Adrian Buck > Recent Status Updates

"More than a fourth of all paper produced in 1959 was [recycled]" - 66% today, but I suspect we produce very much more.

"A few thousand letters to congressmen probably would not produce any laws establishing machinery to set quality standards..." - there is no role for government in Packard's proposed solutions, un-American?

"Mexicans, in contrast, were aglow with idealism and showed only casual concern about the material surroundings of their lives. Six times as many Mexicans as Americans students foresaw that their greatest sources of pride would be in their nation." - So much nonsense, or was this idealism trampled in the stampede to provide Americans with illegal drugs?

"Frequent purchase of such appliances as dishwashers and clothes driers and prepackaged meals...tends to disenfranchise the wife by depriving her of many traditional, time-consuming, homemaking functions" - you can tell Vance didn't help around the home much.

"TV viewers cannot be regarded as an audience to be entertained...They are prospects...for what the sponsor has to sell." - now, the data generated by users of social media is regarded as the product sold to marketeers and politicians. We're not so alarmed about television, because it's dominant economic model is subscription?

"Suppose that ten or twenty years from now an opposition leader of the order of Peron or Trujillo or Castro come into power in Venezuela with a highly nationalistic and perhaps anti-United States orientation." - Well, that was on the money, though timing is everything.

They want to use as wide a range of languages as possible, rather than limit their evidence to European languages. But these languages have a 'fossil record' that most others do not - ancient texts. With African and other recently literate languages, the 'diachronic' evidence is 'identifying' European patterns, and assuming they 'evolved' in a similar way. Where is the Arabic? Where is the Ancient Greek?

"...what it asked for is a culture in which teachers spend more time TOGETHER pre-planning and critiquing this pre-planning, and working in teacher groups to interpret the evidence about their effect on students" - sounds like the collectivisation of teaching, can understand why so many leave the profession once this level of bureaucracy has been reached.

"I do not suggest running sessions lecturing staff about what is going to happen - but this ignores the mind frames that teachers currently have about the success of their own teaching." - he's right about this, but he implies teachers are wrong about 'the success of their own teaching'.

"Teachers need need to enhance their evaluation skills about the efforts they are having on students...Overa series of lessons, if the typical impact is not high (that is, at least d=>0.40) then change in the teaching methods is likely to be necessary" - teaching is not cricket

"As teachers become more experienced, their [theories of practice] become more convincing to them, and sometimes changing them requires a major disruption and high levels of convincing power of the effect of alternate theories of action" - by now, it is clear that this book more about convincing teachers than the visibility of learning.

"...maybe less debate about other structural concerns (lower class size; different tracking methods; professional development sessions not related to these debates) could make way for financing more teaching planning and review time - together" - 'financing', that explains the problem, having teachers together and not teaching is a very obvious cost to a school.

"Students are never 'owned' by a teacher, but by the school' - the notionship of 'ownership' is unpleasant either way, but this highlight's Hattie's antipathy to student-teacher relationships.

"...and that even the best teacher has variability in the effect that he or she has on his or her students" - I would guess the effect size of a strong individual relationship between student and teacher would knock the others into a cocked hat.

'The lesson...ends...when teachers review learning through the eyes of their students.' - Hattie often falls victim to his own metaphors; Willingham didn't have this problem.

'When the cook tastes the soup, it is formative: when the guests taste the soup, it is summative' - Nice! And also indicates what is wrong with the Hungarian érettségi.

"but for students to become 'capable' still requires a teacher to believe passionately that these students CAN become become capable...this passion does necessarily mean bubbly exuberance, but...involvement in each student's learning, and evaluating your effect on each student" - Oh, you mean professionalism, not 'passion': twisting language like this doesn't help your argument.

"Feedback needs to be focused, specific and clear" - and in real time, teaching increasing seems to be a form of sporting performance.

"This means that there needs to be a classroom climate in which there is minimum peer reactivity to not knowing or acknowledgement of errors, and in which there is low personal risk involved in responding publically and failing" - It is more common for me to have a completely passive class than one reactive to failure. Notice-taking may be as pernicious as reaction.

"Praise usually contains little task related information and is rarely converted into more engagement, commitment to the learning goals, enhanced self-efficacy, or understanding about the task" - yes, but not praising kids seems a tad inhumane.

"using solar energy to generate mechanical power and elecricity will be more expensive than nuclear energy "by a considerable margin"" - Solar power now has the cheapest unit cost in the U.S., being 40% of the cost of nuclear.

"Japanese and German electric housewares would be known for their quality within a few years while American electrics would be famous for low price and low quality" - well, one out of two isn't bad.

"Most of the major manufacturers of brassieres...began promoting and selling bras to nine-and ten year old girls" - obviously the sexualization of children is much older problem than the reaction to "Cuties" would suggest.

"If current trends continued, quite likely the United States population by the end of the century...world more than double the present population" - i.e 350 million according to Vance. At 328M America is still not there, and the biggest driver of population growth is immigration not larger families. "If current trends continue" must be the most fatal assumption in forecasting.

"The consumer does not judge the product, he judges the package" - well, packaging disguises the product. The consumer has little else to go on.

"During the fifties, consumer indebtedness rose three times as fast as personal income" - since debt involves payments for interest doesn't it ultimately reduce disposable income available for consuming goods: doesn't reduce waste?

"Automatic washers and diswashers were requiring an average of two service calls during the first years of operation" - these seems to be another area where vast improvement has been made.

"Who wants furniture to last forever" The large American middle classes do not." - The English upper classes, however, look down on people who have to buy their own furniture.

"An example cited was the snapping of the plastic handles of [refrigerator] crisper drawers. Plastics have appealed to producers not only because they are unusually cheaper than metal but also because their built-in colors help promote selling" - metal can also be repaired, plastic can't. In the future perhaps, we will all have 3D printers and will be to easily replace broken plastic components.

"A comparative analysis of tread-mileage ... by Consumers Union in two different years showed these spreads from best to poorest: 1954, 22,000 to 31,000 miles; 1958, 18,000 to 27,500 miles" - 2019, 60,000 to 75,000 miles.