You are the newcomer to this conversation, having contributed four posts to my twenty-nine, and yours were mostly insults to actual participants. Sylvia Benoit, who you also insulted, has contributed more to this discussion than most. Reading your text, it amuses me that you would actually question her capabilities in the English language.
You spelled “these” incorrectly. Ya see Tom, everyone makes a mistake now and then and even though @Silvia Benoit and I have some disagreements, I have no doubt that she is an excellent Spanish teacher and her grasp of the English language with all its dangling participles, adverbs, prepositions etc is indeed probably better than my own. The thing is, no one signed up to be a student here so teachers are not needed more than common conversationalists which she does quite well at doing.
I’m finished I can see I’m not suited to forum communication. It’s not anyone’s fault but my own. I’ve asked to be deregistered and have my posts removed.
All you'd need to do was speak to people as if they were human beings with whom you wanted to have a conversation, and you'd do fine. Not everyone who disagrees with you is your enemy. I'd rather you stay and see if we can work it out.
Perhaps I should start a new thread in “tech” but a new computer program, ChatGPT is coming into light and I fear will be at the forefront of the educational system and has the potential to complete the dumbing down of our students. ChatGPT was introduced in Nov of ‘22 and is, for all intensive purposes, AI at it’s finest stages but for now, instead of me trying to explain the system, I think Jordan Peterson can do it much better. Here’s a link to the actual Chat GPT site where you can load up and see what the program can really do. https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt
Good morning to all- Bobby- on this point I think we may just agree and agree fully. On my 37th year of teaching, my district- at the urging of a new superintendent who was a real jerk- and that's being very kind to the man- went totally online for all educational classes. Every kid was issued a new laptop and given sign in instructions so they could get school at home or anywhere else- that was the plan. When I was told I should not be reading to my students in class but should be "monitoring their progress" on the computer, I knew my days of standing in front of class were over.. Looking at a screen is not school, and a "program" is not education. Computers and programs are useful tools, but they are not the basis of a real and good education. you all be safe and keep well- Ed
Indeed. When students are no longer taught how to use their own brains to search for the answers to a question then there are no longer any questions they need to answer. We already know how dangerous it was when simple math became a problem for a calculator rather than the human brain but with the advent of programs like Chat GPT, virtually all mental skills will be confined to how fast one can propose a question and type it in. In short, I’m more than a bit concerned. It is a given that most of our education was based on how well we retained and applied information. With that, some logic and reasoning was also introduced to the student which helped gain some self sufficiency or rather, the ability to think things through. With the new AI, a student doesn’t need to learn to think for themselves because a computer program does all that work for them.
It’s pretty bad. My wife completed all the coursework for a CPA, never bothered to test though since she was employed already doing that type of work. They hired a young gal as a bookkeeper for the office. She came to my wife one day kind of pissed off, thinking that someone was ripping her off. She explained to my wife that there should have been a 25% difference on something and instead it was 1/4. It took my wife a couple minutes to believe this gal didn’t understand the relationship between fractions and decimals at all. How does one attempt to work as a bookkeeper and not know such fundamental things?
I just told my brother he retired as a teacher at just the right time. He loved getting kids to think. I avoid technology whenever possible and people wonder why. I even schlogged through gold shag carpeting to change channels because we didn't have a remote when we first got a colored tv. Kinda glad we were here when we were and are on the way out.
I often think about the fact that my grandfather traveled on a wagon train when he was young and lived long enough to see men being catapulted into space. I also reminisce about my first school desk that still had an ink well installed on top but I have lived long enough to see that those wells have given way to a computer key board. I guess the question I’m asking myself at this point is whether all of the seemingly progressive tech and methods of teaching [and learning] aren’t really the beginnings of decadence rather than progress. To me, progress should aid thinking; not replace thinking.
Your post brings to mind that I actually used those ink wells and nib pens that had to be dipped. Man, am I old! I still have fountain pens around, but haven't used them for a long time. I understand that our school children are losing the fine motor skills to perform many tasks and are relying on robot help to do fine tasks like surgery. Cursive handwriting once taught those skills, but that has been taken away by the computer keyboards you mentioned. Too bad we can't keep all the skills.
Now we've gone further down the road, and kids aren't learning how to use a keyboard. As all of their writing is done with their thumbs, writing skills - in any form - are coming to a halt.