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Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

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Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#141

Post by Kalium »

adamnemecek wrote: post #140
Kalium wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Because basic literacy, civics, history, and mathemathics as commonly taught work roughly as well as they are expected to. The problem with the class I describe isn't that it didn't teach effectively. It's that the students largely didn't care to apply what was taught.

The classes are never the suitable speed for all the students. When learning on your own, you set your own speed but you can't do that when in school. But note that all subjects are like the subjects you mentioned you took in HS. The mathematics doesn't actually go all that far. Note that all of HS mathematics can be summarized in those HS math review books that are actually not that thick. It's a travesty that funda…

The point is not to be optimal for every student - the resources required for such are not available and MOOCs are not an adequate replacement. The point is to lay a universal foundation in a series of selected subjects while socializing students.

The model of turning a literate child loose in a library and letting them be for six or eight years should not be assumed as universally useful. It's not a good way to produce a shared general foundation for a modern democracy.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#142

Post by shogun21 »

falcolas wrote: post #125
nostromo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also saying that if you're a rich kid and you drop out of high school, you're likely to be relatively poor by age 40. And the median poor kid that went to college and graduated is likely to be better off than you at 40. Seems... quite good actually.

Until you compare college graduates to college graduates, or dropouts to dropouts.

Yeah, I think the author is drawing the wrong conclusions by comparing two variables. It looks like, from the graph, there's some staying power within the top 20%, but that still leaves a great amount of mobility for college graduates.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#143

Post by ccallebs »

nqzero wrote: post #134

"cultural fit" is a huge contributor to this limited mobility

Honestly, I think this explains quite a bit. I grew up fairly poor (single income household in Appalachia). I had to train myself out of a lot of speech patterns / mannerisms that don't fly in other parts of America.

It's unfortunate, but the stereotype of inbred white trash is still alive and strong when most people hear Appalachian drawls. They hear the way we talk and immediately think we're ignorant. It's an openly-mocked culture.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#144

Post by nostrebored »

randomdata wrote: post #72
paulpauper wrote: post #8

https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2014/10/... Hmmm but it doesn't look so bad when you consider that 67% of poor college grads are at least 50-percentile in wealth, vs 49% of rich high school dropouts. I'm sure is even better when you compare poor high school dropouts vs. poor college graduates, which is why a college degree may still be worth the money and the best pathway out of poverty, especiall…

> Hmmm but it doesn't look so bad when you consider that 67% of poor college grads are at least 50-percentile in wealth Where does it show that? The chart you linked to shows income quintiles, not wealth. I couldn't find it in the article either, but may have overlooked it. A wealth visualization would be quite appropriate here though, as a high income does not necessarily lead to retaining wealth. Some suggest that…

I think this is overlooking another potential factor: Rich culture is better than poor culture.

A college dropout who has grown up rich is going to be more likely to value knowledge than a poor person, will have been exposed to more money management, and being rich is positively correlated with making good life decisions.

Contrast that with poor culture, where we know that the inverse is true in many cases: Knowledge is not valued to the same degree -- or at least not the same type of knowledge. Money management might have been understanding how to live paycheck to paycheck (which is a valuable skill, but not the same as understanding how to save). And being poor is positively correlated with making bad decisions.

The more that I unlearn my "poor person habits", the better my life becomes. While I always enjoyed learning, so much of my time was spent on useless, consumerists things. I binged on television and video games. As recent studies have shown, rich people were more likely to have been doing something productive (networking/reading etc.) with that time.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#145

Post by peller »

Kalium wrote: post #131
peller wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I imagine the needs of inner-city-poor and rural-poor are often different, to pick two extremes. But I myself have never lived either of those lives, and I've only interacted with the rural-poor (through volunteer organizations). So, I can't really know their needs. But where I'd start, is with what I might call the "forbidden subjects" - stuff you and I probably learned from our families, if we were lucky. Inte…

You know, my rural poor high school had a course covering personal finance, relationships, health, home economics, and so on. It was a required course for all freshman, who were 15 or so and not yet eligible to drop out. It did not accomplish nearly so much as you might hope. The underground hip hop complaints as relative to material mostly cover political questions and show that he didn't pay attention to the course…

OK. What might you or your friends have found to be more helpful uses of time? It doesn't have to be in a classroom setting. Or in your experience was the curricula more-or-less sufficient and you consider something(s) else might be better targets for improvement/change? I would like to understand your perspective better.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#146

Post by LouisSayers »

It's not what you know, it's who you know.

If you're a poor kid that manages to mingle with the rich and famous, I'd imagine you'd have some pretty good opportunities come your way too regardless of education.

