pay rapt attention to an identical lesson 30 times in a row, 5 days a week, for the entirety of the school year.
The nice part of doing it as homework is that if it's boring and the kid runs away, it's a parent failure instead of a teacher problem.
The stupid repetitive animations. I am sure they sold it to some administrators as being "fun", and "kids are going to love it" because, see, there is a cute penguin doing a 10 second dance. But of course you have to watch the animation after each section and you can't skip ahead.
The kid makes a single mistake, and the "smart adaptive" algorithm throws them back to the preschool school level to "let's start with numbers again", while the kid just clicked the wrong button because the UI is janky and because they are angry with stupid penguin who is getting on their nerves.
Some teachers understand what's going on refuse to use this stuff and print actual paper and pencil tests and homework sheet. But that only works until the standardized tests come, those are all on the computer usually, with the same janky UI.
Worth mentioning: The maker of iReady, Curriculum Associates, is majority-owned by private equity (shocking).
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/AskTeachers/comments/1rdowny/iready...
I did look into the complaints and went direct to the source: My kids. ONe actively loves it. He seeks it out. I asked him about the author's complaints. He agreed its slow but didn't seem to bother him. He's not particularly patient, so this part was surprising based on the article.
Idk what the older brother will say but ill report back
Something is broken. Lets go back to paper and pencil.
It also was super helpful in maintenance of a 3rd language spoken at home.
Maybe that's where the problem is. Perhaps it should be a requirement that an app must be winner in the consumer education market before it can be sold to the education bureacracy. If an app survived the cutthroat education app B2C market, you know it works well for B2E market
In your work, do you exclusively work with people at your own skill level? Is that an effective way to become more skilled?
John Taylor Gatto nailed it over 30 years ago: https://cantrip.org/gatto.html
You're confused because you think the purpose of school is to educate.
To see it half reversed now - every student must have a laptop and use it, not listen to the teacher - and yet somehow be so much worse is really sad.
For me, the computer was a portal to worlds and experiences and time spent doing things school had no way of offering me. For a kid to grow up hating their laptop because this is what it offers them, when we have so many incredible things sitting just out of their reach, is infuriating.
I'd really like to know how and why the school hasn't responded to the parents' complaints, if they're so frequent and unanimous. Maybe they're locked into a contract?
On the other hand, a while ago I was picking up takeout at a restaurant and a little girl, the daughter of one of the owners, was doing homework and it turned out to be a simple JavaScript-like programming assignment. I helped her learn how to write a for loop to make a fox jump over some obstacles. It was fun! It's not all bad.
> His misery was all due to i-Ready, the software product our district had purchased for math work and testing. During that period my kids’ happiness at the end of the school day was entirely determined by how much time their school had made them spend on i-Ready. If they hadn’t touched i-Ready, they were happy. If they were forced to do it, they were sad. If they had to spend an unusual amount of time on it, they were in tears. I started asking around to the other kids’ parents, and I heard similar stories from all of them. Their kids described it as torture. Some of them would hide in the bathroom to avoid it. None of the parents felt that their kids were learning anything at all from it.
And there's the problem. Public schools do not want groups of children to go faster than other children because it is inequitable.
By simply teaching first grade content for several years, equity is ensured since it is impossible to get ahead.
The system is working as intended.
My daughter is at level Z, and some of her peers are level P or Q. It's fine, and encouraged. She just gets different work while they are still working on up-leveling.
Only lazy or underpaid/under-resourced teachers give every kid the same work.
in particular i do not understand how more pay would give teachers more time to do this. more/better resources might help, but taking care of each student individually is something else entirely.
For liberals this is a good reminder of why conservatives don’t trust government.
