What "old skills" students have lost

[onthefringe]

I am now wondering if alphabetizing is a skill they do not have. I am reading term papers (on the screen, not printed out) and a large number do not alphabetize their sources. I have no idea how they are ordering their works cited; maybe by color of the book?

Many don't know the alphabet song or what alphabetical order means or that you alphabetize people by surname. I encourage my students to use the first two videos below to learn alphabetical order, but I also point out that there are many tools like the third one listed to alphabetize a list for them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75p-N9YKqNo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjE6lP_V8jc

https://www.textfixer.com/tools/alphabetical-order.php
often doesn't get taught.

Apparently alphabetical order isn't on standardized tests, so it

Is that really true? My kid is in pre-k and they certainly do the alphabet song. Also, we have a million A is for Aardwolf type books that all reinforce that. I'm guessing the students just didn't bother to alphabetize their sources. It doesn't seem like that strange an oversight. It would be like concluding that because they didn't put page numbers on, they can't count. I can't recall any time when I needed to manually alphabetize something in my adult life.

After one of Nephew's teachers told us that she  didn't have time to teach alphabetical order, because it's not on standardized tests, I asked to review district curriculum guide. Alphabetical order was listed as an optional skill in grades k-3. I made a list of all the optional skills, which we proceeded to make sure he learned at home. Teachers and schools are different, but I was shocked at the number of optional skills in the district curriculum guide.

I'm not in education, but is this really a skill that needs to be explicitly taught? How many six year olds don't know the alphabet song? Kids learn letters as part of pre reading, and those letters are usually presented in order. Names are usually called in alphabetical order. We live in a very literate society. Look at your phone contacts. Those are in alphabetical order too.

If you have a basic idea like that, which is continually reinforced, I'm pretty sure people just learn it? Or learn it to the extent they need to. Seriously, I can't remember the last time I  put things in alphabetical order manually. The students just needed to know how to use word to do it.

I put paper exams/assignments in order manually. I thinks the alphabet does sink in over the years. I do see students who don't know how to alphabetize in the sense that they don't seem to have internalized how you use the letters after the first letter in a word to order things. On a list that's computer searchable (ie phone contacts)  they just search, and in paper things (like an index in a paper book) they see, to just scan?

And the concept that we would routinely alphabetize by LAST name seems to be lost on a bunch of them, so I see students (for example) standing in the wrong line to register for something.

[fishbrains]

Telling time on a face clock that has Roman numerals on it.

Rolling down a car window (okay, they figure it out, but the way they stare at the handle is kind of funny).

Singing at least one Schoolhouse Rock song.

And, just for the record, card catalogs sucked a$$. And microwaved bacon is good--and you can cook it without wearing a shirt.

[onthefringe]

Singing at least one Schoolhouse Rock song.

This one might be back. A lot of kids the fringelet' age and younger heard Schoolhouse Rock's songs from their GenX parents. We had the DVDs and she watched them all the time. And knows the Preamble to the Constitution as a result.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Telling time on a face clock that has Roman numerals on it.

Rolling down a car window (okay, they figure it out, but the way they stare at the handle is kind of funny).

Singing at least one Schoolhouse Rock song.

And, just for the record, card catalogs sucked a$$. And microwaved bacon is good--and you can cook it without wearing a shirt.

Knowing Roman numerals at all.

I bet most of my students don't even know what Schoolhouse Rock is.

[Liquidambar]

Knowing the difference between clockwise and counterclockwise and that it's based on the motion of the hands on an analog clock.

Have they actually lost this?  If so, I should stop bothering to helpfully use this terminology and instead just stick with positive angle and negative angle.  I'm not being sarcastic--it's hard enough for me (some minor dyslexia-like issue) and I even wear an analog wristwatch all the time.

[Puget]

Knowing the difference between clockwise and counterclockwise and that it's based on the motion of the hands on an analog clock.

Have they actually lost this?  If so, I should stop bothering to helpfully use this terminology and instead just stick with positive angle and negative angle.  I'm not being sarcastic--it's hard enough for me (some minor dyslexia-like issue) and I even wear an analog wristwatch all the time.

A couple years ago I commented that we had forgotten to reset the clocks in the lab to standard time. The students all looked at me blankly-- no one had noticed for weeks that the analog clocks were wrong because they never used them. Upon questioning, they admitted that although they could decipher them, it wasn't automatic, so they always looked at their phones instead.

[jerseyjay]

Which reminds me of another "skill": wearing a wristwatch.

I don't mean knowing how to read one (since there have been digital watches for years). I mean actually wearing one. Because, why would they, with cell phones and all?

This, also, is not just for students. A friend of mine, a retired professor who got his PhD decades ago, looked at me funny when I looked at my watch to find out what time it was. He asked me why I would have a watch since everybody has cell phones.

The reasons that I wear a watch is that I don't like to pull out my phone in a class because, well, that usually prompts everybody else to do so. Now that I have not been in a classroom for more than a year, I am not entirely sure where I put my watch.

[dr_codex]

One (last?) comment on alphabetizing: it isn't the most obvious skill to learn, and citing things in order of appearance is the principle of endnotes. Most of my students only use a handful of sources, so it's easy to scan a page for the right one, even if the citations are poorly done.

