#dumbingusdown — Public Fediverse posts

Student #ReadingAbility Spikes After Removing Tech From Class

"Remove all the #distractions and we can get our kids back."

By Frank Landymore
Published Jun 15, 2026

"Would you believe it: a teacher and her students say their reading ability soared after banning tech in the classroom.

"Maureen Mulvaney, an AP Literature and English teacher at Washburn High School in Minneapolis, started the low tech experiment last year after becoming frustrated with plagiarism, distracted students, and plunging literacy rates.

"And so, with the enthusiastic support of parents, she banned phones and laptops, requiring all coursework to be done with pencil and paper. The turnaround was quick and resounding, and despite some initial resistance from students, they quickly fell in love with the old, analog ways of doing things.

"In September, before the experiment started, just 46 percent of Mulvaney’s students said they felt confident about their reading ability. By February, that share shot up to 95 percent.

" 'We’re having a lot of trouble in education and I think what my kids told us was that there is a solution and the solution is to go #LowTech. Go back to the old ways of doing things,' Mulvaney told local TV news station KARE 11. 'Remove all the distractions and we can get our kids back.'

"Mulvaney let her students ease into a tech free environment. First, they started with just ten minutes of silent reading and writing by hand. Still, the first day was 'rough,' she wrote in an essay in The Minnesota Star Tribune. Most students quit after just half a page of longhand composition.

" 'I told the kids this is like lifting weights,' she told KARE 11. 'You don’t go in and you don’t start with 80 pounds.' "

Read more:
https://futurism.com/future-society/students-reading-improves-no-tech-class

#LudditeClub #NoTech #NoPhones #NoAI #Reading #Writing #Humans
#Smartphones are #DumbingUsDown #SolarPunkSunday #Handwriting #NeoLuddites #SmartphoneBan #Longhand

#Trump demands unprecedented control at #ColumbiaUniversity, alarming scholars and speech groups

By COLLIN BINKLEY and JAKE OFFENHARTZ
Updated 7:52 PM EDT, March 14, 2025

NEW YORK (AP) — "The Trump administration brushed aside decades of precedent when it ordered Columbia University to oust the leadership of an academic department, a demand seen as a direct attack on academic freedom and a warning of what’s to come for other colleges facing federal scrutiny.

"Federal officials told the university it must immediately place its #MiddleEasternStudies, #SouthAsianStudies, and #AfricanStudies Department under 'academic receivership for a minimum of five years.' The demand was among several described as conditions for receiving federal funding, including $400 million already pulled over allegations of #antisemitism.

"Across #academia, it was seen as a stunning intrusion.

"'It’s an escalation of a kind that is unheard of,' said Joan Scott, a historian and member of the academic freedom committee of the American Association of University Professors [#AAUP]. 'Even during the #McCarthy period in the United States, this was not done.'"

https://apnews.com/article/columbia-university-mahmoud-khalil-ice-arrests-1921e26f6b5a8585ad5cbda790846324
#CharacteristicsOfFascism #USPol #Censorship #DumbingUsDown #Authoritarianism #SilencingDissent #AcademicFreedom #Fascism