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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

#441

Post by dmix »

orbitur wrote: post #363
dmix wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes useful in advisory role, ie interviewing subjects throughout the process, particularly getting their feedback/input during research, product development, and design would be extremely valuable. Which is quite distinct from this idea that entrepreneurs, leaders, and employees internal must be 'diverse' themselves in odder for projects to succeed.

What should matter first is the team members skill/talent relevant to the project. While also hiring sympathic people who go out in the field to get feedback and interview subjects to determine the problems needing solving,+gýg environment factors, attitudes, etc.

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

#442

Post by dmix »

perfmode wrote: post #432
dmix wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

look at zuck’s $100M to the new jersey school system. just lob money over the wall, hoping for results with absolutely no understanding of how to have sustainable impact.

Are you saying this failed do to a lack of diversity or his lack of involvement of relevant people directly familiar with the problem at hand... Or what exactly?

Throwing money at a project without strong, involved leadership can be ineffective and fail, or for a variety of other reasons, regardless of his or the members diversity.

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

#443

Post by update »

verall wrote: post #212
e40 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Others fall asleep immediately at school since they live with 5+ siblings and there are literally no available beds at home. I am not trying to blame the parents in all the cases either At some point, though, personal responsibility has to come into play. Having 5+ children when you have no resources... this is the true elephant in the room. It seems talking about it gets labels thrown around. I guess it's a conversa…

I don't see how this is an elephant in the room or a conversation we can't have right now. Lets. What, besides providing extra resources to underpriveleged children so they are not punished for their parents mistakes, can be done? Are you suggesting we make their parents "pay" somehow? Or a program to prevent the parents from having 5+ kids when they don't have the resources?

I've thought about this a lot over the years, as someone coming from a poor background but grew up around very wealthy kids, I never understood why people who cannot afford to give their child a good life have children. That may sound cold, and it might be, but I wondered it myself growing up in a poor household.

There's a great scene from a Michael Winterbottom movie called Jude where --spoiler-- a child asks his parents why they had him if they could not afford him and his siblings. The child doesn't like the answer and ends up hanging himself and his siblings.

I don't know if there is a solution. People want to have kids, even if they can't - in my opinion - afford them. Some religions encourage having lots of children - it's a big thing in the catholic community, at least where I grew up.

Anecdote: My cousin is married to a catholic latina, he's already struggling to make ends meet taking care of the one kid they have. He lives with her grandparents and cousins in a tiny apartment in a low income neighborhood. There is no way I could talk him out of having another child, even though I know it's fiscally irresponsible in my opinion.

I think it's a conversation worth having but I just don't know how it can go anywhere, and I have struggled to come up with an answer that isn't just me being upset with the parents.

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

#444

Post by prawn »

ibrault wrote: post #379
naravara wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. In the context of at-risk kids, I think the idea is to maximize the amount of time the kids get to spend away from their to…

Also helps the parents who need to be at work.

Exactly. Shorter days are difficult for working parents. I'd rather my child have a reasonable learning day and then structured extra-curricular activities (even if it's just semi-organised craft, science, etc play) than making concessions at work. Not all vocations can negotiate shorter hours or part-time work without risking their employment.

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

#445

Post by dang »

gt_ wrote: post #410
dragonwriter wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the problem is toxic home environments though, why aren't people suggesting that we cut out the middle man and focus on building a better foster / adoption system and encouraging people to use it? Or we could just try to fix th social problems that produce the toxic home environments rather than ripping apart the families that society has already failed.

And we could stop using the word “toxic” to describe poor people.

This comment breaks the site guideline which asks:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political battle. That's not allowed here, and we ban accounts that do it, regardless of your politics; it's destructive of what this site exists for. Please stop doing that and use HN as intended, in the spirit of intellectual curiosity and thoughtful conversation. We'd appreciate it.

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

#446

Post by prawn »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #397
vxNsr wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone might argue that people shouldn't engage in activities that have a strong probability of creating responsibilities they can't handle, no matter how good those initial activities feel. In other parts of society we'd say "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time." I know this is a very unpopular opinion the world over right now, but: This applies loosely to sex as well (Don't have sex if you can't afford to…

No. That's just a completely unworkable and unreasonable demand.

Depends if you're being pedantic and talking about sex-vs-no-sex rather than protected sex. There are loads of achievable and affordable options including freely available and/or subsidised contraception, practical sex education, down the spectrum towards abortion, etc.

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

#448

Post by masklinn »

panzagl wrote: post #268
masklinn wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a case for boarding schools. Does that technology not exist anymore in the US?

If people can't get their shit together enough to make sure their kid has a sandwich everyday they certainly aren't putting their kid into boarding school. Parents found unfit for parenting have their kids placed in the foster system, but that is a lengthy legal process.

> If people can't get their shit together enough to make sure their kid has a sandwich everyday they certainly aren't putting their kid into boarding school.

If that's the good public school of the area why wouldn't they?

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

#450

Post by e40 »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #418
Veelox wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently as a single mother, you can qualify for more things than you can as a married mother. This puts a financial incentive to stay unmarried. This incentive should be removed. I don't have as good of an answer for reducing children. It would probably be best to work on reducing the number of children by providing easier access to birth control.

"Currently as a single mother, you can qualify for more things than you can as a married mother. This puts a financial incentive to stay unmarried. This incentive should be removed." You're completely and utterly ignoring the fact that raising children, especially multiple ones, is an extremely difficult task, even for two people. I know of very few people who would opt to do it themselves, even if the financial ince…

You're completely and utterly ignoring the fact that raising children, especially multiple ones, is an extremely difficult task, even for two people. I know of very few people who would opt to do it themselves, even if the financial incentives to do so were worth it (they aren't even close).

I just want to point out there are a lot of poor women raising significant numbers of children. The woman next to my mom has 5-7 (it's hard to tell, and she just had a new one). They father (of some of them) is around a little, but mostly not around. And it looks like there are several fathers. Yes, raising children well is hard, but I would not describe what this woman does as difficult. Older kids are raising the younger ones, etc, etc.

So, I would definitely disagree with your assertion.

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