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How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

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Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#361
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the kids we're coming from stable, supportive home environments where learning can take place outside the classroom, you might be right. But those aren't the target students for the program; IMO the student's from rough home lives will almost assuredly benefit from this model.

> If the kids we're coming from stable, supportive home environments where learning can take place outside the classroom, you might be right. The entire point of the finnish model is that this doesn't happen, there is no homework and there is no suggestion or expectations of parental teaching. There is extensive support for both kids and their parents (including good free meals and teacher-provided tutoring), but all…

How do you spend time with a child and not teach them?

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing up in Upstate NY, I always assumed part of it was also due to the fact that breaks during the winter basically translate to hours spent cooped-up inside, watching TV or playing on the computer. I know that the 3-month summer break stems from historical harvest/planting schedules... but when there's 20 inches of snow outside and the wind chill is -10 F, I'll take 3 months of summer vacay over 6 weeks of summer…

Winter break is to save money on heating. Which is why it doesn't exist in lower latitudes of the US.

Just occurred to me, as "heat waves" become the norm for longer periods of time, I'm sure there will be people arguing for the cost-savings of not having to cool the school buildings during the summer.

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#363
post #267

From what I read it seems he's focusing on the pain points or barriers to learning from the perspective of the underprivileged from whence LeBron came. If you have someone that lived this giving him deep insight to the real issues AND he's a good person AND he has power to change, that is a fabulous formula for success. I hope this works out. Too many times you have people meaning well that have not actually experien…

I'm not convinced this 'diversity of thought' (aka direct domain expertise) is actually as useful as people love to claim these days. It's an extremely popular narrative that gets pushed with very little questioning or measuring of its utility. a) is it really accurate that a smart person can't legitimately learn and be sensitive to life experiences from others or b) why can't they hire people to advise them while st…

> a) is it really accurate that a smart person can't legitimately learn and be sensitive to life experiences from others

There's are a lot of subtleties that lived experience can reveal. Even the smartest person might miss some knock-on effect, etc.

> b) why can't they hire people to advise them while still managing the project themselves?

So, you're saying... diversity of thought might be useful?

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#364
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t imagine most working adults would be willing to work starting so early. Why do we force children who need even more sleep to do so?

So that the adults can get to work on time.

More proof of how far down the list of priorities Americans place education.

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the property value goes up the rent will go up, because nobody will be willing to invest in capital construction or home management unless they can make their money back.

Why not create community 'owned' housing, similar to a worker co-op, where poorer communities collectively 'own' the location. Everyone pays area-rental fees, but each month rented = 1 share ownership. Once the mortgage is paid off, the rent goes towards buying more rental properties and rinsing/repeating. A % of all rents is divided out by shares to each renter or ex-renter. A % could also go to LeBron's public scho…

If the property values go up, other people will buy the houses surrounding the collective, forcing the collective to pay more for housing and thereby raising the rents.

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#366
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine was ranting about how evil Bezos and Musk are. I generally don’t see those two as the worst of the worst, so I spent some time listening to her thoughts. Her basic assertion was that the simple accumulation of that much wealth is itself evil. They could do many things like build schools and since they choose not to they are evil. I mentioned to her that they can’t sell their stock without ceding cont…

The profit comes from the labour of people who work for you. Any profit you make is the difference between what their true labour is worth and what you pay them. So unless the owners are adding billions in value by themselves they are paying people less than the true value of their work. The extent at which this happens is where some ethical issues lie. If you keep wages low while making large profit there is a point…

Value creation is not a zero-sum game. A cooperative selling the same products and services as, say, Amazon might not make the same profit. Coherent vision and leadership can contribute a lot to the value creation process.

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#367
post #267

From what I read it seems he's focusing on the pain points or barriers to learning from the perspective of the underprivileged from whence LeBron came. If you have someone that lived this giving him deep insight to the real issues AND he's a good person AND he has power to change, that is a fabulous formula for success. I hope this works out. Too many times you have people meaning well that have not actually experien…

I'm not convinced this 'diversity of thought' (aka direct domain expertise) is actually as useful as people love to claim these days. It's an extremely popular narrative that gets pushed with very little questioning or measuring of its utility. a) is it really accurate that a smart person can't legitimately learn and be sensitive to life experiences from others or b) why can't they hire people to advise them while st…

Bill Gates for example, does extensive research with many experts in the field trying to pinpoint actual barriers or issues that real people experience prior to coming up with problem and solution scenarios. My statement takes nothing away from that, rather, it is a good starting point to have this inside knowledge at the core to tackle real world issues effectively.

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#368
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She is also a consummate politician, who has been known to say misleading and inflammatory things for political gain. She has also been busy steaming leftwards, a move that may endear her to young hyper-liberal voters, but does very little to help my country move past the political chasm that has opened up, and is crippling our government. I don't think that she is a bad person, but I do believe that she is bad for A…

Not to get too off topic, but I have a hard time blaming the left for the current political divide in the United States. Saying that someone who pushes leftwards is bad for American politics because they're not closer to the "center" seems like promoting a false equivalence.

If you don't think both sides play a part in the precipitous spike in polarizing political discourse, then frankly you are ignorant.

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#369
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Longer school days, 3 meals, and a longer school year helps students stay focused. The middle one is absolutely true, the other two I really doubt e.g. in Finland or Germany, schoolday starts around 9AM and ends around 2PM, yielding 3h30 to 4h studies a day accounting for breaks, 5 days/week, with little homework (maybe 5h/week total). Afternoon is usually dedicated to clubs.

You absolutely cannot compare Northern Europe with inner-city black America. Different worlds, different values, different histories, different attitudes, different challenges. No model fits all, especially in education, but these two realities are so dramatically different that they don’t really belong in the same sentence.

They also have policies in place to support parents at the beginning of a child's life (i.e. the most important developmental phase of life). They also have a lower GDP per capita and somehow still afford all of these benefits that we are continually told would bankrupt our country. Truly a country of "family values".

- Maternity boxes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_package

- New child leave - Expecting mothers in Finland can start their maternity leave seven weeks before their estimated due date. After that the government covers 16 additional weeks of paid leave through a maternity grant, regardless of whether the mother is a student, unemployed, or self-employed. The country also offers eight weeks of paid paternity leave. - https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-with-best-parental...

- Partial Care Leave - After a child turns three, parents may take partial care leave, meaning, you can work fewer hours per day or week in order to spend more time with your child — and though you can’t take partial care leave at the same time, both the father and the mother can take the partial care leave at a different times. This innovative leave lasts until the end of the child’s second school year. - https://inhabitat.com/inhabitots/finlands-family-benefits-pr...

- Universal Healthcare - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Finland

Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind

#370
post #103
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You absolutely cannot compare Northern Europe with inner-city black America. Different worlds, different values, different histories, different attitudes, different challenges. No model fits all, especially in education, but these two realities are so dramatically different that they don’t really belong in the same sentence.

Agreed. Using Finland as an example is absurd. Finland has a very wealthy, very homogeneous population. Longer school days are designed, in this case, to keep many of these kids in a safe environment for as long as possible.

==Using Finland as an example is absurd. Finland has a very wealthy, very homogeneous population.==

Finland is 21% less wealthy than America on a per capita basis.

Finland GDP per capita - $35,964.77

US GDP per capita - $45,759.46

-http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Finland/Uni...

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