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Why Do Some Poor Kids Thrive?

theatlantic.com

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Re: Why Do Some Poor Kids Thrive?

#21

Post by stevekemp »

rdtsc wrote: post #5

I grew up poor. Not Africa poor, but ex Soviet Union falling apart poor. One thing that made a huge difference was parents who sacrificed their career to make sure they were home with me after school. They encouraged education. Mom never finished more than 7 grades of school, but she saved money for and for the 8th of March, equivalent to mothers day (oh the irony) got me cheapest ZX Spectrum clone we could find. It…

I only heard years later about some of the Spectrum clones, machines like The Hobbit sound fascinating. It obviously did you good!

Re: Why Do Some Poor Kids Thrive?

#22

Post by djKianoosh »

spo81rty wrote: post #18
empath75 wrote: post #12

There are a whole lot of tech jobs where learning on the job without a degree is completely viable. Seems like grabbing these kids out of high school is a business opportunity. I'm pretty sure that any random kid that's into anime and collecting cards can learn to do tech support.

Myself and the other 3 main programmers in my last company all lacked a college degree. I think a degree is pretty useless for software development.

I appreciate the fact that yall made it without a degree. But I wouldnt say "useless". More like "not necessary". A software engineering or CS degree can be useful, but not necessary to have an excellent career.

Re: Why Do Some Poor Kids Thrive?

#23

Post by IkmoIkmo »

AmitShipEasy wrote: post #14

No distractions.

> No distractions.

Nothing like your parents asking you to borrow some money from your side job so they can pay the bills, as a 14 year old, to start your distraction free day. /s

There's a million examples like this. Sure, rich kids have busy lives and can be stressed out by all kinds of high standards, don't get me wrong. But being poor means you have to think about every single little thing that you do, or that happens to you. A flat tire, or worse, having your bike stolen, is a disaster, it can mean weeks of disposable income lost. As a kid I was constantly stressed out and hopeless about the most insignificant things because they can hit like a brick. I remember I talked to a kid once who asked me whether we'd be using graphing calculators in a particular class. He was wondering whether he should drop the final years of hs maths where we'd be doing calculus for an easier hs math curriculum, because paying $150 for a graphing calculator was not an option for him. Distractions like that happen left and right, things 'normal' kids wouldn't even consider thinking about. There's a Christmas dinner coming up in 3 months and kids are supposed to wear something nice and formal? You're already stressing because you'll be the only kid with a bunch of 2nd hand regular clothing.

In fact quite a few studies have shown that poor people have less mental bandwidth to deal with their every day lives, because they're bogged down (distracted) by all of the issues that come with a life of poverty, and that this lower bandwidth is a big hurdle in achieving the same level of performance as a normal person.

Re: Why Do Some Poor Kids Thrive?

#24

Post by yummyfajitas »

empath75 wrote: post #12

There are a whole lot of tech jobs where learning on the job without a degree is completely viable. Seems like grabbing these kids out of high school is a business opportunity. I'm pretty sure that any random kid that's into anime and collecting cards can learn to do tech support.

Zoho does this.

http://www.livemint.com/Companies/LU4qIlz47C5Uph2P5i250K/Cha...

I studied in a Chennai corporation school...When I was in 12th class, Zoho representatives came to our school and told us to take an exam. I was...among those six that got selected,” recalls Babu, who has been with the company for years. As product manager, Babu now leads a team of about 60 engineers.

But it's a bit different over here. Unlike the US, lots of people over here are poor due to chance and bad luck. Firing people is easier and less risky.

I'd also happily hire people without a degree - any self taught stats guys wanting to level up, email me.

Re: Why Do Some Poor Kids Thrive?

#26

Post by savvas_tj »

archildress wrote: post #7

One of my favorite podcasts, Hidden Brain, had a great episode this week about "Grit", which one of the researchers defined as "passion and perseverance for long-terms goals." "The thing that was revelatory to me was not that effort matters—everybody knows that effort matters," Angela told Shankar. "What was revelatory to me was how much it matters." I still think there's this question of "why do some kids have more…

The "why do some kids have more grit than others?" questions could just come down to mix of inheriting that trait and/or living in an environment that fosters the development and growth that trait.

