• Members 3226 posts
    July 18, 2024, 8:42 a.m.

    Yep and you're a perfect example of why the bad students should all be lumped together down the bottom so that the good students and teachers don't have to put up with them and be held up by them ๐Ÿ˜

  • Members 2283 posts
    July 18, 2024, 8:49 a.m.

    worked for me when i went to school. ๐Ÿ˜Ž work hard to get where you want to be. My daughter was in a public school but in an ACE program designed for the kids that were motivated and wanted to learn.

  • Members 3226 posts
    July 18, 2024, 8:52 a.m.

    And I'm sure it worked even better for those that were smarter.

  • Members 2283 posts
    July 18, 2024, 9:10 a.m.

    respecting teachers and other students can happen at any intellectual level.

  • Members 596 posts
    July 18, 2024, 3:33 p.m.

    It has, indeed. So much so, that I'm of the opinion that it might be related to lead poisoning (from leaded gasoline back in the day) and food (the rise in obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc.). Adding to that, echo chambers provided by social media with such easy and ubiquitous access with modern tech has greatly accelerated the decline (people can believe something that is verifiably completely false, declare that anything that proves they are wrong as "fake news", and instantly get support for their idiocy from like minded ignorant people all over social media -- anti-vaxxers are but just one example).

    Not even remotely as much as the ignorant, selfish, corrupt, and obscenely wealthy have.

    As it turns out, I'm more than a little familiar with the American educational system, at least with regards to mathematics. Outside mathematics, I'm aware of other aspects via what my kids have done in school. No, it's not good. But you know what? It wasn't good back in the day, either. In many ways, things have gotten worse, in many other ways, things have gotten better. Overall, pretty much the same, though.

    That said, we are in a difficult period with regards to education in the light of AI. AI has already passed the Turing Test, and can complete a huge amount of coursework, which raises the question as to why we are putting so much effort to teach students things that AI not only can do, but do better than most. Even before the advent of AI, many educational professionals were looking to transform education to focus more on critical thinking/reasoning as opposed to reciting facts in a predetermined manner. However, half-hearted and incompetent implementations of a new teaching paradigm have made things worse, in many ways.

    Still, the move away from traditional education is a good thing, even though it's broken right now. Old people simply want to turn students into human calculators and human search engines, which is the secondary education they received. This is absolutely untenable in light of modern tech. Again, my professional knowledge of this area is math and physics, and students are doing the same math and physics I did 40 years ago, but have access to tech I didn't have. They should be doing significantly more challenging math and physics, and using the tech as a [necessary] tool.

    However, this means the teachers need to be up to speed with this, and they absolutely aren't. I mean, some teachers are still requiring students to do stats using tables and working equations long hand when the problems can be solved with a handheld calculator. What the students need to be learning is what statistics to perform, learning to use the technology to get the results, and being able to competently interpret those results, as just one small example.

    Things are moving in that direction, but very slowly. This is due to the sheer size of the educational system and, as I said, that the teachers, themselves, come from the old paradigm and are not properly instructed on the new paradigm. For example, in a basic physics class, one learns the equations of projectile motion for very simplified problems (constant acceleration field, flat surface, no air resistance, etc., etc., etc.). Instead, they should be figuring out, with the teacher's guidance and full access to technology, far more realistic problems (e.g. find the path a rocket should follow to achieve LEO).

    Anyway, I digress, since this is kinda my field. Going back to the "do gooders" vs the "do worsers", make no mistake -- it's the latter who have wreaked far, far, far more damage on society. The problem is, however, that the "do worsers" are engaged in a negative feedback loop with the ignorant, and this is resulting in an exponential spiral in society that we are seeing today. I mean, the sheer number of anti-vax people alone is beyond unsettling, not to mention those that are still of the opinion that immigrants are the primary source of society's downfall and that "trickle down" economics is anything but the obscenely wealthy scamming the rest, with the victims unbelievably voting with a "Thank you, sir! May I have another!" response. But, then again, these are the same people who say "death to pedos" yet want one of Epstein's best customers as a king. As you say, the world has gone mad, indeed.

  • Members 2283 posts
    July 18, 2024, 9:34 p.m.

    The word AI is so out of context , its not arifical at all is not even deep learning, its purley what you put in you get out, all my daughters final assignments had to be feed through a program that looked to see if ANY of their work was AI generated and disqualified if it was. Music has been a big introduction into schooling here in AUS and its just as important than english and maths that sorts out all thinkers and non thinkers :๐Ÿ˜€. our biggest problem is trade courses, back in my day the government paid for it and we all had jobs and apprenticeships at 15 yold, all the technical college courses were basically free back then but not now. I laugh now at all the manufacturing companies in my specialist trade using CNC machines production has gone backwards 50% not increased. The office staff think they are so intelligent and have no idea how to create anything ,they just use off the shelf programs with no trade or technical background.

  • Members 596 posts
    July 21, 2024, 7:28 p.m.

    While many products purported to be "AI", as that's the new buzzword, are far from AI, the threat of AI is more than a little real. People are going to be losing their jobs to AI in a big way, and there's no plan in place for what happens when half the population becomes unemployed.

  • Members 2283 posts
    July 22, 2024, 8:30 a.m.

    don know about that, 40 years ago the company i was working at nearly bought the first cnc machine on the market in the late 70s 500k$ . instead we bought a 25k machine and put an apprentice on it for 10k a year salary ,that machine just got retired 2 weeks ago. it could router a stringer in 10mins a cnc machine today takes 40mins . thats not progress.

  • Members 3226 posts
    July 22, 2024, 8:32 a.m.

    But it's not AI either.

    An AI driven machine might be able to produce them even faster and cheaper.