abraxas

This is the real reason. Bernie refused to meaningfully cooperative with the party who basically have a policy of allowing members across the widest political spectrum of any party, and then was shocked that they did completely legal and defensible things that might have affected his odds of winning the Primary, a Primary that was still ultimately decided by vote counts that he lost by a landslide. Nobody alienated Bernie (just look at Warren who writes half the bills he supports), he alienated himself.

Do people know why Bernie caucused with the Democrats? Because only about 9% of Americans identify as far left as progressive, and we only win something if we can compromise it with the only political party that works in good faith.

There's progressives, as well as a good breakdown of demsocs. You can be pleasantly surprised about some parts of Biden's presidency without being a centrist conservative who would have had him near the top of your list

Weird. I haven't heard of that one yet.

Hmm. I'm curious about this. I repeated the words you used because I thought it was appropriate to do so. Were you resorting to trying to mock me in the first place?

If so, then "glass houses" and all that. If not, then please don't take my reply as mocking. I genuinely mean it. And I am genuinely curious if you had smartphones in school. We didn't have them when I grew up.

I mean unless we’re talking about the rich. But like my whole political ideology kinda hinges on aggression in that direction so…

I think the common Communist definition of "Rich" and Marx's might differ vastly, and I think the vagueness of the word is half the reason. I see too many Communists calling for the death to (for example) computer programmers because many of them are able to save up a couple million by retirement. I know a few that ended up with $10M cash because they worked for a profit-share startup. While I'm not an expert on Marx, I'm pretty sure that's not what he meant when he referred to the bourgeoisie.

Hell, I don't think he ever predicted the massive number of "petite bourgeoisie" that we have now in much of the west, people who put in 60-80 hours simply to live the same life the rest of us live but not have to obediently answer a boss. I'd do that if I could. You'd think Communists could make allies of both the successful proles (like programmers) and the petite bourgeoisie.

If you draw "rich" somewhere close to the $100M mark or higher and include some asterisks on the ones you think should be murdered in the streets (assuming that's what you meant by "unless we're talking about the rich"), maybe most people will agree you're not an aggressive communist (but still be terrified of you like we are of anyone who wants to kill someone for who they are). If you're going to look at a grandma who has $2M in savings after her husband dies, the world's got problems with you.

I mean, if you want to peacefully dismantle people like Musk, then I'm 100% on board with you. If you would support someone taking sudden and violent force to him, as much as I think he's a douche, that's why we use the word "aggressive".

I'm a demsoc. I want to respect Communism more, but I never get death threats from liberals and do occasionally get death threats from Tankies.

It sucks because I feel they'd make a good ally to compromise with if they weren't hoping to have me executed for not supporting an authoritarian seizure of power.

What word would you prefer to someone who tells you to your face that they intend to "put you up against the wall" and then asks if you "know what that means, you fucking lib"?

I mean, I'm a demsoc, and of the last 20 death threats I have received in my life, 15 came from people who identify as Communist-Leninist. PLEASE give me a better word for them.

It’s concerning that you think the absence of a device is comparable to the presence of a action, in this case hitting.

I'm genuinely lost on how you think the only variable here is whether something is being banned or being encouraged. Or should I say, it's "concerning". Did you have a smartphone in school?

But we know children learn better without phones https://www.theeducatoronline.com/k12/news/the-evidence-is-clear-students-learn-better-without-mobile-phones-in-class/276071

I disagree. For two reasons. First, there is only a couple studies in your link, and its "difference-in-difference" strategy does not seem (at least prima facie) to shown effective isolation to only a single variable. Second, it seems to be making the same mistake previously made by Psychologists in the "hitting children" debate, making unsubstantiated (or "common sense") conclusions about the gulf in the middle after only doing a quick analysis of the two extremes. Further, your link also calls question your claim by pointing out Switzerland did not find any effectiveness in banning phones.

And the "hitting" reference was intended to point out the concern against positive advancement. There was a time where psychologists thought hitting was better than nothing even when they knew it was net harmful and so did not strongly discourage it when parents could not or would not embrace more modern parenting strategies. The same is true of phones in school (and, per your link, laptops in college). Looking at the laptop studies I could find, they have the same methodological problems the phone studies have. They're looking presumptively at distraction, and setting up an experiment where distraction is more pronounced.

