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A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

deseret.com

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Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#101

Post by quantified »

bobthepanda wrote: post #73
quantified wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that even what you're testing them on may not be really the most useful or applicable stuff. Any such testing would need to take into account what they actually have been doing and learning. Since the point of much learning is to be able to do, looking at accomplishment is super important. And a productive evaluation of people like the subject here might be challenging to system educators with a vested interes…

The normal requirements we expect in an industrialized society are the basics of reading and writing, and some math. Unschooling sure has its benefits, but the child will have to navigate an adult world where that is table stakes. We don’t want to consign students to a life of poverty because of a lack of literacy. https://archive.ph/1xaHW

Better have some science and civics too.

I think the challenge is less about the mechanics (reading, writing) and more about the content expressed via these, as there has to be some element of common content as well.

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#102

Post by Hermitian909 »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #78
Hermitian909 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So in your view, it sounds like being able to perfectly diagram a sentence is more important than understanding tax law? What's being described isn't the ability to diagram a sentence, but to write above a certain minimum standard. That skill is certainly more important for the average person than understanding tax law as most jobs that would require you to know tax law have good writing skills as a pre-requisite.…

Did you also teach the ‘schooled’ children in the Bay Area who graduate but can’t read?

Actually yes! I've helped children with almost any challenge short of, say, Down Syndrome.

In short, children who don't learn to read or write well in school almost certainly would not learn to read or write well when unschooled, but most unschooled children who don't learn to read or write well do learn perfectly fine in a traditional schooling environment.

Schooled children who don't learn to read for different and harder to deal with reasons, a quick top 3:

1. English as a second language (ESL)

2. Learning disability that was never addressed

3. Severe behavior problems that interfere with schooling (this is often caused by problems at home)

These problems are exacerbated by parents who are poorer or themselves ESL.

Unschooled kids, conversely, tend to have relatively affluent parents who speak fluent English. Overwhelmingly, the reason they can't read or write is that either no attempt at teaching was made, or it was made with no reference to educational theory. This failure mode is much rarer in schools.

P.S. I don't want to give the impression here that I think the US education system isn't a tire fire or that there aren't different pedagogical approaches that might be radically better for most children. I'm just saying I have nearly a decade of experience showing overwhelmingly that "unschooling", even when performed by some of the most educated and affluent people in society, fails overwhelmingly compared to even the sub-par experience of standard schooling in the US.

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#103

Post by karaterobot »

fock wrote: post #15

So, as a European I read: mormon paper (Deseret...) hails parents who made their child work their farm. Because reading things like: > His spelling and grammar lagged behind grade level. He consistently misspelled the word “business,” and stumbled over the pronunciation of simple words. doesn't really spell hidden genius of the 21st century but probably describes millions of peasants in Europe during the middle-ages.…

Did you read on a couple sentences and see this part?

> Later, when opportunities came to publish his thoughts, the written word became more important to him and he found mentors to help him polish his communication skills.

Worthy of note is that he'd published a book by the age of 14, so was probably at least at grade level. Sounds like he just didn't learn things homogeneously, but rather focused on some things before other things.

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#104

Post by gretch »

soared wrote: post #36

I mean, do we believe any of this? An 8 year old isn’t running a business and selling to restaurants in a different state. No business would purchase from an 8 year, no business would ship goods from an 8 year old, no bank gives a loan to a 9 year old. The list goes on and on. Incredibly sad that a child has died, but this reads as pure fantasy.

I agree. I can believe any 1 or maybe 2 things on the list, but in aggregate, it's complete fantasy. There's just no way this kid has enough time and brain cycles to execute all these ventures with any level of quality. If it's true (big if) it probably meant he spent an afternoon dabbling, and the article decided to treat it as if it were some serious venture.

> At 14, he had just published his autobiography. He was making plans to expand his 350-acre farm to buy up surrounding farms to convert to regenerative agriculture. He was saving money to build a house for his parents and another for his autistic older brother. He was polishing a movie script and a series of children’s books teaching business literacy for kids. He was looking for a celebrity to endorse his line of luxury toiletries made from the milk of his goat herd. He was breeding heritage turkeys. He was writing guest essays for notable bloggers higher up the political food chain.

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#105

Post by Thorrez »

Master_Odin wrote: post #92
barry-cotter wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This logic would work if competition didn’t exist and no one ever made huge unforced errors. In the world as is Buffet, Gates, Bezos and Musk are among the richest people ever. Their parents were wealthy but nothing remotely comparable. The Carnegies and Rockefeller families are still rich but even if you add all of them together they’re not a shadow the importance the founders of the fortunes had. Political dynastie…

Within this comparison, will the various children of Musk or Gates or Buffet be as memoriable as their parents, or will they end up like the Kennedys, where yeah they exist and probably have a bunch of money, but they're "not important".

