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Escaping High School

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Re: Escaping High School

#191

Post by breckinloggins »

dmvdoug wrote: post #144

> Maybe you go to a school in a poor area, or with a lot of violence, or far too many students for the teachers to pay any individual attention to; or, relatedly, maybe you’re required to spend a lot of time caring for siblings or parents, working a low-skill job, or holding your family together or preserving your safety in some way. The disadvantages of this case are obvious, but there are a few advantages too; the…

> really coming face-to-face with the profound systemic and otherwise deep long-term issues kids in this environment have to confront

Are there any good books on this topic that you would recommend? I don't expect you to write a point-by-point rebuttal to every blog post like this that comes along, but I'd sure love to do some of that work myself and well-regarded popular books on the subject are a good place to start.

The Amazon results from a search on "books about systemic issues in inner city public schools" are all over the place. Bonus points if you have a more left-leaning recommendation, because I'm already familiar with the arguments from Lukianoff, Haidt, Sowell, et al and would like to read a good counter to them.

Re: Escaping High School

#192

Post by ineedasername »

dmvdoug wrote: post #144

> Maybe you go to a school in a poor area, or with a lot of violence, or far too many students for the teachers to pay any individual attention to; or, relatedly, maybe you’re required to spend a lot of time caring for siblings or parents, working a low-skill job, or holding your family together or preserving your safety in some way. The disadvantages of this case are obvious, but there are a few advantages too; the…

Yeah, working a full-time job throughout high school didn't exactly maximize my potential. I had minimal time for much else, and it didn't exactly foster the best habits when I crammed 1st period homework into homeroom, hoped the 1st period teacher didn't call me out for doing second period homework in 1st period, and continuing that practice throughout the day trying to "just in time" my learning, as the article suggests.

It wasn't all as bad as that, not all of the time, but that characterizes much of it.

You know where & how I "escaped"? With dumb luck and public University scholarships & federal grants. The dumb luck was some quirk of genetics that put enough horsepower in my brain that I could get away with awful learning habits. So I learned fast enough that grades & test scores needed for scholarships & grants allowed me to significantly cut back on the low-skill job hours. Then during college I learned enough that I got a semi-skilled job during the end of my college years, and went on from there.

I've done the research on populations of kids that come from these backgrounds vs. others, and success rates are shitty. Sure, when I dig into the qualitative side I usually see a bit of determination on the part of those who were successful but there's always a lot of dumb luck too.

This genre of pontificating that amounts to "Anyone can do it if they just try hard enough!" completely ignores the fact that the ability to try is itself highly influenced by outside factors beyond an individual or family's control. Problems of this sort can't be solved merely by attempts to motivate the individuals, they have to be accompanied by environmental changes and interventions.

Re: Escaping High School

#193

Post by pandorable »

dmvdoug wrote: post #144

> Maybe you go to a school in a poor area, or with a lot of violence, or far too many students for the teachers to pay any individual attention to; or, relatedly, maybe you’re required to spend a lot of time caring for siblings or parents, working a low-skill job, or holding your family together or preserving your safety in some way. The disadvantages of this case are obvious, but there are a few advantages too; the…

Hi, author of the post here. See my comment in response to light_hue_1 farther down – in the spirit of Cunningham's Law, I'd be curious about your answers to the same questions.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36630576

Would also be interested to hear from anyone else who's taught at or attended a high school that's poor or in a rough area, re: those questions.

Re: Escaping High School

#194

Post by srcthr »

zls wrote: post #161
dmvdoug wrote: post #144

> Maybe you go to a school in a poor area, or with a lot of violence, or far too many students for the teachers to pay any individual attention to; or, relatedly, maybe you’re required to spend a lot of time caring for siblings or parents, working a low-skill job, or holding your family together or preserving your safety in some way. The disadvantages of this case are obvious, but there are a few advantages too; the…

I went to a school like this for most of my youth and I’m with you. The only real strategy is to be lucky, whether it’s by having good parents or by incidentally avoiding the abundant pitfalls. Edit: resisting peer pressure shouldn’t be worried about because it’s “the spice of life”? Yikes

[flagged]

Re: Escaping High School

#195

Post by guy98238710 »

This is for fearless kids. Most kids, I think, would be scared to death by these suggestions. It's an embarrassment minefield. It's better to start experimenting in a more private way in places where you are clearly welcome - student competitions, newbie-friendly websites, publishing stuff quietly without advertising it, reading and lurking, submitting tiny contributions that are clearly wanted, etc.

