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Comment by roody15 | Hacker News Reader

Having worked in 1:1 schools and seen phone use / laptop has in the classroom this seems a step in the right direction. Tech is not the answer to everything in education it is just a useful tool that can and should be used from time to time like. Like a calculator but a more versatile.

What we have in many classrooms is a tech nightmare where tasks are digitized for just the sake of digitizing and attention span is lost, deep learning and concentration is lost and meaning relationships between student / student or student / instructor are diminished.

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> What we have in many classrooms is a tech nightmare where tasks are digitized for just the sake of digitizing

I am glad that my child has been able to go to a school that only uses computers for tasks that can't practically be done otherwise (CAD for 3d printing, move editing, etc). Everyting else has been analog. Real books, real paper, writing by hand (cursive, even). Zero cell phones in elementary school by any kid. This is in silicon valley, so every kid has one or both parents in tech, so there is broad understanding of how problematic it is to let it dominate over the real world.

Recently I got in to mechanical typewriters for writing. I really like them! It's fascinating to have a machine which has no apps, no screen, no internal memory, and no distractions. You don't even have to "print" your page after writing it as the printing and the typing are the same operation.

The other day I was writing poetry at my computer and I had a Slack message pop up. I immediately clicked on it and responded, and then I went back to my poem and had totally lost my train of thought.

I am not suggesting schools use typewriters, but I wonder if there is value in considering limited functionality devices for specific classes in schools and similar situations.

I still remember learning to use typwriter in 1998/1999 (already knew some computer basics). Correcting typos wasn't particularly fun.

That's right. I use them for personal journals, where I can just use the X key to write over typos and then rewrite the word. If a high standard of presentation is not required, it's easy to write with.

Ahh... I remember old docs from my dad office. You'll see "Tipp-Ex" (correction fluid) used here and there to hide thse typos.

Hey, for the sake of fun, maybe I should try this again. I think I still have a typewriter stored somewhere...

If you have kids, do! They will be amazed about the old tech :-) Took mine out last spring and the daughter was all "Oooh!", "Hahah", "I want!". Ofcourse it's just standing in a corner forgotten now but it was fun for a day :-)

This. I did the same thing with my kids a couple of years ago, and the youngest one really took a liking to it, to the extent that she (At 7 years of age) insist on handing in the occasional schoolwork typewritten.

After trying it out a little, she settled into a rather efficient workflow, drafting her homework in pencil, then typing it up once she'd figured out what to write and what layout she wanted.

But it forces you to think and then write, instead of the other way around, by adding more cost to mistakes. As foe handwriting there have been studies that showed that handwritten notes are better memorized rhan computer-written ones.

> studies that showed that handwritten notes are better memorized rhan computer-written ones

I don't care that I look weird, but I still take a notebook (as in a physical notebook) to meetings and take notes by hand.

With rare exceptions, I never read those notes. But by writing them, I remember it, so I don't need to. Whenever I've experimented with taking notes on the computer, I can't remember any of it.

We learned typewriter in school, I think it was around 85-89. Most of the typewriters where completely mechanical and to erase you either had a fluid you painted over the character to delete, waited for a few seconds to dry and then could type over. Or you used a small piece of paper that had a white sticky backside. You pressed the go-back-button and then typed the letter that you wanted to erase while holding the paper in front of the paper.

We also had a slightly more modern typewriter that was electric and had memory for a few characters, automating the delete function by switching to an erase-ribbon and hitting the right key for you.

And some of the typewriters even had two colors you could switch between. Oh the memories :-) That is one class that I still have use for every day. Can't say that about many of the others.

I bought some cheap Chromebooks (100-150 euros, second hand), and removed nearly every app on them, apart for one for writing.

Having a separate device for separate tasks, can often be quite useful.

you can even add a script to let custom noise play on key strokes :D

> Having a separate device for separate tasks, can often be quite useful.

This is what I have done ever since I could afford to own more than 1 laptop and I phased out Windows (XP). I have a device that I use for a daily driver, and 3-4 other Linux distros on other laptops (various X series thinkpads), 1 Windows machine and a Mac. Each does one to two specific tasks and nothing else.

It's actually rather formidable solution and while I've tried running virtual machines its just not the same. Intuitively typing on an external keyboard on my daily driver X1 means I'm going into code mode and occasionally will look (but almost never post) at StackOverflow or HN. When I'm on the native keyboard I just respond to emails and browse/post here.