There is an interesting book called "The Sports Gene" that has a section that talks about how someone bred sled dogs based on their "grit" characteristic and was able to be a successful dog sledder because of it.

Also that book is also a great read about how inherited traits and environment interact with each other. And thanks for the podcast suggestion.

Re: Why Do Some Poor Kids Thrive?

#27

Post by tdaltonc »

The answer from the article: "... kids who found what researchers call an “identity project,” essentially a passion or hobby that helped motivate them, ... onto college or decent jobs. ... [however] Many of the kids who [had passion projects, still] veered off track. [They] wanted to get out of their parents’ house so badly that they took whatever job they could, before they had the chance to get the education or training to excel further."

So the policy implications seem clear. Enable more poor kids to find passion projects. Once they have one, get them in to a living situation that, though meager, gives them the space to pursue their passion. Honestly, sounds like an apprenticeship or graduate school model, but for much younger people.

Re: Why Do Some Poor Kids Thrive?

#28

Post by rdtsc »

stevekemp wrote: post #21
rdtsc wrote: post #5

I grew up poor. Not Africa poor, but ex Soviet Union falling apart poor. One thing that made a huge difference was parents who sacrificed their career to make sure they were home with me after school. They encouraged education. Mom never finished more than 7 grades of school, but she saved money for and for the 8th of March, equivalent to mothers day (oh the irony) got me cheapest ZX Spectrum clone we could find. It…

I only heard years later about some of the Spectrum clones, machines like The Hobbit sound fascinating. It obviously did you good!

Mine was called BYTE : http://zxspectrum48.i-demo.pl/clones_pliki/Byte_black.jpg

Those rubber keys were terrible. Somehow my dad found a old Soviet fax machine with keys in it which were activated by a magnetic ring, over a vacuum sealed contact, so I spend a day taking appart the keyboard, cut the front of my ZX Clone and soldered those rugged contacts. It looked ugly, but it was very reliable.

Also remember having a Pascal compiler, C, a graphical BASIC (Lazer Basic?), wrote my own assembly compiler (it was just a translator from Z80 mnemonic to bytes). It was fun.

Re: Why Do Some Poor Kids Thrive?

#29

Post by eropple »

spo81rty wrote: post #17

I was born in a trailer park in Oklahoma. Lived in a 1 bedroom shack, and then lived with my grandparents until high school after my parents got divorced. I grew up very poor. But I loved computers, thanks to my dad having a Commodore 64. I excelled at math, loved computers, and went to DeVry to do computer programming. I was the first in my family to go to college. Started my first tech company at 22. With a lot of…

While it's cool that you've managed to do that, at the same time I think "with a lot of hard work" trivializes the amount of insanely hard work that large portions of the working class does do, with almost nothing to show for it. Poverty traps are real and they are very, very difficult to escape from, and in many ways it's destiny-by-dart-board.

Re: Why Do Some Poor Kids Thrive?

#30

Post by gambiting »

rdtsc wrote: post #5

I grew up poor. Not Africa poor, but ex Soviet Union falling apart poor. One thing that made a huge difference was parents who sacrificed their career to make sure they were home with me after school. They encouraged education. Mom never finished more than 7 grades of school, but she saved money for and for the 8th of March, equivalent to mothers day (oh the irony) got me cheapest ZX Spectrum clone we could find. It…

Education is one, but great role models is another. My dad also grew up in a former communist country(Poland) - his parents house didn't even have hot running water when he was growing up, his parents marriage was not approved by either side of the family and they had to live very modestly. He had horrible grades, and got thrown out of school at the age of 17 for telling a teacher to go to hell after he demanded he should stay and scrub every desk clean after someone else vandalized them. Then he had to go and work in a coal mine to escape 3-year long military draft.

And yet. His uncle had some contacts in West Germany - he gave my dad keys to an ancient Mercedes truck and employed him to bring various things from Germany to Poland - TVs, car batteries, stereo sets, anything really, Poland was absolutely starved of anything from the West so if you brought anything home you could sell it instantly. It didn't take long for my dad to buy his own truck, then another, then 10. When he passed away he left behind a company employing 110 people, still trading internationally, without having as much as middle school education. But his entire life he spoke of that uncle very highly, it was very clear to me that he was the role model for him, and inspired him in every decision. I think having someone like that in your life is incredibly important as well.

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