![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
still majorly informed by that article, but i think it's just so harrowing that education has gotten to the point it has. like even putting aside the ai factor of it, there are just so many things stacked against teachers. education as a concept has been really demonized. it's somehow become ridiculous to trust experts in a subject (and by the way, this is one of a bunch of reasons why i scoff when people imply that current political leaders have their term for x years and only that term. politics affect everything; worldviews, once implanted, can't be so easily tossed away). this is a much, much more minor trend, but i think the raw milk/anti-pasteurization content you see around online is representative of this and of a general trend towards questioning science. i'm not arguing that being skeptical of things is necessarily bad, given that the alternative is really leagues worse, but it's been dragged more into the spotlight recently, i think.
education demonization aside, there's also the clear influence of social media and apps like tiktok. it's become a really common joke to make online, acknowledging your attention spans deteriorating (see: every video joking about playing subway surfers to get people's attention), but it's terribly true. a want for instant gratification is stronger than ever now, and given the speed of the internet and the sheer amount of content being put online on the daily, it's easier than ever to fill that urge. i'm not immune to this myself, for god's sake. and, like the entirety of the post, this is really applicable to both minors and adults, but i think that the attention span portion hits doubly hard as a child. foundational skills are (supposed to be) built during this time. basic skills, like literacy, are to be taught then. it's fair enough to say that that didn't exactly happen in the past given the astonishingly low % of US adults (which, i'd hope, is better elsewhere), but i nonetheless think that that number will only plummet in years to come. there is, of course, an economic and racial (among other things) factor that plays into education, but that's not really what the post is about nor is it something i'm really too qualified...? to discuss. the point of the matter is that kids just cannot focus, and suuuper bad things happen to literacy like that. to nobody's surprise.
this ties pretty closely into my first point, but this isn't about distrusting experts. there's a real issue generally where people distrust all of the system, which is (again, US-centric perspective here) reasonable, but they go steps further and apply this view onto the entirety of education. yes, the college system is messed up. yes, college is seen as a marker of prestige/a stepping stone to a better job/just one of those mandatory things to do on an average checklist regarding life, but learning basic skills is truly not something people want to deride. even in high school, this viewpoint is kind of prominent, and it's just doing an incredible amount of harm. the fault lies within the system here. the treatment of high school and college as fixed, necessary steps to achieve a certain end result have sapped the wills of students to even try or to be passionate about anything. it's really no wonder that there's such a pessimism around school and a disregard for education as a whole here. it's a system that rewards only people who are willing to give up their aspirations.
all of that is leading up to the final portion. i've alluded to this before as well, but chatgpt and generative ai probably would have always come out. it's just a question of when. given the unprecedented technological developments happening, something like this was just an inevitability. the real tragedy in chatgpt (aside from the environmental cost) is just that it came out at such a time. covid-era schooling brought with it a disregard for a real work ethic or for doing work yourself. this general feeling, coupled with the three things i mentioned before, just made chatgpt's advent back in 2022 hurt lots. with chatgpt, who needs to do their own work? why bother, when you think education is useless? why bother, when you think education is a scam? i still can't blame the students themselves fully for this. i believe in people being able to change. that article yesterday mentioned a student who said she couldn't see herself without chatgpt. she posted on reddit that she stopped using chatgpt completely. change is possible is the point, but i just can't help but feel miserable that the odds are just so against teachers and educators in this age.
education demonization aside, there's also the clear influence of social media and apps like tiktok. it's become a really common joke to make online, acknowledging your attention spans deteriorating (see: every video joking about playing subway surfers to get people's attention), but it's terribly true. a want for instant gratification is stronger than ever now, and given the speed of the internet and the sheer amount of content being put online on the daily, it's easier than ever to fill that urge. i'm not immune to this myself, for god's sake. and, like the entirety of the post, this is really applicable to both minors and adults, but i think that the attention span portion hits doubly hard as a child. foundational skills are (supposed to be) built during this time. basic skills, like literacy, are to be taught then. it's fair enough to say that that didn't exactly happen in the past given the astonishingly low % of US adults (which, i'd hope, is better elsewhere), but i nonetheless think that that number will only plummet in years to come. there is, of course, an economic and racial (among other things) factor that plays into education, but that's not really what the post is about nor is it something i'm really too qualified...? to discuss. the point of the matter is that kids just cannot focus, and suuuper bad things happen to literacy like that. to nobody's surprise.
this ties pretty closely into my first point, but this isn't about distrusting experts. there's a real issue generally where people distrust all of the system, which is (again, US-centric perspective here) reasonable, but they go steps further and apply this view onto the entirety of education. yes, the college system is messed up. yes, college is seen as a marker of prestige/a stepping stone to a better job/just one of those mandatory things to do on an average checklist regarding life, but learning basic skills is truly not something people want to deride. even in high school, this viewpoint is kind of prominent, and it's just doing an incredible amount of harm. the fault lies within the system here. the treatment of high school and college as fixed, necessary steps to achieve a certain end result have sapped the wills of students to even try or to be passionate about anything. it's really no wonder that there's such a pessimism around school and a disregard for education as a whole here. it's a system that rewards only people who are willing to give up their aspirations.
all of that is leading up to the final portion. i've alluded to this before as well, but chatgpt and generative ai probably would have always come out. it's just a question of when. given the unprecedented technological developments happening, something like this was just an inevitability. the real tragedy in chatgpt (aside from the environmental cost) is just that it came out at such a time. covid-era schooling brought with it a disregard for a real work ethic or for doing work yourself. this general feeling, coupled with the three things i mentioned before, just made chatgpt's advent back in 2022 hurt lots. with chatgpt, who needs to do their own work? why bother, when you think education is useless? why bother, when you think education is a scam? i still can't blame the students themselves fully for this. i believe in people being able to change. that article yesterday mentioned a student who said she couldn't see herself without chatgpt. she posted on reddit that she stopped using chatgpt completely. change is possible is the point, but i just can't help but feel miserable that the odds are just so against teachers and educators in this age.