I have many devices, I will admit, but the truth is that its older stuff so the cost relative to one new machine is about the same for all I have excluding peripherals; a new X1 Carbon is like 2k these days with little to no changes to previous generations.

During the process of replacing old processes with new ones, it’s hard to know what aspects of the traditional process (in this case, books and writing) are more valuable than understood. It seems like we are making a step in the right direction, but I wonder how we will prevent ourselves from making this and similar mistakes in the future.

> I wonder how we will prevent ourselves from making this and similar mistakes in the future

Just listen to the teachers, parents, and students. In high school I was among the last year groups to be pen and paper. All the younger students had laptops and iPads. I distinctly remember during the change that very few people thought it was a good idea, except for those students who got a free laptop or iPad out of it. I imagine the change was mostly brought about by administrators and politicians.

Please, just listen to the teachers. They probably know best how to teach.

> I imagine the change was mostly brought about by administrators and politicians.

They are a specific type of “influencer”. People who claim the crown of “innovation” simply by jumping on the hype train of whatever the new hot thing is. Many companies are falling into this trap with AI right now. They use FOMO to get leaders with weak wills and a lack of vision to jump on the hype train, forcing everyone else along for the ride.

> They use FOMO to get leaders with weak wills and a lack of vision to jump on the hype train, forcing everyone else along for the ride.

In the meantime psychology is... err... What actually are psychology peoples doing ?? Do not see anything good or useful. You know, popularizing BASIC knowledge helps many, including future thing in discussion practicioners... Or psycho peoples are limiting themselves to just making money ?

It's not the tech itself that is the problem, and I think viewing it as the problem would lead one to miss a key trio of problems, that is equally applicable to books.

The problem has three interrelated parts: a) we do not value developing the capacity to think, b) the ability to think is not valued (by whom? I'm not quite sure), and c) we do not value doing things slowly.

a) Most have the mistaken notion that the capacity to think is fixed with respect to various biological factors. Putting aside whether the biology truly does fix this (I do not know enough here) the fact remains that this misses that there exist tools which can help us organize our thinking so that it appears to be "better". Examples of this are plenty in mathematics, where the symbolic "language" you use alone can make a massive difference to your "ability" to deal with a problem.

Some tools are more like internal narratives: if one develops a narrative that isn't constantly judging whether they are "thinking fast enough" or are "being productive enough" they ironically end up thinking more effectively.

(For examples of people interested in making such tools better known:

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691156668/th...

https://barbaraoakley.com/books/)

And some tools are simply more biological: a person in good physical health can think more clearly than a person for whom this is not true, for the simple reason of nutrient supply to the brain being more efficient in the former than the latter.

Schools fail us on all these points. In particular, many current widely accepted textbooks are part of the problem here: https://bookstore.ams.org/view?ProductCode=SPEC/80

There's also what our culture tends to portray in entertainment. Contrary to what other think, I think entertainment is not harmless enjoyment due to the nature of our brain: as far as I know, there is no good way to consciously choose the weights you are applying to various inputs, while receiving that input (unless, ironically, you have training). Advertisers realize this, which is why "product placement", or "paid" narrative tweaking (presenting a story that is "cleaned up") work.

But more importantly, our entertainment industry does a terrible job of showing what is actually beautiful and exciting about problems in the real world. Instead, it defaults to shooting bullets, and adrenaline driven excitement. In a "biopic" about a scientist, it cares not about the immense beauty of their patient struggles, or what habits they purposefully cultivated in order to think more effectively, and instead prefers to view their achievements through a dramatic lens of romance and "lightning bolts of inspiration".

It is just as easy to put such entertain in the form of a book (e.g. Sherlock Holmes).

b) my contention that the ability to think is not valued, and perhaps actively devalued, is due to the fact that people are very willing to pollute information highways and entertainment feeds, in order to make profits. They are willing to distract people constantly from things they would prefer to be doing. They are willing to interrupt with needless reminders and notifications. They are willing to use Skinner Boxes to keep a person engaged regardless of what their conscious mind is interested in. Most importantly, they are willing to pay thoughtful people to figure out the best ways to do this: https://www.economist.com/1843/2016/10/20/the-scientists-who...