Yet laptops have a lot more research than phones. Studies mentioned above compare ubiquitous laptop use and scores, while failing to address that each individual that uses a laptop averages higher scores than individuals who do not. What studies I could find with phones could be moving in the direction of that same dynamic that shows missing understanding of how to be use technology in learning.

Let's look at the other side of things. Another study (again, possibly flawed...I don't trust either side's phone studies much yet) found that removing a phone ban in NY caused an increase in overall student obedience and educational productivity, at the cost of "school culture". As someone who grew up as a victim of "school culture" in a world where teachers supported bullying (and in many places they still do), I have no problem with that trade-off. Of course, this study does directly contradict your educatoronline article.

From this fairly balanced piece (which agrees with both my article and yours in some ways):

"If educators do not find ways to leverage mobile technology in all learning environments, for all students, then we are failing our kids by not adequately preparing them to make the connection between their world outside of school and their world inside school"

...which is more important than test scores.

You are saying 29 out of 30 people can’t be right, which is very wrong. But what you miss is that it’s really 3-4 kids disrupting and the rest going along because it’s easier. It’s the path of least resistance, and people will jump onto the easy path.

Is that something you can cite, or just your own personal "pick em up by their bootstraps" opinion? Do you have any experience with crowd simulation? Can you show any evidence that your explanation is likely, or even reasonably possible?

Except they do. Look at all the examples of Japanese fans cleaning stadiums.

That's... not an effective or topical rebuttal at all. Did you misunderstand what I meant by "Personal Responsibility" attitudes? I referred to blaming the individuals in a large group for their failure instead of blaming the causal elements of the group. I have to deal with that type of problem regularly, where a manager tries to blame a majority of his reports (all capable and talented) of being the problem when something goes wrong. Guess who I ultimately find responsible?

Next time you dislike your teacher think about when you got stuck in a group with people who wouldn’t do anything.

Thankfully, I'm decades out on that. From the kinds of things I see and read about education, I'm grateful I don't have to go back. But then, my education started after school anyway.

Yes, life was so dangerous before the telephone. It's amazing anyone survived decades without them! 991, phaw, we had a bucket of water and a shotgun.

... in summary. The point should be that the next generation has an advantage over the previous, in all things.

Well, by their teenage years, why not all the reasons adults need smartphones fully accessible? Looking up information from authoritative sources? Emergency contact? Coordinating schedules for office hours?

Schools often simultaneously demand more from children than workplaces do adults, and give them less opportunity to excel.

I'm not saying work-inappropriate phone use should be accepted, but taking them away entirely is downright irresponsible. Just like schools who still demand students write on a notebook instead of using a laptop. Raise your hand if you had RSI-related issues for a decade or more after high school? We old people tend to forget how bad school used to be (and can be) for physical and mental health AND for learning.

What exactly should be done to motivate?

Great question. And a hard one. But knowing a proposed solution will worsen the situation is an important step in it.

It's like every time a person says "see, this is what happens when you don't hit children" at every behavior issue. Even though we know that hitting children objectively worsens behavior over doing nothing, but they insist that doing the only thing they know, even if harmful, is better.

Let me give you an example, everyone has heard “when will we use this in real life?” in math class. The same people asking those questions are the same that groan at word problems

I had a math teacher that helped us see which math we would use in real life, and which math we wouldn't, and helped us understand why the latter was still important for us to know. Everyone paid attention to her.

What’s the real complaint the student has? They have to try.

When you have a room of 30 students and 29 of them are complaining about something, we need to remind people that one of the real life uses of math (stats & probability to be precise) is to point out how unlikely it is that those 29 students are the causal variable.

I agree that so much more can be done to make school fun, but it’s not all on the teachers. Students have to be present, participate and willing to leave their comfort zone in order to have better results.

"Personal Responsibility" attitudes just doesn't work for crowd dynamics, especially with regards to children. The way a group behaves is nearly 100% predictable from the balance of outside human factors. In this case, the outside factors are parents and teachers. That's it. Either there is something that all the parents are doing wrong, or the teachers.

Since there are some teachers who have far more success than others (common "favorite subjects" based on school), that means the most likely cause, and mechanism for improvements, are the teachers.