I was a teacher for 17 years, but couldn't read or write • Hacker News Board

Re: I was a teacher for 17 years, but couldn't read or write

#141

Post by chiph » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

Kye wrote: post #134

Auracle wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you saw a typical apartment unit after people moved out you wouldn’t be asking that. My parents own a 12 unit apartment building in a small town, and my dad is up there multiple times a week. There’s regular stuff like cleaning hallways, and then there’s stuff like “the tenant on the top floor installed a dishwasher themselves and it leaked while they were gone flooding their unit and the one beneath it.” After mo…

Respect is a two-way street. How many of those problems came from the ways people coped with absent landlords not fixing things? How many calls to fix the dishwasher preceded the self-install? How many of those people are on their nth slumlord and long past giving the new one the benefit of the doubt? You only have one side of the story from one apartment building. Maybe your parents are good ones. Nothing I've heard…

"Absent" landlord here. I pay a management firm to handle repairs. If I find out they aren't responding to tenant maintenance requests, I'm going to start looking to replace them with another firm.

But I love my management firm. They get me discounts on appliances, repairs, carpet & paint because they have agreements with local suppliers. If I had been the one to call for a quote to replace the air conditioner, not only would it have been much pricier, I would have gone to the back of the line (because of COVID equipment shortages...) to get the work scheduled. Instead, it was replaced in only 2 days, they did a great job, and it's more efficient - saving my tenant money on their utility bills.

Are there slumlords out there? Of course. But you're painting with a pretty broad brush here and it's unfair.

Re: I was a teacher for 17 years, but couldn't read or write

#142

Post by ksaj » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

spicybright wrote: post #137

yesenadam wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, well, if not rich, it sounds like you have the choice of buying or renting. Lucky you! I don't know anyone who has that choice. The person I responded to initially only meant, I guess, that some people who have the choice, prefer renting. Hm..but they were also talking as if people without the choice, like renting: > it would be nice to live in a world where everyone is wealthy and capable enough to own and maint…

I strongly doubt GP has a choice. Not rich + insane rent means he's probably building up saving too slowly for a house near where his social group is. It sounds like you've been burned by a landlord in the past and are taking it out on all of them unfairly. I hate the concept of a landlord, paying a lot without building any equity, unlike a mortgage on property. But I've never had one that does absolutely nothing. Be…

I rent, and am plenty fine with it. One thing I like is that we get a yearly home inspection. Some people surely dislike the thought of people trouncing through their inner sanctum, but what it means is that every year they find things that need fixing, and fix them. Last year we got a new (and better) stove out of it. The year before we got our washer/drier dismantled, fully cleaned, and rebuilt with a few new parts, and a new water heater.

They want to keep their units in good condition, and I don't have to do much of the hard work to keep it that way. Air filters are pretty much the only utility maintenance we have to do.

Also, if you have rowdy neighbours, there isn't a whole lot you can do about that if you own and they aren't actually breaking any laws. Our landlord has been rapid at addressing neighbour complaints. However, I have rented a number of different places, and this particular landlord is the first and only one I've had that actively tries to maintain peace and order as well.

Re: I was a teacher for 17 years, but couldn't read or write

#143

Post by Kye » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:26 PM UTC

chiph wrote: post #141

Kye wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respect is a two-way street. How many of those problems came from the ways people coped with absent landlords not fixing things? How many calls to fix the dishwasher preceded the self-install? How many of those people are on their nth slumlord and long past giving the new one the benefit of the doubt? You only have one side of the story from one apartment building. Maybe your parents are good ones. Nothing I've heard…

"Absent" landlord here. I pay a management firm to handle repairs. If I find out they aren't responding to tenant maintenance requests, I'm going to start looking to replace them with another firm. But I love my management firm. They get me discounts on appliances, repairs, carpet & paint because they have agreements with local suppliers. If I had been the one to call for a quote to replace the air conditioner, not o…

Why is my broad brush unfair and not that of the person I replied to? That's quite a thing to skip over. Mine is at least based on much more than one 12 unit building. Your bias is showing.

Re: I was a teacher for 17 years, but couldn't read or write

#144

Post by ThePowerOfDirge » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:26 PM UTC

arp242 wrote: post #135

IntrepidWorm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case and point: I wear glasses. In fact, I'm almost blind without them: my effective vision ends at about 3 feet. Though I am able to perceive distinction between large objects and people, everything dissolves into a fuzzy mess. In American public schools (in the northeast US, at least) in the early 90s, schools would test student vision every year during elementary/primary school years. They would use the traditiona…

Why would you memorize the eye tests? You were afraid that your low vision was "discovered"? Wouldn't that be a good thing? I'm actually really confused by your story to be honest, I think there's some part that I'm missing somehow.

These "anecdotes" make my blood boil.

Re: I was a teacher for 17 years, but couldn't read or write

#145

Post by fastaguy88 » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

IntrepidWorm wrote: post #26

ghoshbishakh wrote: post #16

I still don't get it. How is it possible that he managed to go through the system.