This is why technology is so disruptive. It is not usually designed to prioritize our ability to think, but is instead designed for other purposes. Which common place operating can you point to which has in-built tools to help a person manage over-use, or help a person track their time usage, or help someone stick to their goals around usage, or provides notifications in order to help a person get back on task? How many Skinner Boxes exist that around getting people to stick it out over the long term and engage with difficult material? (Most mathematics textbooks would be better as games.)

None. The issue could equally exist with, and without books. Dilution of quality of information, misinformation, de-focusing information: none of those ideas are tied to a particular medium.

c) To create something new that is truly valuable is time consuming. You cannot be overly prideful and expect to just "disrupt" things. You need to understand fairly well what the old process was, and work with people who use the old process. Perhaps even hire them as parts of the product-testing loop. You need to spend time thinking about the design, or employ people who are willing to do this. You need to spend time maintaining things, rather than just making the next new thing, yet you also need to be able to realize that "backwards compatibility" is not productive for humanity (who does backwards compatibility truly serve well? why are their wants prioritized).

None of these are ideas that are common in tech. So, the products the tech industry produces are for $$$ are overall, pretty likely to be garbage. But again, there is nothing unique about this to technology as it stands today: mass production, thoughtless production...these can be problems in any industry, and are problems in other industries too (e.g. the building industry).

I don't think the students will do better only because they are spending more time handwriting or reading books.

It is little more complex than that there are especially elenentary school stuff which you need to learn doing mechanically(reading, simple Matt etc) and for those games migh be better than pen and paper. Lets put it this way if you need think about reading you are not probably thinking what you are reading.

“And some tools are simply more biological: a person in good physical health can think more clearly than a person for whom this is not true, for the simple reason of nutrient supply to the brain being more efficient in the former than the latter.”

Most important learning aid: easily-available, nutritious breakfast and lunch. Quit fooling around with school lunch accounts and debt, financial qualification for free or reduced-price meals; just feed the kids decent food.

Hungry, malnourished kids can’t begin to concentrate. Disadvantaged American kids aren’t (usually) short of total calories, but they are often short of good food available at the right times. Good meals at home require more money and/or time and thought. Little home economics programs throughout the school years would be both good academic opportunities (apply those fractions we’ve been working on, see what baking soda does when it meets an acid) and cultivate the thinking that makes cooking at home an easier routine as an adult.

Second-most important: physical activity that doesn’t feel like a punishment. This is trickier.

The physical activity has to be fun which is very individual so to each their own. This is usually done my forcing the kids to do all of them in school and hope something sticks for their rest life.

Re: food, I don't disagree, but how do we get decent food? It's hard enough to find decent food if you're an adult. For example: sugar is commonly used in the food industry to help make everything taste better, including savoury food! This is not yet something I have confirmed, but I suspect also that most food comes from farms that cannot provide nutritious vegetables, fruits, eggs, or milk due to exhausted soils and poorly fed (and cruelly kept) animals. In the second case: apart from the incredible cruelty, how nutritious do you think the milk of factory cows, or the eggs of factory chickens, if they themselves, are not healthy? Similarly, how do we know that plant produce that comes from farms that tend to grow only one type of crop still meets nutritional standards? Is anyone measuring? Would love to get some clarification on this.).

Re: physical activity. It might be easier than food because of the above concerns, because it is much more within our control?

We're helped out in part by the fact that physical exercise feels good.

The issue is that the way physical exercise is presented in school tends to be through competition and/or sports. From here, and due to other signals being received, it's not hard for kids to develop immense self-consciousness which makes it something they wish to avoid.

Kids also don't learn to combine meditation and physical exercise. Meditation to help manage the social anxiety, and to help manage the physical discomfort. Yoga is surprisingly simple (no equipment required) yet effective for maintaining flexibility, posture, and strength, while also being easily amenable to incorporating meditation.

For cardiac health: there is little science employed in helping a student gradually improve their physical capacity, in a gradual fashion. HIIT is some of the best we know of for time-efficient exercises that also naturally take into account personal limits. How do you know you've done enough HIIT for the day? You're panting hard. You've hit your goal, your body will do the rest. Tolerance for discomfort improves hand-in-hand with improvements to self-image, and increased cardiac fitness. Before the student knows it, it isn't "awful drudgery" to consider doing a "12 minute run". Because they've gradually prepared for it!

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