Kids these days do not suffer from scarcity of opportunities. They suffer from lack of confidence. They need to gain confidence through little successes. Sending them out into the world doing things way above their current skill level is going to result in confidence-crushing failures.

Re: Escaping High School

#196

Post by tristor »

squarepizza wrote: post #153
tristor wrote: post #76

Interestingly, the advice in this article pretty much aligns with what I did, although I can't claim I did what I did with any grand strategic vision. I mostly blew off high school doing the bare minimum necessary to graduate, while spending as much time as possible in-person and online with adults who worked in tech and would mentor me, working on side projects, and volunteering on open source. I went to college, bu…

> while spending as much time as possible in-person and online with adults who worked in tech and would mentor me, working on side projects Sounds like quite a privilege.

> Sounds like quite a privilege.

Cool. And?

Yep, I was privileged to have a computer at home and family members who worked at a university so I could get a dial-up SLIP Internet connection and access to Usenet and IRC.

So what. How is that even a remotely useful response to my comment?

Re: Escaping High School

#197

Post by WalterBright »

jb1991 wrote: post #120

> And by the time you’re in your mid-teens, you’re probably as smart as you’re going to be – not as worldly or wise as you will be later, but the raw brainpower is mostly there. I strongly disagree with this. I don't know if it is genuinely true in a biological sense, but in my life experience it is not even close to true. There are lots of things I do that are so far beyond my abilities as a teenager. It could be du…

I got a lot better at learning new material during my time in college. Did I get any smarter? Nope. Simply put, I learned how to learn.

It's analogous to athletics. Sure, you can have a talent for running. But you're not going to win races unless you train.

A mind is plastic, adaptable, and hence can be trained.

Re: Escaping High School

#198

Post by WalterBright »

booleandilemma wrote: post #155
jb1991 wrote: post #120

> And by the time you’re in your mid-teens, you’re probably as smart as you’re going to be – not as worldly or wise as you will be later, but the raw brainpower is mostly there. I strongly disagree with this. I don't know if it is genuinely true in a biological sense, but in my life experience it is not even close to true. There are lots of things I do that are so far beyond my abilities as a teenager. It could be du…

Yeah my teenage self was an idiot, there's no nice way to put it.

Join the club.

Re: Escaping High School

#199

Post by JJMcJ »

istjohn wrote: post #92
ModernMech wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, don't we all hate it when people come into our job and tell us how to do it? Parents love to think that because they have had one child (or maybe a couple), they know how to educate children writ large. Compounding that, most people went through the education system as students, so they believe they have insider knowledge as to how the system works. Usually their advice on how to fix the system is geared toward…

The example of phonics vs. sight reading shows that professional educators are just the blind leading the blind. Parents have known for years that phonics work, but institutionalists dismissed their complaints as spouting off from the sidelines. Challenging established authority is the engine of progress in science and society. Appeal to authority is the last resort of those who have no other ground to stand on. If y…

During Korean War, 1950-54, the was an alarming increase of inductees failing the reading tests.

Was this real, or a new form of draft dodging?

The Army had psychologists look into to this, and it was determined that it wasn't faking. The young men really had poor reading skills.

And the interval between 1945 and 1950 was, backing up till the 20 year olds were 5 or 6 years old, the time when sight reading was first introduced into schools in a big way.

Now, English spelling is more complex than many other languages, but there are maybe 100 rules that cover the overwhelming majority of cases.

Re: Escaping High School

#200

Post by yardie »

Scubabear68 wrote: post #117
ModernMech wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teaching is not nearly as hard as you lay it out to be. > Our kids are in private school now because our public school is a dumpster fire of bad teachers and admins. The private school teachers don’t get paid a lot but they are valued and highly motivated to actually reach kids. The difference is astounding. This is exactly what I'm talking about. You have N=1 child, and you extrapolate everything from that one chi…

My kids aren’t top students at all. They both have learning disabilities. My son is highly sports oriented, my daughter is very musical. They both have trouble with traditional subjects. They both got “B”s in public school, despite their standardized tests showing them in the 15-20th percentile. They both struggled with their knowledge deficit transitioning into the private school. They are doing very well now. Not s…

15-20% == 80-85%

What is a B average?

"B" = 80-89%

So, their standardized scores more or less lines up with their grades.

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