That's the real factor here. If you're connected, you can sell your shitty web hosting to all your dad's friends, and you can have doors open for you with minimal effort.

Regardless, there are rags to riches stories - sure, if you're poor you will probably have to play life in hard mode, but it's pretty cool to say "I started on $4.75ph, and now I make $100ph". There will still be struggles however - it's hard to buy a house when none of your family can act as guarantor, and you may have to help family members out every now and then.

In the end, we all die, and life is what you make of it. It's also nice to remind ourselves every now and then of how much better off we are than 90% of the world still.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#147

Post by phs318u »

rustynails wrote: post #127
abrahamepton wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the most HN comments ever. Without getting into the nature-vs-nurture debate for the trillionth time, "Actually, mostly a matter of genes because this is by far the biggest influence parents have on their kids" is a totally preposterous statement. Genes are certainly AN influence, but I think my parents' encouraging my nerdiness, buying me a graphing calculator in high school and surrounding me with co…

My view is anecdotal. I come from a family with adopted children. My siblings say how I talk, act and think like our parents. I am the only biological child of our parents. Does this prove IQ? No. however, I would be astounded if there was no relationship (just looks, voice, height, thought patterns, but no IQ correlation). At the same time, my kids are quite different from each other. However, my siblings' kids refl…

You raise some really interesting points. I've seen similar as well. But what I draw is not so much that there's an IQ gene (though I'm sure that there are genes that affect brain physiology in some ways), but more so that there are known genes that affect compulsive behaviours which can trump rational processes e.g. addiction, risk-taking.

And while I'm sure lifestyle factors (including nurture, environment) may impact the "degree" to which the expression of these genes "take hold on behaviour", the overall probabilities are more likely to be based on the genetics. I'm thinking similar to how genes increase likelihood of getting cancer, while behaviour/lifestyle can affect treatment outcomes.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#148

Post by afarrell »

LouisSayers wrote: post #146

It's not what you know, it's who you know. If you're a poor kid that manages to mingle with the rich and famous, I'd imagine you'd have some pretty good opportunities come your way too regardless of education. That's the real factor here. If you're connected, you can sell your shitty web hosting to all your dad's friends, and you can have doors open for you with minimal effort. Regardless, there are rags to riches st…

Actually, it is who trusts you to solve their problems.

This is influenced by both what you know and who you know but also by your ability to communicate well, your ability to present a credible appearance, and your ability to actually deliver.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#149

Post by Kalium »

peller wrote: post #145
Kalium wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, my rural poor high school had a course covering personal finance, relationships, health, home economics, and so on. It was a required course for all freshman, who were 15 or so and not yet eligible to drop out. It did not accomplish nearly so much as you might hope. The underground hip hop complaints as relative to material mostly cover political questions and show that he didn't pay attention to the course…

OK. What might you or your friends have found to be more helpful uses of time? It doesn't have to be in a classroom setting. Or in your experience was the curricula more-or-less sufficient and you consider something(s) else might be better targets for improvement/change? I would like to understand your perspective better.

Most of us would say material directly relevant to our later specializations of choice. That's difficult to do in practice, both because of the diversity involved and because of the difficulty in predicting eventual specialization. Not everyone knows at 12 that they want to be a programmer!

More diverse electives for specialist history would have been nice, but there are practical restrictions on the specialist teachers available in a town of 50k people.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#150

Post by Mz »

LouisSayers wrote: post #146

It's not what you know, it's who you know. If you're a poor kid that manages to mingle with the rich and famous, I'd imagine you'd have some pretty good opportunities come your way too regardless of education. That's the real factor here. If you're connected, you can sell your shitty web hosting to all your dad's friends, and you can have doors open for you with minimal effort. Regardless, there are rags to riches st…

If you're a poor kid that manages to mingle with the rich and famous, I'd imagine you'd have some pretty good opportunities come your way too regardless of education.

In theory. It is a theory I would like to believe in. But as a homeless woman who has managed to become the top ranked woman on HN, a forum that has plenty of people with quite a lot more money than me, as well as expertise in making money online (the thing I desire to do to resolve my personal problems, rooted in an incurable medical condition), so far, it seems to have not done all that much for me.

Being homeless has been incredibly eye-opening as to just how invisible you can be to people who think you aren't good enough for some reason. So saying "well, you just need to meet the right people..." sounds like yet another excuse to me for The Haves to wash their hands of improving the world and justify the suffering of The Have Nots as somehow all their fault.

FYI: I was not only one of the top students of my graduating class, I was one of the top students in my state and in the country. I was state alternate for the Governor's Honors program at age 15 and I won a National Merit Scholarship at age 17. So my lack of ability to make connections that benefit me isn't because I am inarticulate or incompetent.

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