Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops • Hacker News Board

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#111

Post by falcolas » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:31 PM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #65

wonderwonder wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you have kids, I am guessing not, if I am wrong, my apologies. Knowing what your kids have due for school is not micromanaging its a core part of being a good parent. I know if my kid has a math test so it lets me sit down with him and review for his test, it allows me to ensure he knows the basis for whatever comes next in his curriculum. Terribly overbearing parents are not good but I think people a…

Active involvement would be talking to your children and asking them what they have for school . Looking up their schedule on a website is passive involvement. I'm relieved these systems didn't exist when I was a child.

If there's one thing I remember from my own childhood, and know from my various nieces and nephews - children can't be expected to tell the whole truth, or sometimes even remember the whole truth.

One bad test, one missed homework, turns into a spiral of shame that makes children hide the truth out of a fear for their parent's and other trusted adults' disappointment (real or imagined). If my parents knew the truth - when I know the truth - we can fix it before it spirals into an unfixable situation, and not after.

Not all children are perfect, nor perfectly able to remember every event and assignment they have.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#112

Post by GhettoComputers » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

Monopolies hate competition, they’re terrified of better products, and a free open source version is better than their squandered tax program.

Why are the defending their own poor quality program? Do they want Sweden to fail?

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#113

Post by falcolas » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

moffkalast wrote: post #85

newbamboo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s good to be involved but an app that passes information to the parent, essentially bypassing the child, is disempowering to the child. The child should know and be able to tell you she has a math test. If she is not good at managing that sort of thing, then she needs to get better. Using an app to circumvent the child’s own management of that stuff is at least similar to micromanaging.

And quite the opposite, it reinforces the idea that they don't need to remember it so they never will.

Are you able to tell us, without looking at your calendar, every meeting you have for the next week, every assigned task without consulting your task manager, all without fail and with perfect recall of the details?

Expecting more from a child's brain than you do of yourself is folly.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#114

Post by wonderwonder » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #104

wonderwonder wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you have kids, I am guessing not, if I am wrong, my apologies. Knowing what your kids have due for school is not micromanaging its a core part of being a good parent. I know if my kid has a math test so it lets me sit down with him and review for his test, it allows me to ensure he knows the basis for whatever comes next in his curriculum. Terribly overbearing parents are not good but I think people a…

I don't really know why you have to have kids to have an opinion. All of us have been kids, and "I hated things like this for reasons I couldn't express at the time and certainly wasn't allowed to express at the time, in retrospect it was not effective for me, and in retrospect it soured my relationship with my parents as an adult" is a valid argument.

The parents using this system have also been kids. Not having kids means that you have not had to deal with the frustration of trying to figure out what is going on with your kids at school. Knowledge is a very important part of making decisions for your kids and the more knowledge you have as a parent the better. No one is suggesting that the parent have intimate details of everything going on with their kids but the reaction to a simple app that allows the parent to know what homework is due and if there is a test is a little dramatic. Everyone is entitled to an opinion on anything, no one is saying they aren't but to ignore that parents and non parents may have different insight on something like this is disingenuous.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#115

Post by GhettoComputers » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

wonderwonder wrote: post #26

raxxorrax wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, as a kid I would have hated this. I don't think kids benefit from this kind of overbearing parenting in the long run. Better than being neglected, I guess. Perhaps this is useful for very young children, but knowing myself I would have broken out of there as quickly as possible.

I can understand personal preference of a child but study after study show that children whose parents are actively involved with their education and schooling get better results.

That assumes an environment that your parents will be actively involved and understand how to use the non functional swedish site.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#116

Post by wonderwonder » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

tata71 wrote: post #87

wonderwonder wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think this digital child managing system sounds moderately dystopian to be honest" I disagree, I have 2 kids in elementary school and it is very useful to be able to look up what the kids have scheduled for the day to determine what to dress them in, see what's for lunch and if I need to pack them something if they won't like the available option. Most importantly though its very helpful to look up what homework /…

> its very helpful to look up what homework / tests are due as the kids tend to not manage this so well themselves How do you expect they'll develop these sorts of self-starter skills and mental models, besides experiencing things like the (comparatively low-impact!) consequences of not handing in your 5th grade homework....? Hopefully you're going full parabola and also providing disproportionately strong incentives…

The reactions people are expressing to a parent stating they like to know what their kids are up to in school and what assignments are due is pretty odd.

