Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

wamc.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 371 posts

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#181

Post by bitwize »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #98
hackuser wrote: post #19

When it comes to technology skills, the story gets worse. The U.S. came in last place — right below Poland. The study looked at basic technology tasks: things like using email, buying and returning items online, using a drop-down menu, naming a file on a computer or sending a text message. Something to consider about your users.

I was at a Walgreens a little while ago, and there was a lady buying some sort of cable for a camera. I remember her literally asking the store clerk, "Will this work with a laptop, or does it have to be a computer?" I bring up this anecdote whenever someone else asserts " is common sense, no one could be confused by it". Help your parents with tech support at least once a year (or your friends' parents if yours are…

When I was in college I had a top-ranked CS major ask me if the Borland compiler would work on her laptop as well as on a desktop. I told her it would. Her response was, "But isn't there a special chip in the desktop that compiles the program for you? Does my laptop have that too?"

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#182

Post by timthorn »

bpyne wrote: post #120
conceit wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

before you care about that question, you should ask yourself, "should it?." BTW: Am I doing this little american grammatical quirk with the punctuation within quotes right?

Not quite. You need to capitalize the S and remove the period. We don't typically use double punctuation. Frankly, the whole phrasing of that statement would be very bizarre from an American's standpoint. We would typically say something along the lines of "Is the question worth caring about?" It's more concise and doesn't emulate an inner dialog. More to your larger point, the placement of punctuation within quotes,…

But to a British ear, the phrasing of your sentence is good. It creates the link between the two questions, not suggesting that the original question is not of value, but placing a qualifier on it.

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#183

Post by api_or_ipa »

tokenadult wrote: post #13
madengr wrote: post #6

Not able to send a text messsage? That I don't believe.

The study is about comparative data, and I can well believe (having lived in another country) that there are countries where a larger percentage of adults than in the United States can use commonplace technology of today. The math literacy (numeracy) advantage for other countries I absolutely believe, as I have read the textbooks from other countries (I am an American who can read Chinese), and the textbooks are simp…

textbooks themselves are the problem. If you've ever wanted a reductionist, watered down way of memorizing terminology, study from a textbook. During my time in undergrad, I learned the best way to learn is by paying attention in lecture and conversing in a subject. Subjects should be mentally digested by working with the concepts, not by merely reading about them.

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#184

Post by simdiab »

esaym wrote: post #125
cmurf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what if they don't want to do web dev work, ever?

I "expect" they will like what I show them. If nothing else, they will have a skill they can use down the road. You know all those math classes your kids will take in public school? What if they don't want to be a mathematician? Same logic. I've worked plenty of other jobs, from clerk, to auto mechanic, to IT, they'll be getting a dose of it all. This is what you do as a parent, you show your kids where you've been,…

> I "expect" they will like what I show them.

Have you met a child before?

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#185

Post by vectorjohn »

PKop wrote: post #79
megablast wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are just going to teach them what you think is important? Home schooling has to be one of the most ridiculous ideas ever.

Whose judgement do you trust enough that you're willing to outsource this decision to? Would you let esaym teach your children what he thinks is important? What if he was your child's teacher? At the end of the day you're placing your trust in someone. They are just going to teach your kids what they think is important. Are you not willing to have an opinion on whether they are choosing the right things to teach?

No, wrong. They are going to teach what a large association of actual experts in education think they should teach. Of course you should trust the people that put as much or more effort into education as you did in becoming an expert in your field.

I think I heard something about how people that get a lot of expertise in one area like doctors, lawyers, programmers, tend to far overestimate their skills in unrelated things. Sounds like you and the OP fall into this logical trap.

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#186

Post by nsv93 »

patio11 wrote: post #171
tamana wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't pass the smell test all. Your school sent 10% of its students to elite colleges, that's clearly not common.

Not at all uncommon for upper-middle class school districts in the mid-West. Think "Chicago suburbs with $500k average houses." I went to one. Great school; fits same rough statistical profile. Then you have e.g. Chicago Public Schools, which range from comparable at the very top end to "not particularly inspiring" to "attending this school is of comparable danger to being deployed to a war zone."

New Trier?

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#187

Post by vectorjohn »

bitwize wrote: post #181
squeaky-clean wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was at a Walgreens a little while ago, and there was a lady buying some sort of cable for a camera. I remember her literally asking the store clerk, "Will this work with a laptop, or does it have to be a computer?" I bring up this anecdote whenever someone else asserts " is common sense, no one could be confused by it". Help your parents with tech support at least once a year (or your friends' parents if yours are…

When I was in college I had a top-ranked CS major ask me if the Borland compiler would work on her laptop as well as on a desktop. I told her it would. Her response was, "But isn't there a special chip in the desktop that compiles the program for you? Does my laptop have that too?"

Clearly it was a concern about CPU architecture differences.

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#188

Post by jacquesm »

esaym wrote: post #32

I don't expect the public school system to teach my children anything. Hence why they won't be attending. Most of the schools I attended growing up were completely useless. Filthy, full of drugs and gangs. Sadly I even listened to some of my teachers more than I did my own parents (indoctrination) which I now see lead me down the wrong path. I don't expect the public school to teach my kids any kind of career skills…

> Think they'll teach them Python or Swift?

Those will not be a career path for much longer.

> Conversely, I fully expect to start "outsourcing" my web dev work to my children when they are 13.

Child labor got outlawed long ago, which is one of the reasons a lot of countries have mandatory education. High school is about much more than learning programming language or marketable skills, that's what you have secondary education for. Social interaction and other related skills are one of the big take-aways from regular school that are hard to replicate, also, that big bad world will still be out there when your children reach adult age and they then won't be prepared to interface with that.

Maybe consider moving to a place where schools are not useless, filthy, full of drugs and gangs if you really wish to solve this. And if the high schools are full of filth, drugs and gangs today what guarantees do you have that the community college won't be the same?

(And if the community college can keep it's grounds clean today, why can't the highschools?)

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#189

Post by spacecowboy_lon »

kuschku wrote: post #140
keithnz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than this conclusion, perhaps, look at what other countries are doing? Are they leaving children behind? or do they have better techniques for making sure everyone does well?

Germany, in fact, does leave people behind. But it doesn't leave them without perspective. The tiered school model of Germany sorts you into one of three tiers based on your abilities with the age of 10, which gets even more specific over the years after that. Only people finishing from the highest tier can go to a theoretical university, people from the tier below can at maximum go to a university of applied science…

Ah just like the old System the UK had with Grammar schools for the middle class and Secondary modern for the working class kids whose role in life to leave school at 15/16 and work in industry.

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#190

Post by tn13 »

jacquesm wrote: post #188
esaym wrote: post #32

I don't expect the public school system to teach my children anything. Hence why they won't be attending. Most of the schools I attended growing up were completely useless. Filthy, full of drugs and gangs. Sadly I even listened to some of my teachers more than I did my own parents (indoctrination) which I now see lead me down the wrong path. I don't expect the public school to teach my kids any kind of career skills…

> Think they'll teach them Python or Swift? Those will not be a career path for much longer. > Conversely, I fully expect to start "outsourcing" my web dev work to my children when they are 13. Child labor got outlawed long ago, which is one of the reasons a lot of countries have mandatory education. High school is about much more than learning programming language or marketable skills, that's what you have secondary…

I don't think parents making their children work for an incentive is child labor.
Post reply on HN