Rich, Black, Flunking

I hope you don't have kids. Whether you do or don't like school is immaterial. The fact is, schools take up a majority of your kids' time until they graduate and get a life of their own. By default, you should be interested in what your kid is learning. No one is asking you to sit in class 8 hours a day, but at least get to know what it is they are learning. If my kid takes an interest in music, I'm there, wrestling? me too, football/soccer/hockey? I'm game. God forbid I have to get up from the keyboard because junior wants to go to the park.

As for rote learning. Every other nation has stuck to rote learning or some form of it. It's only the US that has taken a method of education that has worked for hundreds of years in many nations and manage to completely fuck it up. And every few years some academic will invent some new form of learning, convince the school board to buy into, and then after 10 years of "experimenting" on kids they might have gained/lost 0.5% on the academic test compared to rote learning.

I'm not sure where the skill of learning will be replaced by another, except maybe unlearning. Rote is just a baseline, if you can't work your way through a basic problem set then you certainly aren't qualified to handle something that might require a bit of brainpower.

I hope your still young because you'll realize, after many years, that in high school no one truly fit in. That is why John Hughes films (RIP) and shows like Freeks and Geeks were so popular. Everyone was awkward and that was the point. High school is a microcosm not a career, there was no skill to learn there.

I hope my kids would do reasonably well in school. I wouldn't say "whatever" if they brought home very bad marks. I just would want to avoid making them believe that school is the only thing that matters.

I acknowledge that it is necessary to learn putting up with unloved tasks - I am just not convinced that learning that has to take 13 years (length of school in my country). Maybe a couple of years of boredom could be shaved off without a great loss.

I would certainly be very interested in making my kids become autonomous learners and achievers. Just, as I say, the school metric does not mean very much to me. In the best case scenario I hope to teach them how to cope with school without expending too much energy. I think I would also encourage them to do all sorts of voluntary school projects they can possibly do (like writing for the school magazine, making movies, drama, science projects, whatever). I would not encourage them to spend every waking hour learning arbitrary stuff for school.

"My parents took a great interest in my schooling and I feel that those years where both educational and formative."

So what were the things you took out of it?

There are things to learn - namely, how to learn, I suppose. But again, as I said, I question the time it takes to learn these things.

I'm interested in the academic gap between Ashkenazim and non-Jewish whites. Even if you're bad at distinguishing the two groups by naked eye, it still exists.

I intuitively like the idea of the "supposed" but atleast in the west there seems to be a way of counteracting these pressures. It seems to me that "white" children can choose from a variety of roles: nerdy, athletic, artistic etc and although there are penalties associated with each role there are rewards as well and each role is deemed valid by society. However, the article seems to suggest a homogeneous "black" identity, which leaves no room for accepted rebellion. Perhaps, some folks living in USA can confirm if my hypothesis is connected to reality.

I would like comment on the economic and social aspects[1] of this article.

.. * I) Underacheivement as a group Defense Mechanism ::

Some social-groups actively encourage what I call "Perennial-Underacheivement". This is in my opinion based on a group defense mechanism[2].

This defense mechanism is to ensure the weak and sick and those unable to care for themselves are not left behind. They value support for the less-able and believe that informal community support is far better than State supplied support. The reasons are a topic unto themselves but my take is that this group behiour ensures those with latent talent don't leave the community and thus those who cannot care for themselves. Some talented people may not reach their potential, but they may still lead a happy, fruitful life. Some members may take the lack of excellence to extremes and die in prison as hopeless drug-dealers.

Basically, in these groups, overacheiving and commercial gain is downplayed. Here, to be rich is to "Sell Out" and to move out of the neighbourhood it to betray your "Roots".

.. * II) Acheivement is better for the Acheiver and the Group ::

The opposing view is that each person tries for themselves and their immediate family and this works because everyone "succeeds". People who cannot care for themselves are kept at a distance, cared for by the State which is paid for by tax. Individual families may still take care of their own, but it helps to be a "successful" family.

.. * Evidence of this divide ::

My data point of a divide link here would be to consider Immigrant versus 3rd generation Locals. This is touched on in the Article, where a Black Man (but immigrant) is in conflict with American born African-Americans. I offer an explanation that some of the American born blacks are using race issues to form the defense mechanism which conciously or unconcsiously they know protects their group.

First I will state the obvious. Immigrants by definition cannot belong to the group-care mindset. Why? Because by definition they have left many, many compatriots behind to fend for themselves in a different geographical place. They may not like it, and they may send every penny back to their village. But in their mind the gain overall to themselves and the group behind is clear: immigration is better than remaining.

------------

[1] I am not a black, and I am not American. But I wish to say something on this topic because I am an immigrant (to Oz, then UK) myself and part of an oft-picked upon ethnic group (Jew). This issue is complex and there are many commingled ingredients, economic-social-racial-ethnic-familial-historical

[2] I am not making a comment on the rights , wrongs of this defense mechanism