Classroom technology was supposed to revolutionize learning. Instead, studies show it may be holding students back: more than half of students are said to be distracted by devices in class. Today, Lisa Fletcher visits a school that’s going back to basics.
The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.
At Frederick Classical Charter School in Maryland, nearly 400 students from kindergarten through eighth grade follow a deliberately traditional approach to learning.
Collin Kenny helps lead that approach as the school’s assistant principal.
Collin Kenny: We’re a public school, but we are a school that parents opt into so that they can have something that stresses history and public speaking and things like that.
It’s called “classical education” – a growing instruction model with about 700-thousand students in 15-hundred schools nationwide.
Lisa Fletcher: Traditional school teachers might say, “Well, we do that at our school. It doesn’t sound that different.” What really sets you guys apart?
Collin Kenny: We were designed to communicate face to face, to write our ideas down. So it makes sense that our brains are wired to learn this way.
In classrooms here, that philosophy shows up in a simple way – more pens and pencils, and fewer screens.
Research suggests that matters. Studies show students who write by hand tend to produce higher-quality work and retain more information than those who type.
Lisa Fletcher: A lot of schools integrate digital learning. You don’t have much of that around here at all. Why make that choice?
Collin Kenny: It’s often technology for technology’s sake.
That runs counter to the direction many schools have taken.
Spending about 30-billion on education technology in just 2024, with 88-percent of public schools providing every student with a device, usually a laptop.
At the same time, distraction is a constant – one report found kids receive hundreds of phone notifications a day, almost 10 per hour during the school day.
Distractions you won’t find in these classrooms, including for first grader Aubrie Robinson.
Lisa Fletcher: What do you like best about this school?
Aubrie Robinson: I like all the teachers and that they’re friendly.
Her brother Carter is in fourth grade.
Carter Robinson: I like math the best.
Lisa Fletcher: Why?
Carter Robinson: I’m good at it and I can understand it well.
Their mother, Breanna Robinson, says the approach is working for her kids.
Breanna Robinson: I know that for me, I learn better when it is like face to face education. And so for my kids, I definitely wanted them to have those aspects of education so that it would be like a very rich education experience.
As parents and lawmakers reconsider how much technology belongs in the classroom, schools like this are betting that sometimes less may actually be more.
In Frederick, Maryland, I’m Lisa Fletcher for Full Measure.
Watch the video here.
Lisa,
Sharyl
—and Full Measure Team :
Re : Your lack of knowledge,
of HOW Bad Public Ed. actually is :
Excerpted from an essay,
“Fraud in Academia: Grade Inflation 101”—By Professor Walter Williams
| MAY 6, 2009
– Snip –
“Writing for the National Association of Scholars, Professor Thomas
C. Reeves documents what is no less than academic fraud in his
article ‘The Happy Classroom: Grade Inflation Works.’
From 1991 to
2007, in public institutions, the average grade point average (GPA)
rose, on a four-point scale, from 2.93 to 3.11.
In private schools, the
average GPA climbed from 3.09 to 3.30.
Put within a historical
perspective, in the 1930s, the average GPA was 2.35 (about a C-plus);
whereby now it’s a B-plus.
“Academic fraud
is rife at many of the nation’s most prestigious and
costliest universities.
At Brown University,
two-thirds of all letter
grades
given are A’s.
At Harvard,
50 percent of all grades were either A or A-
(up from 22 percent in 1966); 91 percent of seniors graduated with
honors. The Boston Globe called Harvard’s grading practices ‘the
laughing stock of the Ivy League.’ Eighty percent of the grades given
at the University of Illinois are A’s and B’s.
Fifty percent of students at
Columbia University are on the Dean’s list.
At Stanford University,
where F grades used to be banned, only 6 percent of student grades
were as low as a C.”
– Snip –
-Rick
Lisa,
Sharyl
—the Full Measure Team :
Dear Christopher Rufo,
Re : Public Ed. Failures
And—
Re : Your well-reasoned report ( near bottom of this page )
1. Men had used to be instructors for children in
classrooms—then the Federal (sic) Reserve (sic)
forced mothers out of the house in response to
financial “mismanagement” ( actually purposeful ) .
2. Female teachers put high-achieving students at risk,
FEELING an EMOTIONAL need to accommodate low-
performing black students (( why curricula suffer lack
of pursuit of scholarship, today )) in classrooms.
3. Notice – and this is critical to promoting MERIT and
non-communist INDIVIDUALITY – too many public
schools arrange common-desk-type seating : 4 to
6 students at each table, rather than traditional single-
desk arrangements. Very little learning occurs at those
communist-type tables, as children are held back at
those tables—so as “not to leave any child behind” (( a
FEMINIST-Feeling sentiment destroying pursuit of
scholarship, found in women and feminized “men”
—study my psychology reports, to understand the
WHY? of mental differences between hemisphere-
dominance in males’ and in females’ approach to societal
problems ( the former being practical ( forced learning )
/logical and the latter impractical ( fun “learning” )
/emotional )).
4. I was stunned to learn – recently – that cell phones
are allowed in classrooms—STUNNED ! I’m reminded
of the hidden dance performances in the early ‘90s
—that teachers/administrators had been allowing
students to simulate sex acts during dances after
games. One parent complained, then the national
controversy arrived ! Regarding cell phones, one
teacher said on national TV : “I just work around the
distractions.” Really ? Moron !
5. There’s a quote – re Aristotle – about how children are
( better ) educated via hard work / “pain”—NOT by fun. Well,
“GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE F-U-N,” as the song goes
—in the classroom (( making “learning” more “interesting”
to students, as she opines, rather than DEMANDING
rigorous learning via lessons )).
My best teachers were all men,
through the ‘40s, ‘50s,
and early ‘60s.
6. Marxist Jews are behind most of the decline in our
schools, just as they had done in (to) Weimar Germany—
giving rise to Hitler and Nazism (( and women voted
Hitler into power !, as he had spent many months
lecturing about the importance of valuing/advancing
( female ) EMOTION over use of ( male ) LOGIC—so very
few know of that pre-election indoctrination by Hitler,
absent any deep dive into actual German history )).
-Rick
P.S.
Note :
— Education Stupidity—teaching proper grammar is “White Supremacy” —
https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/english-teacher-tiktok?utm_source=lwc-trending&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Afternoon%20Trending%20Curated%20Test%202022-12-06