Those of you who read The Name of the Rose will recall how its library was organized, and the librarians among us will know of various other kinds of sorting arrangements and finding aids. Not everybody is convinced that the alphabet is superior: http://languagehat.com/history-of-alphabetical-order/ That includes my spouse, who disdains my alphabetical arrangement of books.

As for skilling in general, I agree with those of you who are arguing that utility is required. I didn't really learn how to format bibliographies until I was in grad school (when there was enough to organize that a system was a time saver); and I didn't refine that skill until I was working as an editor. And I didn't get good at quickly alphabetizing things until I had to sort through hundreds and thousands of essays. Batch sorting is a huge timesaver.

[ergative]

One (last?) comment on alphabetizing: it isn't the most obvious skill to learn, and citing things in order of appearance is the principle of endnotes. Most of my students only use a handful of sources, so it's easy to scan a page for the right one, even if the citations are poorly done.

Not just endnotes. There are several STEMmy citation styles that cite things in order of appearance--usually the ones that number references instead of using author (year) citations. IEEE is one, I think? When I have a choice of referencing style and very strict word counts I use  a reference numbering style. Many fewer words to do [10-14] than five citations.

[apl68]

I can't say as I miss the card catalog.  They were evidently pretty labor-intensive to maintain.  That's why even libraries like ours, which sometimes lose access to the remotely-hosted OPAC when our internet flakes out, don't go to the trouble of maintaining card catalogs as an analog backup.

[mamselle]

But you could find related things that weren't automatically obvious, by browsing under, say a subject heading, or an author's last name (that's how I first found C.S. Lewis' adult/academic works, for example)....

And there was something about the physical contact with those older, handwritten (or even, very-old-typewriter-typed) cards that created a kind of tactile continuity or sense of community with bibliophiles of times very long past.

I recall looking through the old card catalogue in the Paris Opera performing arts library (upstairs over one of the dressing-room wings) and finding, completely by accident. the hand-written card indexing my MA advisor's German dance history thesis. It startled me into thinking about all the connections it took for it to be placed there, and for her to have moved to the States, and then to the town where I met her.

Somehow that sense of time and travel and academic connection doesn't quite come through in Hollis or the OCLC....although they do now have a "next on the shelf" segment at the bottom of each entry page.

M.

[Caracal]

Which reminds me of another "skill": wearing a wristwatch.

I don't mean knowing how to read one (since there have been digital watches for years). I mean actually wearing one. Because, why would they, with cell phones and all?

This, also, is not just for students. A friend of mine, a retired professor who got his PhD decades ago, looked at me funny when I looked at my watch to find out what time it was. He asked me why I would have a watch since everybody has cell phones.

The reasons that I wear a watch is that I don't like to pull out my phone in a class because, well, that usually prompts everybody else to do so. Now that I have not been in a classroom for more than a year, I am not entirely sure where I put my watch.

I don't ever pull out my phone in class, but most of our classrooms still have a clock on the back wall so I use that. The display on the projector controls also has the time.

[jerseyjay]

Some of our classrooms have clocks, but sometimes it is in the front of the classroom (where I stand), and often the time is incorrect.

In terms of the card catalog, I agree with the fact that technologically computerized catalogs are better for any number of reasons. But that still does not mean that I do not miss the old catalog.

When I visit the Library of Congress, I still like to look at the card catalog (which has not been kept up for at least a decade). It gives a sense of the vastness of their collections.

For my alma mater, I have borrowing privileges as an alumni. However, I do not have a computer account, so I cannot log onto any of their computers. I always ask the person behind the desk--often a graduate student--where their card catalog is so I can look up books. The looks I receive are priceless.  (I think I once told them that this computer thing was really nifty, was it new?)

[fishbrains]

Singing at least one Schoolhouse Rock song.

This one might be back. A lot of kids the fringelet' age and younger heard Schoolhouse Rock's songs from their GenX parents. We had the DVDs and she watched them all the time. And knows the Preamble to the Constitution as a result.

I now have the hope to live through another day! ;)

[apl68]

But you could find related things that weren't automatically obvious, by browsing under, say a subject heading, or an author's last name (that's how I first found C.S. Lewis' adult/academic works, for example)....

And there was something about the physical contact with those older, handwritten (or even, very-old-typewriter-typed) cards that created a kind of tactile continuity or sense of community with bibliophiles of times very long past.

I recall looking through the old card catalogue in the Paris Opera performing arts library (upstairs over one of the dressing-room wings) and finding, completely by accident. the hand-written card indexing my MA advisor's German dance history thesis. It startled me into thinking about all the connections it took for it to be placed there, and for her to have moved to the States, and then to the town where I met her.

Somehow that sense of time and travel and academic connection doesn't quite come through in Hollis or the OCLC....although they do now have a "next on the shelf" segment at the bottom of each entry page.

M.

What you're talking about is why I'm glad that physical library collections--and bricks-and-mortar bookstores--still exist.  A physical collection is still browsable in a way that no online search system has ever been able to duplicate.