We debated the nature of truth for 4 months; most people do not come up with interesting answers to this on their own initiative, so the conversation went in circles around “There’s no such thing as truth!” “Now, that’s just stupid.” the whole time.
I’m surprised that nobody decided to look up “truth” on Wikipedia. I would have thought that kids growing up today would do that kind of thing reflexively, maybe even on their cell phones during class… Was looking up other people’s ideas explicitly discouraged by the teacher?
Actually, now that you mention it it surprises me too. Using cell phones during class isn’t allowed, but I’m not sure why no one tried after class… possibly because the discussion was so uninteresting that they didn’t even feel motivated to learn more?
I agree with you, as a teacher. Students of ages 11-16 often don’t even know how to find the answer to a simple question online, for example ‘between what frequencies is EM radiation visible?’
That surprises me. Definitely in my high school we had a lot of web-research assignments, and by grade 12 we were expected to cite ‘high-quality’ sources like journal articles and the web pages of major (and thus respectable, I guess) organizations. Although I still use Wikipedia for a lot of my casual personal research, I never found those assignments hard.
...Then again, like I’m starting to realize, I may have encountered sample bias in high school, considering that I was in mostly AP classes.
Just to clarify, I work in a very low-performing school (bottom 10% of UK). In many schools, children will be much more able. However, it still surprises me that people who spend hours a day online can’t use google.
True. The school I attended was situated in a very wealthy neighborhood, and was well-known for its academics...and classes were segregated into “enriched”, “regular”, and “applied”. I spent most of my time in the enriched stream, and barely ever interacted with the “applied” kids, since they weren’t usually the ones doing band or drama club.
I’m surprised that nobody decided to look up “truth” on Wikipedia. I would have thought that kids growing up today would do that kind of thing reflexively, maybe even on their cell phones during class… Was looking up other people’s ideas explicitly discouraged by the teacher?
Actually, now that you mention it it surprises me too. Using cell phones during class isn’t allowed, but I’m not sure why no one tried after class… possibly because the discussion was so uninteresting that they didn’t even feel motivated to learn more?
.
I agree with you, as a teacher. Students of ages 11-16 often don’t even know how to find the answer to a simple question online, for example ‘between what frequencies is EM radiation visible?’
That surprises me. Definitely in my high school we had a lot of web-research assignments, and by grade 12 we were expected to cite ‘high-quality’ sources like journal articles and the web pages of major (and thus respectable, I guess) organizations. Although I still use Wikipedia for a lot of my casual personal research, I never found those assignments hard.
...Then again, like I’m starting to realize, I may have encountered sample bias in high school, considering that I was in mostly AP classes.
Just to clarify, I work in a very low-performing school (bottom 10% of UK). In many schools, children will be much more able. However, it still surprises me that people who spend hours a day online can’t use google.
True. The school I attended was situated in a very wealthy neighborhood, and was well-known for its academics...and classes were segregated into “enriched”, “regular”, and “applied”. I spent most of my time in the enriched stream, and barely ever interacted with the “applied” kids, since they weren’t usually the ones doing band or drama club.