Teacher. Math/Sci/Pol nerd. Recovering IT worker. Former owner of clothing not covered in cat hair.
Also @keet
Long-term, shortcuts will still hamper learning. However, there is still a lot to be said about the over-reliance on testing in education in general. It, unfortunately, is a system that even educators must operate in without any real input. You likely will be surprised what you can do with a little guidance in a self-paced situation. What was that Mark Twain quote here - “Don’t let your schooling interfere with your education.”
The “you can’t tell me what to do!” contingent won already. Intelligent people, OTOH, will still mask up when COVID cases rise and they can’t avoid “people-y” situations.
I can completely understand that perspective. However, some students are just not mature enough to handle every type of math thrown at them when it is. One “bad” teacher can ruin any subject. Some students just aren’t “ready” when the curriculum (or other powers that be) decides that they should be.
HS math teacher here. A lot of these problems existed prior to the pandemic. Parents making excuses for kids. Teachers making excuses for kids to keep parents and admin off their backs. Kids too reliant on calculators to develop “number-sense”. Parents perpetuating the myth of the “math gene” they don’t have because they failed at the "new math " of the 1970s, etc. The list goes on and on. The whole thing where ELA/Social Studies/History/etc. teachers are struggling with AI like ChatGPT? We went through that when Photomath and the like were released. The shortcuts you take in math WILL catch up with you.
That being said, maturity plays a HUGE part. A dedicated math student will struggle, but won’t take shortcuts. They are better for it. The only thing that has changed is that shortcuts are much easier to take and are much more readily available. I cannot count how many shortcuts I took as a teenager, only to realize later that I F$#@! up long-term with my learning journey. Just look at any community college. Students that were “bad at math” suddenly have the realization that if they put in the effort, then the intellectual and/or GPA dividends will pay off in spades.
So, they took a page out of Alabama’s “Modern Jim Crow” map. Sigh. I’m afraid we (as I am an Alabamian) will use it to bring to SCOTUS to strike down whats left of the Voting Rights Act. If only the “email lady” had won in 2016, we would have a scotus that would actually DO something about this gerrymandering and VRA shenanigan nonsense.
The best quote for this situation comes from the video game character QBert: “$#@!”.
I get the whole health conscious thing, but part of the blame shouldn’t be aimed at consumers. Hitting all the major brands with the grocery shrink-ray from 1/2 Gal to 1.x Qts and raising the price didn’t do them any favors. Same with the newer formulations that barely let them be called true ice cream anymore.
New? How about old. Aside from the recent rights lost in the US wrt bodily autonomy/privacy (see Dobbs, etc.), what about the “Second Bill of Rights” as put forth by FDR?
Looks like an awesome idea…until your nose begins to itch…