Case and point: I wear glasses. In fact, I'm almost blind without them: my effective vision ends at about 3 feet. Though I am able to perceive distinction between large objects and people, everything dissolves into a fuzzy mess. In American public schools (in the northeast US, at least) in the early 90s, schools would test student vision every year during elementary/primary school years. They would use the traditiona…

I did very well in elementary school, though by 4th or 5th grade I often asked to be seated near the front because of the “glare” on the black board. I did not realize I could not see until a science class about clouds, and I could not tell that the sky was overcast, not blue. I was also surprised to see that street lights were points, not large haloes.

I’ve heard many similar stories from nearsighted friends.

Re: I was a teacher for 17 years, but couldn't read or write

#146

Post by arp242 » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:46 PM UTC

ThePowerOfDirge wrote: post #144

arp242 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you memorize the eye tests? You were afraid that your low vision was "discovered"? Wouldn't that be a good thing? I'm actually really confused by your story to be honest, I think there's some part that I'm missing somehow.

These "anecdotes" make my blood boil.

That seems excessively strong. There's probably just an assumption about something somewhere I'm not getting because of different cultural context or the like.

Re: I was a teacher for 17 years, but couldn't read or write

#147

Post by denton-scratch » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 8:01 PM UTC

archibaldJ wrote: post #53

denton-scratch wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does sound like he was dyslexic ("for me it was like opening a Chinese newspaper "). But the speed at which he eventually acquired reading and writing doesn't seem consistent with dyslexia; I figure there was some other problem interfering with hiis literacy.

Computationally we don't understand what dyslexia is. Neuroplasticity is happening all the time. Perhaps at one point something changes and he has the ability to aquire the writing form of a language agian. Similiar to in mathematics where it's a very different process reasoning with symbols v.s. trying to visualize the mathematical construct through communication. Maybe it's difficult to aquire the writing form of g…

> Perhaps at one point something changes and he has the ability to aquire the writing form of a language agian.

That sounds like what I was wondering. Perhaps something "snaps" into or out of place "catastrophically" (in the sense of almost discontinuously, in the context of the usual timescale of psychological changes). For example, it sounds like his loss of fear occurred pretty suddenly.

I feel a bit awkward speculating about the mind of someone who I know of from just a single essay. That said, he's published a scathingly-honest record of his fascinating history with writing, and presumably he wants it read and discussed. And it's about him, so we discuss him, I guess.

Re: I was a teacher for 17 years, but couldn't read or write

#148

Post by dwohnitmok » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 8:25 PM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #123

hliyan wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree in principle. But I think there has to be a difference in punishment between unrepentant perpetrators who get caught, and perpetrators who come forward on their own volition. If I remember the original Reader's Digest article, this person was already held to account many years ago -- he lost all his credentials, qualifications and not to mention respect and credibility. Even the original story was published m…

Yeah, this is kind of a Frank Abagnale type story. He did some incredible yet dishonest and criminal things, but redeemed himself later in life. I’m sure this guy bullied a lot of people to get them to help him cheat. He spent 40 years pretty much as an asshole—he had stolen a life that he hadn’t earned, and had deprived his students of a qualified educator. Maybe the moral of the story is that people can change and…

Speaking of... there seems to be a good chance that Frank Abagnale lied about lying and his biggest con has been making a career out of convincing people of his non-existent previous cons (which in retrospect isn't all that surprising I suppose, there's no a priori reason to believe that an ex-conman has been honest about his ex-cons).

It seems that he had only one big true con: where he conned a woman's family into taking care of him and stealing money from them while he essentially stalked her, was found out and then sent to prison.

https://whyy.org/segments/the-greatest-hoax-on-earth/

Re: I was a teacher for 17 years, but couldn't read or write

#149

Post by BeFlatXIII » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

hmwhy wrote: post #81

Maybe I'm joining the large amount of comments at the bottom for once, but this article is not just about someone who ended up being a teacher due to serendipity — he committed crimes to get there. I'm all for supporting people with disability, and there is no doubt that it requires courage to admit to being a fraud after so many years — but being dyslexic shouldn't be an excuse for anyone to commit crimes and get aw…

It’s a natural consequence of a culture that praises competition. “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying” is the motto of those who only have a tenuous chance at success. No point accepting your “just” lot in life: may as well cheat if the consequences from cheating aren’t that much worse than the expected quality of a life lived legitimately.

Re: I was a teacher for 17 years, but couldn't read or write

#150

Post by Ntrails » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

moonchild wrote: post #35

Ntrails wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slight devils advocate. Is everyone happier with mandatory schooling for longer? It isn't that we shouldn't give everyone the chance to learn, but maybe some people really would be happier dropping out at 14 and just getting a job. Being at school where all you do is fail does not make for a good life experience! I think the answer is probably that we don't want parents pulling kids out of school early just to earn m…

14-year-olds are likely not equipped to make such a decision. If all you're doing at school is failing, then the school itself should provide better support mechanisms.

Better support to what end? Walking out of school age 16 with 4 GCSE passes is not much of an improvement on 2, and maybe we should accept that there exist people who cannot via standard schooling do better than that? Maybe those two additional years of special measures is not better than a couple of years learning on a job?

Unless your claim is that with sufficient support everyone can leave school at 16 with good grades, which is simply not a school of thought I ascribe to.