Senator Ted Cruz is trying to block Wi-Fi hotspots for schoolchildren

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This is why we gotta ban TikTok!!!! For the children!!! \s

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You can't woosh the original woosher. The downvotes are hilarious.

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It's not wrong to question whether any actual learning is taking place on "devices" regardless of whether they're ubiquitous. It's easy to pick up how to use a device after you know how to read and do math, much harder to learn the former when you're an expert at navigating menus on a device. Maybe this is why 4th grade math skills haven't returned to pre-pandemic levels...

Also don't woosh me. Are you going to skibidy next?

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His rationale is ridiculous, but my comment is meant to question why wifi is even necessary to do homework, not about the dangers of censorship. Of course the censorship is outrageous.

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Ok boomer

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You completely missed my point, perhaps it is you who has the whoosh?

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How do you expect them do assignments like papers, by typewriter? No, I suppose that’s a device too, so hand-written only. Truly, this will equip them to be functioning adults!

Recommendations state that children and adolescents should have screen time limited to 2 hours a day or less. If the average school day is 5-6 hours with an average of 2 hours of homework a night, and everything is done on screens, we are actively violating scientific health guidelines and damaging the students brains.

Reading books is also better for the brain than reading the same information from a screen as there is less stimuli being processed while reading the book allowing the brain to have more focus on the processing of information.

Writing by hand is a proven way to retain and better understand information. Learning and practicing writing in both block and cursive improves these outcomes further. Typing, even on a typewriter, does not have the same benefits.

So yes, making students write assignments out by hand using physical books for research will equip them to be more functional as adults.

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As has been well documented time and again, Texas textbooks are not neutral sources of information (podcast for anyone interested). Taking real books out of the library, controlling the content of textbooks, getting rid of Internet access specifically because it could introduce thought to children... Home of the free, my friends. Free speech absolutism.

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I am actually reading a paper book right now to learn about configuring advanced features of ZFS. Hard to believe but it's much easier to understand than the fragments of information on Stack Exchange. The man pages are nice to reference but they don't really teach the concepts or give good examples. And Perplexity gave me bad information. Even for very technical things, which you might think would be the first to be displaced, there's still a place for paper books. Yeah I could figure it out eventually but reading this book has probably been faster, more thorough, and more approachable.

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let alone being required to use them for schoolwork.

I was born in 1991. In elementary school I had assignments that required a computer. This is not new.

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Seeing how many people believe you are wrong, I am going to post the reasons why you are right so hopefully the people in disagreement understand:

Recommendations state that children and adolescents should have screen time limited to 2 hours a day or less, with emphasis on "less". If the average school day is 5-6 hours with an average of 2 hours of homework a night, and everything is done on screens, we are actively violating scientific health guidelines and damaging the students brains.

Reading books is better for the brain than reading the same information from a screen as there is less stimuli being processed while reading the book allowing the brain to have more focus on the processing of information.

Writing by hand is a proven way to retain and better understand information. Learning and practicing writing in both block and cursive improves these outcomes further. Typing, even on a typewriter, does not have the same benefits.

The fact that so many people do not understand these three very important things demonstrates a lot of ignorance and bias for technology. How many studies are needed before the "Regulations should be based in scientific study" crowd stop pushing against the recommendations of the scientific community?

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Hotspot lending could “censor kids’

definition of censorship is not your access to alternatives to the "state propaganda curriculum". Access to alternatives is in fact the opposite of censorship.

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Remember when he tweeted out a pornhub video

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I've seen much pointless dumb shit these last days, but this one still manages to shine.

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Are you even serious right now? God damn it. Who made these rules?

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Me too, they didn't require constant connectivity. I went to the library or computer lab. Lots of kids in my class didn't have a home computer. And even though my family did, it didn't give me an advantage on those assignments. We all had to manage doing them at school on a school computer. Thank God they didn't have Facebook.

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First, you said “I completely agree with him”. If you do not understand how that might mean we think that means you agree with his rationale then writing your assignments by hand clearly didn’t help you that much.

But anyway:

Because sometimes you need to research things for homework? Because the kids with reliable internet will still be able to use it, will use it, and will have an unfair advantage over the kids who don’t have the same level of access(usually because their parents aren’t as well off, perpetuating the cycle of poverty). Even if we decided that every single piece of homework was to be 100% handwritten that wouldn’t make the internet go away and these problems would still persist.

It’s so much more nuanced than some weak take that doesn’t do much but expose your lack of understanding of the issue. Yes, there are some clear advantages to maybe scaling things back a little but this not the way to do it, not even a little bit.

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Why do these fuckers spend so much time and effort trying to make things worse? Like there's scapegoating immigrants because it'll rile up your voter base and get you re-elected and then there's shit like taking away lunch from kids. Like who does that even benefit?

I'm genuinely asking if they just get giddy with excitement at the thought of making things worse for other people.

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No, I said I completely agree with this, this being that the state should not be providing wifi hotspots to school children. I was surprised that I actually agreed with Cruz on this because I pretty much never agree with him and consider him, in the words of John Boehner, Lucifer in the flesh. And I'm sorry if some of you thought I meant that I completely agreed with him on what he startes as his justification (morality police, censorship, etc.) which isn't the case.

But instead all you trigger-ready comment warriors are ready to burn me at the stake for what's really a pretty sensible position.

Wifi hotspots aren't going to eliminate inequality. Students eith reliable Internet may have an unfair advantage, but teachers and administrators could minimize that by giving assignments that don't really require Internet access to complete.

Should all assignments be hand written, of course not. But do they need to be completed in a web browser? Nope. Good old word processor and spreadsheets work great.

Holy moly, everybody is on edge. Understandable...

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I agree to a certain extent; at least elementary school should and remain device free.

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Senator Ted Cruz is trying to block Wi-Fi hotspots for schoolchildren