The university is reiterating its commitment to free expression but indicting that the protestors are violating time, manner, place restrictions and risking campus safety:
A reporter was arrested yesterday but later released. It sounds like charges will not be pursued.
Later in the evening, the students said the administration brought Panera Bread for security but was denying food and bathroom access to students.
They were peeing in bottles.
Some students started to realize they might get arrested while trying to report that one young woman was in danger of toxic shock:
In the end, four students were arrested (three inside and one outside), and all the students inside were given interim suspensions, which means they can’t be on campus and had to leave by 5pm local yesterday.
“Although it once seemed like a good idea to give every child his or her own device, it’s clear that those policies have been a failure.”
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School-issued laptops distract students at school and home, expose them to things they shouldn’t see, and hurt learning.
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Great column by @jean_twenge:
She observes that “the decline in test scores started well before the pandemic, around 2012. One obvious culprit is smartphones, which became popular just as test scores started to decline.”
But “phones are not the only electronic devices students use at school. These days, nearly every middle and high school student — and a good number in the elementary grades as well — brings a laptop or tablet to school and uses it at home for homework.”
NEW: UC San Diego has released a new report documenting a “steep decline in the academic preparedness” of its freshmen.
The number of entering students needing remedial math has exploded from 1/100 to 1/8.
They’ve had to create a second remedial class covering elementary and middle school math skills in addition to the one covering gaps from high school.
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The report also shows that nearly 1/5 students fail to meeting entry level writing requirements.
“This deterioration coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on education, the elimination of standardized testing, grade inflation, and the expansion of admissions from under-resourced high schools.”
These Harvard students…did not react well to the report on grade inflation:
“The whole entire day, I was crying. I skipped classes on Monday, and I was just sobbing in bed because I felt like I try so hard in my classes, and my grades aren’t even the best. It just felt soul-crushing.”
“What makes a Harvard student a Harvard student is their engagement in extracurriculars. Now we have to throw that all away and pursue just academics. I believe that attacks the very notion of what Harvard is.”
“I can’t reach my maximum level of enjoyment just learning the material because I’m so anxious about the midterm, so anxious about the papers, and because I know it’s so harshly graded. If that standard is raised even more, it’s unrealistic to assume that people will enjoy their classes.”
A student says harder grading “could take a serious toll on students’ mental health.”
“‘It makes me rethink my decision to come to the school,’ she said. ‘I killed myself all throughout high school to try and get into this school. I was looking forward to being fulfilled by my studies now, rather than being killed by them.’”
“They were cracking up not simply because grades had gotten so high but because they knew just how little students were doing to earn them.”
Harvard faculty recognize that grade inflation has become absurd:
“In 2011, 60 percent of all grades at Harvard were in the A range (up from 33 percent in 1985). By the 2020–21 academic year, that share had risen to 79 percent.”
“Outside observers might still think of grades as an objective assessment of a student’s work, and therefore a way to differentiate between levels of achievement. But many professors seem to conceive of them as an endlessly adaptable participation trophy.”