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Comment by 9rx

20 days ago

> the education pipeline is depositing students with a far lower attention span and capability than ever before, in college classes, for all subjects, including Math.

Unsurprisingly. In the past:

1. Those with lower attention spans generally didn't try to go to college in the first place. They often didn't even graduate from high school[1].

2. If they did try, colleges rejected their application long before they ever arrived on campus. Now colleges seek to accommodate them.

College used to be just for elites. At some point we decided it should be for everyone. When you try to shove more and more people into college, you're going to find out that most people don't have what it takes. It is like us deciding everyone should get to play in the NFL and then wonder why the talent is so poor...

We can't have it both ways.

[1] When I was in high school the graduation rate was only around 60%. Nowadays it is around 90%. That is a substantial shift in relatively few years. Did the students suddenly become better students out of the blue? Of course not.

As I recall, the author of the article looks at this at over a long enough time horizon to call out the difference.

I rechecked the article, and they’ve been teaching for 30 years. I went through the links (1) (2) and it looks like this has been accelerating since 2010, with one comment saying they noticed it starting in 2006.

1) https://www.honest-broker.com/p/whats-happening-to-students

2) https://www.ft.com/content/a8016c64-63b7-458b-a371-e0e1c54a1...

This is from the article.

  • > with one comment saying they noticed it starting in 2006.

    Yup. This is exactly when high school graduation rates started to skyrocket – my cohort being from a few years earlier – and with virtually everyone (save those who are completely disabled) graduating by the time we were into the 2010s. That was a significant shift in the landscape, and it happened quickly to boot.

    Shove a greater number of people with less ability into education and you are going to notice.