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Chris Denton's avatar

Kids!

I don't know what's wrong with these kids today!

Kids!

Who can understand anything they say?

Kids!

They are disobedient, disrespectful oafs!

Noisy, crazy, sloppy, lazy, loafers!

While we're on the subject:

Kids!

You can talk and talk till your face is blue!

Kids!

But they still just do what they want to do!

Why can't they be like we were

Perfect in every way?

What's the matter with kids today?

[Mr. and Mrs. MacAfee]

Kids!

[Mr. MacAfee, spoken]

I don't mind the moonlight swims, it's the loop-the-loops that hurts!

[Mr. and Mrs. MacAfee, sung]

Kids!

From the 1960's Musical Bye Bye Birdie.

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John Droz's avatar

Chris: That is humerous and is about generational differences. What we are experiencing today is nothing like that and is unprecedented in our history. Almost all of the items I identified have NEVER been evidenced in any prior younger generation. It would be a fatal mistake to attribute what is going on today in K-12 schools, to generational differences.

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Van Snyder's avatar

Even if they had (full time) jobs, they would take lessons from their French counterparts and be frequently "en grève" or at least on vacation all of August. Remember that socialism was (re-)invented in France starting in 1789. Read "The Socialist Phenomenon" by Igor Shafarevich. He concluded it's a death cult.

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John Droz's avatar

VS: Yes that is the direction that they are purposefully pushing K-12 students.

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Carolyn's avatar

They cannot count change. A lot can't tell time. They don't know how to sign their names nor read cursive. They are taught math is not an exact science. It's ok the approximate. No appreciation or thankfulness. No gratitude. No accountability or responsibility. It's bad.

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John Droz's avatar

Carolyn: Actually it's worse than bad...

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Kathytnss's avatar

The Marxist ideologies have had dire effects on this culture. The answer is educating our children in the true history of our nation as well as true religion as represented in the Bible of man created in the image of God and being an image bearer of our Creator, loving and serving on another in the power and spirit of Jesus Christ. I see the young people in solid church communities being home schooled and taught by godly adults to live productive lives that start in a loving community of believers. Priorities need to change from materialism to godly discipline in righteous behaviors and endeavors that do not embrace the social woke ideologies.

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John Droz's avatar

Kathy: Yes, some major, fundamental changes need to be made — and the new DOEd can light the fire.

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Bob Armstrong's avatar

The one point I disagree with is : calculators .

You still need to learn what they are doing .

I'm good at math , but have always sucked at arithmetic & spelling .

Must say tho , that slide-rules really required you to understand what they were doing .

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John Droz's avatar

Bob: I used calculators as an example of something seemly innocuous, but actually profoundly problematic. I have no problem with periodic use of a calculator, but only AFTER having a solid understanding of what is going on.

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Bob Armstrong's avatar

Can you use a calculator without understanding what it does ?

I still have to think thru any even trivial multiplication . But I understand the algorithm . And division ? Forget about it .

A significant motivation for CoSy is to have a calculator at my fingertips .

Looking for trivalities in my notes I see last Wednesday I executed

`f 200 `f 12 %f |>| 16.67

which is Forth RPN and complicated by the fact I have to let it know it's ` floating .

So , actually asked my computer | 200 % 12 | . That's how bad I am .

But , see https://www.cosy.com/CoSy/TekyDome.html#comment-6712262272 , Monday where I worked thru a bunch of " On the linear algebra in CoSy to write a definitional Fourier transform in 1 line " .

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Van Snyder's avatar

Charles Babbage never foresaw the terrible consequences of his invention: A machine that would autocorrect his name to "cabbage" every time somebody typed it into an iPhone or web page.

See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE50zF3rKeE

I've gotten lazy in my old age. I use a calculator. I also use Maple to solve differential equations or evaluate integrals or even for simple algebra, not least because it doesn't make mistakes.

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John Joyce's avatar

AI arrival coincidental?

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John Droz's avatar

John: I would say yes.

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