A big part of the problem is that teaching is treated as a second tier profession. A lot of people end up teaching after having failed at something else. I took some masters level education classes and these were some of the dumbest people I had ever met in a college environment.
The people that choose teaching as a first choice often leave because the pay and work environment is so poor for such an important job. They either burn out from stress or give up because they cannot properly do their job within the system.
I worked with several former teachers in my software career. They were all smart patient people. Software jobs making shit for rich people to get richer paid more than double for less work.
I knew another teacher who was on food stamps because her salary was so low.
Our society values stupid shit. It invests in stupid shit. We are lead by assholes and fools.
The only thing our society is interested in is extracting more value from people and funneling that value into the wealthiest hands
As a rough guess, the first 5-7 years in the career act as a filter. Those who make it past that point are the truly dedicated.
I would say “truly self-sacrificing.” I don’t think it’s quite fair to diminish someone’s dedication if they quit after working 4 years in full-time poverty.
Absolutely no insult intended to people who leave the career. I fully admit that I didn’t even finish the masters program before I realized I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the bullshit and noped out.
The survey, first spotted by the Economist, tested around 160,000 people of all ages, across all 38 member states. It found that across all OECD member countries, a full 8 percent of college students are reading at the level of a ten-year-old, if not worse. While countries like Germany and France rang in at under 5 percent, countries like Poland, Israel, and the United States blew the curve at 21, 20, and 14 percent, respectively.
The numbers aren’t much better when it comes to math. Across OECD countries, 9 percent of college students do math at or below a ten-year-old level. In Italy, the US, and Slovakia, that figure jumps to over 15 percent — only outdone by Israel, where roughly 21 percent of college students were underachieving at the same low benchmark.
Didn’t read the whole PDF but it think it said age 12 in 1974 vs the current stated age 10.
Oddly, the study didn’t measure (or the article didn’t report) average scores. It only states that a certain, large percentage of students are failing at low levels of reading and math.
The difference matters, because it might simply imply that a class of people are entering universities that traditionally would not have been accepted. Think the stereotype of the scholarship jock in the USA.
The article implies that the role of AI tools in this is equalizing. Instead of making people dumb, it gives them a chance to seem smart. It doesn’t lift people up either, and without AI they are still incapable of tasks that a college student should be able to complete.
That’s the nirvana for AI companies: a whole class of people that can’t live without their tools and is going to be willing to pay no matter what to keep accessing them.
Okay, how does it compare to decades ago? Also, a lot of them could be athlete scholarships, since universities want those athletes regardless of their education.
The survey, first spotted by the Economist, tested around 160,000 people of all ages, across all 38 member states. It found that across all OECD member countries, a full 8 percent of college students are reading at the level of a ten-year-old, if not worse. While countries like Germany and France rang in at under 5 percent, countries like Poland, Israel, and the United States blew the curve at 21, 20, and 14 percent, respectively.
The numbers aren’t much better when it comes to math. Across OECD countries, 9 percent of college students do math at or below a ten-year-old level. In Italy, the US, and Slovakia, that figure jumps to over 15 percent — only outdone by Israel, where roughly 21 percent of college students were underachieving at the same low benchmark.
Yeah this whole article comes off as sensationalist garbage
It has been seen to have started around 2010 but gotten a lot worse due to COVID.
One of the triggers garnering coverage is the letter from many University of California professors to reinstitute standardized testing as a requirement for admission.
The survey, first spotted by the Economist, tested around 160,000 people of all ages, across all 38 member states. It found that across all OECD member countries, a full 8 percent of college students are reading at the level of a ten-year-old…
Wait, that’s it? 8 percent?
I bet the number of foreign language students is greater than 8 percent. That’s why…
Not today’s 10 year olds.
My kids are doing work in 6th grade that I was doing in high school. The bar has shifted dramatically.
Although 10 years old reading ability is basically they can read anything, it the higher order thinking and critical media skill that develop afterwards. Went through graduate school before I really learned deep reading skills.
Standardized testing isn’t actually a measure of intelligence, or of function.
Plenty of intelligent, accomplished people report having been horrible at school, or at doing tests. Sitting, working for the approval of an authority figure, or a series of questions on a sheet of paper just might not be a good way to figure out the smart people from the dumb people… It’s really a measure of searching for “good test takers” - a quality that you might not actually want in a society.
“Hey these people work really hard to get perfect theoretical score for the approval of a sheet of paper or a guy in a suit”. Uhuh, and the claim is that’s “smart”? Okay “boss”.
Sometimes we forget the kind of life the education system was built around. We mistake it for something objectively “good”. Hell, look at the brutality of the British school system in the colonial era. Education and testing has a Sociological context, and is a system built of the society’s purposes/ends.
“A good test taker” would be a vast upgrade over “dolts and dunces who can’t fucking read.”
So if you are dyslexic and/or dyscalculic, if you are simply not good at reading or math, or if you are a bad test taker and your unique skills/knowledge/understanding aren’t being reflected by some bullshit test: that means you have less value as a human being and/or value to society than someone who is good at performing in those standardized tests?
You did say “upgrade”, so you seem to be valuing the good test takers over those who don’t take tests well. Just making sure I understand!
If that’s your interpretation of what i said, then it’s safe to say that standardized tests aren’t the only things you’re shit at.
You were pretty clear, I was anticipating this response. Thanks for confirming your bad faith.
Somebody in good faith would be clarifying their intent.
Also, I never mentioned how I did - you assumed.
LOL sure buddy. Because you were obviously being fair minded and acting in good faith when you made up something I didn’t say and pretended that was what i said.
Not passing the OWLs this year, are ya?
I’m just going to add that I like cheddar more than you.
it’s because 10 year olds are super smart righ now.
Let’s measure for “good test takers” who want to please paper authorities for a score card, and then call that intelligence.
no u
Wow, how did 10 year olds get so smart?
What are 10 year olds testing at, then?
