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The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

(www.afterbabel.com)
346 points obscurette | 1 comments | 12 Nov 24 14:11 UTC | HN request time: 0.367s | source
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donatj ◴[12 Nov 24 15:41 UTC] No.42116365[source]▶
I work in EdTech, I have for a very long time now, and the problem I have seen is no one in education is willing to ACTUALLY let kids learn at their own level.

The promise of EdTech was that kids could learn where they are. A kid who's behind can actually continue to learn rather than being left behind. A kid who's ahead can be nurtured.

We had this. It worked well, in my opinion at least, and the number of complaints and straight up threats because kids would learn things "they shouldn't be" was just… insanely frustrating.

Now in order to keep schools paying for our services, every kid is banded into a range based on their grade. They are scored/graded based on their grade level rather than their growth. It's such a crying shame.

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smeej ◴[12 Nov 24 18:12 UTC] No.42118044[source]▶
They're not just banded into a range based on their grade. They're banded into a grade based on their age, even though "being within a year of the same age as somebody" becomes essentially meaningless as soon as you're out of school.
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human_person ◴[13 Nov 24 02:46 UTC] No.42122406[source]▶
Yes but that’s because you (mostly) stop physically growing once you are out of school. Banded within a year is meaningless for adults, a 25 yr old isn’t that different than a 30 year old but a 5 year old and a 10 year old are distinctly different. They are at different points in their development physically, emotionally and mentally. They socialize differently and have different needs. I’m not saying they can’t interact but there is some value in keeping children together by developmental stage and developmental stage is fairly age specific.
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1. smeej ◴[13 Nov 24 11:45 UTC] No.42125216[source]▶
As the kid who stood 4-6 inches taller than the next tallest kid in my class until I stopped getting taller when I was 5'8" and 11 years old, I'm acutely aware that kids physically grow at entirely different rates even during school. (I'm a woman, so this is still above average height, but I'm nowhere close to as awkwardly tall as I was in a room full of 11yos.) Look at any classroom and you'll see a wide variety of physical development.

I'm just saying age is an arbitrary indicator for every category I can think of, and most situations would benefit from using a more relevant metric. In situations where size matters the most, let the huge 10yo play with the 11 or 12yos and the tiny one be with the 8 or 9yos. When I was 11, for safety reasons my karate instructor had me start training with the adult women who were closer to my size. In situations where intellectual ability is the relevant factor, you might have even a broader reach. If my parents hadn't refused, my kindergarten principal wanted to have me in 3rd grade by the end of my first year and doing two a year after that. Sitting through 13 full years of classroom instruction instead of 5 or 6 was miserable. Somebody you share interests with might happily overlook the fact that you're a couple years younger and still want to be friends. It's at least more likely than that someone will overlook the fact that you have absolutely nothing in common because, hey, you were born within a couple months of each other!