481–490 of 497 posts
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"They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork.... " -- George Carlin
Do not get life advice from podcasters, standup comics, or anyone who lives in NYC. (Because they'll all try to get you to do coke.)
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This is exactly why. We've been at our administrators for years and the response always is "the bus routes" but in reality it's because of the sports schedules. High school sports is a drain on the educational system, plain and simple. It lacks equity - an disproportionate amount of money is spent on very few children. The football coach in our HS has a Vice Principal title, so he doesn't have to teach classes but kn…
Does what you are saying about sports also apply to theater and music?
I used to be in two team sports on the same season, theater, chess and computer club in high school and mid school.
Day looked like this wake up at 5:30. Be gross and just brush my teeth and walk to school. Do sport 1 from 6:00 to 7:30 shower and eat food from bag. While entering class at 7:50.
School day ended 2:15 alternating clubs different days (theatre, chess , computer)
3:30 sport 2 till 5:00pm
Walk back home.
I didn't play sports the other season so mostly just play Magic with other folks when sports was supposed to be there.
We also had theatre or music has an elective class. But club did better parts.
> This shift reverses at adulthood. The biological nature of this daily rhythm means that sending a teenager to bed earlier won’t necessarily mean they fall asleep earlier. No, this shift does not reverse in adulthood for some people... I am in my 30's and I still fall asleep midnight to 1 AM, and wake up "late" by most adult standards at around 8/9 AM. I can not shift my sleep schedule to earlier, I've tried many ti…
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Your comments are contradictory. You claim the US is "insane" for having kids play sports year round, and then when informed of reality, you claim that having kids play sports for only part of the year seems "imbalanced" unlike the superior system in your country where they play, uh, "all year round." There's definitely a communication breakdown here. To be clear: American sports are extremely a la carte. Kids can pl…
No, I used "insane" for training every day of the week, instead of just once or twice per week. "Imbalanced" is doing highly intensive every day training for a few months and then nothing the rest of the year. I'm not calling the system in my country "superior", I'm just pointing out that it's generally once or twice a week all year round. And I think that's a more balanced approach. But of course the systems are com…
every day of the week
If that is your idea of "insane," fine, we can differ.
highly intensive
Football tends to be the most intense. But even then not every day is intense. Usually in the beginning of the week you might focus on strength and cardio. Thursday is more of a strategy day. Kind of a rest day physically because tomorrow, you play. Then Friday is your game.
There are surely exceptions to the rule. When I was in high school there was a nearby team that trained basically year round from what I heard. When their long time coach retired he did it on the last day of the season. He said he chose that timing because their off-season weight training routine started the next day so he was handing things off to the new coach then and there. That sounds pretty excessive to me, but also, if you went to that school and chose to be a part of that sport you knew what you were getting into. So if that's what somebody else wants I'm not going to say they were wrong as long as they enjoy it.
For context please note that even in that "fanatical" school we are talking about perhaps 40-50 kids from a class of maybe 500. This is not the norm for children even in that school. I would point to our childhood obesity epidemic as evidence that, in general, we are not exactly inundating our children with intensive exercise regimens.
The real blame for early high school is extra-curricular sports. Basketball, Football, etc. For those sports to thrive, teams need to practice, in order for practice to be efficient, it needs to be at least an hour. So 2 hours are allocated (suit up, practice, suit down). In order for children to be able to commit to 2 hours extra of their time BEFORE their parents get home (5pm), class would have to end by 3pm. Now,…
Also, by pushing the start times earlier and changing transportation* the district saved about $400K/ year - which is a lot for our district.
* What the district really did was reduce the number of bus drivers to the minimum needed, as they couldn't actually afford them or find enough people willing to take on a part-time job with weird hours. This really meant more parents providing transportation before going to work, IE: the schedule became a chicken-egg problem.
The real blame for early high school is extra-curricular sports. Basketball, Football, etc. For those sports to thrive, teams need to practice, in order for practice to be efficient, it needs to be at least an hour. So 2 hours are allocated (suit up, practice, suit down). In order for children to be able to commit to 2 hours extra of their time BEFORE their parents get home (5pm), class would have to end by 3pm. Now,…
This is exactly why. We've been at our administrators for years and the response always is "the bus routes" but in reality it's because of the sports schedules. High school sports is a drain on the educational system, plain and simple. It lacks equity - an disproportionate amount of money is spent on very few children. The football coach in our HS has a Vice Principal title, so he doesn't have to teach classes but kn…
I'm sorry, I don't get your argument here... in your first sentence you say school sports harms equity, but then you advocate for private sports clubs - which in my poor district would mean a whole lot of kids not able to participate without the publicly-provided funding of those public school activities. School sports, music, theater, etc is the equity that wouldn't be otherwise available if we all moved to privatized education, clubs, etc. Which is not to say if those clubs are available in your community and you can afford them, good for you and your kids.
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Its actually a elitist, slap down machine. Cause academic families will not fear such a slap. After all, everyone you know has studied. And some of them are idiots, you know those. So why shouldn't you. But the one person from a poor household, who never went far in life. No matter how bright, will have noone to put them back upright again. Its pure evil and very unamerican and anti-meritocratic. Its also a thing, th…
Exactly > Cause academic families will not fear such a slap It's also that, to an academic family, a high school counselor won't even register as a "person of authority". It's a pretty low skill position, and they will likely assume they have more knowledge than the counselor regarding college (which wouldn't be a bad assumption). > Its also a thing, thats very common in european societys with rigid class structures,…
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> The real blame for early high school is extra-curricular sports. Basketball, Football, etc. It seems the real blame is the culture of the US, which values sports above many things. Case in point, people openly despise toiling in academia, yet praise highly toiling in sports. Sports jockeys are popular in schools, yet IMO medalists are not (not that I care. Just to contrast culture differences). It's not enough to g…
The fact that there are universities that strongly favor athletes feels so absurd to me. In my country you could be a world class athlete and it gives you exactly zero extra points when applying to any university here. Academic success and the possible entry exams are the only things that are considered. All "extra curricular activities" are completely ignored, the mindset being that if they truly are relevant they h…
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No, when both parents work it means wages are high, that's all. When one parent doesn't work, it's because the marginal wage added wouldn't pay for childcare. In recessions one-parent households actually increase, because it's not caused by things being too expensive.
> pay for childcare > wages are high Pay for…. That’s your clue. Prices are expensive because the owning class is squeezing every dime they can get. You know… bog standard capitalism…
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How would you identify highly creative people? Genuinely asking. If you advantage them, parents will do everything they can to make their kid look like one even if they aren’t one. And some kids will not look like one due to a bad home life or food insecurity or untreated developmental disorder.
You don’t advantage them. A creative track is probably as infuriating to a non-creative person as the current system is to creative ones. Creative tracks should still have outcomes. It’s like trying to cheat your way into professional sports: if you are not a good fit, it won’t be pretty. And indeed we do have a track for athletes. To think that all students are identical and they all deserve the same track is myopic…