When will we start to educate our children how to handle Social Media and Privacy?

My brother, sister in law, and I taught my nieces about this 13+ years ago. With the vast number of non-entertainment related subjects that need to be taught I don’t think it’s wise to use much school time to teach entertainment related subjects.

IME less than one in ten college graduates can do 6/7th grade level introductory algebra or science fundamentals so I’d prefer educators concentrate on finding ways to get the basics to stick in people’s minds.

Recently on an electronic components distributor’s forum I had an employee with an engineering degree show they have trouble rearranging a three element equation. :frowning_face:

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I guess we should look at it like this
While the advert companies make every effort to normalise tracking, we should make every effort to normalise the avoidance of it.

If Governments care about a thing they normally invest in the media industry and push out some propaganda infused plot with our hero “doing the right thing after confronting the issue”.

The quality of IT training in the west has declined over the years because Universities are not about education any more they are about making money.
Last year I read a story on our show about someone held at customs coming into America due to a dodgy looking passport.
The person claimed that they were returning for their second year at Uni doing an IT degree.
When questioned by a nerd in the customs team they failed to answer basic questions on the most common protocols in use, eg. What do HTTP and POP3 mean.
Upon contacting the Uni it turns out that yes indeed this is a student registered there and has done their first year.

If you want the best training in IT you have to go to the coal-face and learn on the job with tasks that need a solution that you need to learn.
I would hire an 18 year old that has been working in IT for 2 years, but not a 20 year old that has only learned in “education”.

In a study done this year it turned out that a lot of IT companies now don’t hire IT graduates, if people are available with a suitable complimentary skill set that can be turned into a competent asset.
On one hand I was surprised how common it is, but then not so surprised when reminded of the average Uni grad I meet that thinks they know it all now they have some letters after their name.

A lot has to change.

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I can understand your frustration, but not this person is the problem, but the dumbo who hired him.the majority of kids won’t need algebra in their live, but we teach it anyway.
Agreed: We need controls in place that people who get these jobs are qualified.
Pumping a wide range of “knowledge” into kids brains, in hope that it will be of use in their future, has been tried for the last 50+ years and, obviously didn’t work.

Informational programs about Data Security / Social Media / Misinformation (apart or combined) won’t use “much school time” at all, but unlike more traditional “knowledge” will affect pretty much everyone.

I hear ya about algebra, And it is true - being in the criminal justice field, II do not use algebra. But, I think a lot of math IS valuable, in that it teaches you problem solving skills. Do we need THAT much math? Probably not.

I always thought that they should be teaching kids how to balance a checkbook and how to file their taxes. THAT should be necessary.

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There are many different ways of solving problems, and not all of them are mathematical, or even obviously logical. That’s not to decry either of those skills, which have given us some wonderful scientific advances, it’s just that some people have other skills, like pattern-spotting and what used to be called “mechanical sympathy” in engineering circles (understanding the fitness of particular materials for a purpose is the nearest explanation I can give), that can also produce good solutions.

Full disclosure: I never studied math or logic or algebra beyond high school level, and ended up dropping out of college, but when I got into IT more or less by accident I ended up with a 40+ year career, including programming very large realtime systems, and my solutions were liked and had a long lifespan, so I assume I was doing something right.

People have lots of different talents and having a mix of them in a team may give better results than just aiming for a row of industry certifications - but I’m probably biased. :wink:

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I notice a common thread coming up.
Indeed it has occurred to me that a lot of the issues are down to whether people connect the dots or not.

Innate nerds and especially those interested in crypto will always try to connect the dots and work out how everything relates, forwards, backwards and sideways.

Education does not tend to work this way. We are taught a load of separate skills in the hope some of it sticks.
For those that see where things fit together these concepts will stick.

At a base level education needs to enforce the relativity between the various topics and lessons.
In my world I would have the history lessons cover the people and events that relate to the lessons you learn in other subjects.
Same for Geography. Why not learn about Italy at the same time as you cover Davinci and the Maths we can see when looking at his work.
The various subjects should work in concert and compliment each other helping build a full picture.

Many kids struggle with algebra (I did) because after teaching that maths is about numbers, you throw in letters.
Letters that do not yet have a value.
1 shopping trip will demonstrate algebra. I have shown people that say they can’t understand it, that they do it all the time without realising.
If you can answer the question “how many groups of people are on the pitch ?” referring to a sportsball event, you just did algebra.
Once you present algebra as small and large bags of potatoes for example, they very quickly realise why you are using letters.
I use the example of “5kg bags and 25kg sacks of potatoes”
B=bag=5
S=sack=25

When we start learning algebra we are given X, Y, and Z as common arbitrary letters that tend not to relate to the actual group name.
Though it does not matter, it it not as memorable

If lessons are relative with each other, people will relate to the knowledge so that it can become wisdom.

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I believe that this is an over generalization about IT in education. Is everyone in EdTech knowledgeable about these topics? No, not even close, but there are people who get it. Unfortunately, those people who understand it are not in a position to make decisions. Schools are run by administrators who are former educators themselves. Their primary goal is to ensure that the students receive an education and the use of the budget reflects that goal. Since this information is available to to the public I will share a bit of it. Our district operates on a roughly $30 million (USD) budget. Of that, we only receive about $650,000 (USD) and we are asked every year to reduce what we are spending. While we have the knowledge to fix the problems, $650,000 makes it hard to do so.

Very well put @Dr.Flay I was thinking, I use Algebra every day, as do most people. It is just an abstraction.

Although I must admit, it was only after I got my first computer that I suddenly “got” algebra. I can’t remember quadratic equations and specific formulas, but I can look at an algebraic equation and I understand what it is doing.

History is similar, I never liked it, didn’t understand it and dropped it. After I left school, I started playing AD&D with colleagues from work and we were creating our own scenarios. I was going back over history to find events, weapons, authentic clothing etc. to use in my games and I suddenly “got” history, it really interested me.

As you say, the catalyst has to be there, the relevance has to be there. Whether that is algebra + Italy = Davinci or it is writing a computer program or researching for a fun project, it doesn’t matter. But the relevance, the catalyst has to exist.