I'd guess those children will be even less important than the Kennedys. Among the voting public, last name recognition plays a large role. When publicly traded companies choose a CEO, last name recognition is much less important. Gates is also giving away almost all his wealth so his kids won't get it. For the others, inheritance tax will take a significant fraction, and the money will be divided between multiple children.

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#106

Post by jandrewrogers »

soared wrote: post #36

I mean, do we believe any of this? An 8 year old isn’t running a business and selling to restaurants in a different state. No business would purchase from an 8 year, no business would ship goods from an 8 year old, no bank gives a loan to a 9 year old. The list goes on and on. Incredibly sad that a child has died, but this reads as pure fantasy.

You may be underestimating the traditionally rural parts of America, which empower and encourage kids to start adulting at an age that may be surprising to many people. If you are from those regions, seeing a precocious young kid who is mature beyond his years is surprising but not entirely unexpected.

As a frame of reference, where I grew up, you could legally drive heavy agricultural lorries (think 5/10 ton dump trucks) on the highways at 14. You were personally running industrial agricultural operations, including running heavy equipment by 12 or younger. If you grow up in those societies, you learn the ropes young and are given the opportunity to grow into your capability. In a way, it was kind of cool because kids were allowed to assume real responsibility so young and some kids are capable of running the entire operation. (This is kind of a loophole in US child labor laws but it isn't grinding in factory or something like that. And traditionally the kids that do this make some fine money.)

In this specific case, I expect the Mormon connection was doing a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes. Still, many rural areas encourage this kind of thing from a very young age and I can't say I wasn't a part of that. It is part of how they apprentice you into becoming competent at agriculture.

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#107

Post by butlerm »

fock wrote: post #46
julianeon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't call him a genius though, they call him America's most remarkable kid, with emphasis on his business acumen. It seems unfair to say something like "he's not going to revolutionize science" when they never implied he would.

> They don't call him a genius though no, but about half the other posts here do - so I put down what my perception of the case is. > with emphasis on his business acumen To me, the business acumen of his parents seems a lot higher. On their twitter they start publishing his future books already :). Also there is a lot of financing (for example his John Deere) going on and while I can't see the full picture, I doubt…

As a minor, his signature on a contract would probably be worthless - or at least beyond the value established by name and reputation.

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#108

Post by rendall »

aerovistae wrote: post #99

Okay so, I have to say, at first this was a pretty feel-bad story for me. I then noticed a tidbit of information in another article about it that somehow made me feel different: Cole Summers didn't know how to swim. He was out on the water in a kayak, with no life jacket, with only an autistic child for company - and didn't know how to swim. Somehow it stopped feeling like a tragic accident and more like carelessness…

It's hard to hear about any 14 year old boy dying, particularly one with such promise. To salve our feelings, to make sense of it, it might feel important to grasp some detail that makes it not so tragic. Resist doing that. It was a tragic accident.

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#109

Post by kiba »

greenthrow wrote: post #70
lkrubner wrote: post #2

This story is especially clear and dramatic (and well documented) but I've often thought this happens in every generation: the people who lead (businesses and nations) when they are in their 40s and 50s are often people who boldly go out and discover the world while they are in their teens and 20s, and so they take on a bit more risk than the average citizen, and this includes physical risk (whether in travel or info…

This is not true. What the people who "lead the world" have in common most often is coming from a very privileged background. The idea that they are all iconoclasts or inherently in some way "better" than other people is a myth the wealthy tell themselves.

This is not true. What the people who "lead the world" have in common most often is coming from a very privileged background. The idea that they are all iconoclasts or inherently in some way "better" than other people is a myth the wealthy tell themselves.

The best of the best likely come from privileged background simply because of the access to resources.

The idea that meritocracy is some of egalitarianism is a myth.

Re: A remarkable kid has died in Newcastle, Utah

#110

Post by iancmceachern »

lkrubner wrote: post #2

This story is especially clear and dramatic (and well documented) but I've often thought this happens in every generation: the people who lead (businesses and nations) when they are in their 40s and 50s are often people who boldly go out and discover the world while they are in their teens and 20s, and so they take on a bit more risk than the average citizen, and this includes physical risk (whether in travel or info…

Fortune favors the bold, history is written by the victors. The other stories usually don't get told.
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