"it's as likely they'll succeed as they'll become sand through your tight grasp" lol, I have no idea how my statement on working with my kids on their homework and liking to know what is going on has evolved into an image of me being some sort of god king in my house, but hey whatever makes you happy.

My kids have homework, I sit down with them and work on it with them, we bond, we joke around, they learn and they turn it in the next day. The horror.

Edit: "How do you expect they'll develop these sorts of self-starter skills" To add some color, my 9 year old decided at the spur of the moment while they were asking who wanted to stand up and give a speech to be on student council to do it and he won. I had no input and he just made the decision in the moment so I very much don't think sitting down with kids and doing homework with them or keeping an eye on their schedule kills any self-starter skills. There are always extremes but the overall reaction to this is a bit silly.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#117

Post by falcolas » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

antihero wrote: post #102

wonderwonder wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think this digital child managing system sounds moderately dystopian to be honest" I disagree, I have 2 kids in elementary school and it is very useful to be able to look up what the kids have scheduled for the day to determine what to dress them in, see what's for lunch and if I need to pack them something if they won't like the available option. Most importantly though its very helpful to look up what homework /…

> it is very useful to be able to look up what the kids have scheduled for the day to determine what to dress them in I swear we just had an A4 piece of paper with my lessons on it on the fridge.

And printing out a schedule for every child is a bit silly when there is calendaring software...

Everything once done on paper is now done electronically - and revisions (fixes) happen much more quickly to boot.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#118

Post by ashton314 » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

> User-driven IT development is interesting but must work together with legislation and responsibility for secure personal data [sic]

To legislators, everything is a legislative problem to be solved with legislation. Government must be democratic, but boy it would be so helpful if those in office knew enough about technology to be a little more humble.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#119

Post by pixl97 » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #68

wonderwonder wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you have kids, I am guessing not, if I am wrong, my apologies. Knowing what your kids have due for school is not micromanaging its a core part of being a good parent. I know if my kid has a math test so it lets me sit down with him and review for his test, it allows me to ensure he knows the basis for whatever comes next in his curriculum. Terribly overbearing parents are not good but I think people a…

My oldest kid is 5, but I hope when he is older I can leave him to handle his own schoolwork (offering help if he wants it). > study for their weekly spelling tests for 10 minutes a day Aside: Spending 1.5+ hours per week between home and school studying spelling per se in the way students typically study spelling is an outrageous waste of time. Arguably studying spelling per se is a waste of time in any quantity (as…

> I can leave him to handle his own schoolwork

It turns out that kids are not adults. Part of raising them is teaching them life skills such as time management is something that takes a of time and management. You may be lucky and have a child that manages time well, or you may have a contrarian that does what they want. Part of being that manager, is knowing exactly what you are managing and having readily available data is part of that.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#120

Post by whatshisface » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 3:39 PM UTC

GhettoComputers wrote: post #110

whatshisface wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this argument before, but is there any reason to believe it? What exactly about diversity stops social programs from working? Also, if diversity is the problem (hypothetically) why can't we implement Swedish/Japanese/Taiwanese stuff in those American towns with no diversity? Without any more explanation this sounds like one of those things where you find two statistics about two countries and say "this exp…

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-diversity-cr ... > Putnam’s study, which used a large, nationally representative sample of nearly 30,000 Americans, found that people living in more diverse areas reported lower levels of trust in their neighbors. They also reported less interest in voting, volunteering, and giving to charity. In other words, greater diversity seemed to be linked to both feelings and be…

>Past research has shown that Blacks and Hispanics, on average, report less trusting attitudes than do Whites. Without controlling for this, neighborhoods with more Blacks and Hispanics will appear to have lower “trust,” but for reasons having nothing to do with the degree of diversity.

The linked article has a lot of stuff about how the Putnam study misinterprets its data.