3 ms·

It's not a different view, it's actually reinforcing my quintessentially banal point that parents and social environment are factors that are hard to influence

• wolfgke 10y ago
  > The basic question is, where did your father get his wish to become an academic from? I doubt whether he even explicitly had the wish to become an academic when he was in school. I know what kind of person my grandfather was (very obsessed on learning; also for himself) and this would answer the question. So let's imagine that my grandfather was a quite different kind of person. But in this case because he was so hardworkind (by his nurture) and sufficiently good in school about any teacher would have persuaded my grandfather into letting my father study because anything else would have been a waste. Thus he would have given no other option. If not from my grandfather then from his teachers. And because of the latter I still stand by the point that my father made: He has yet to see a hardworking child from a working-class family that will not get a recommendation letter for Gymnasium (or a hardworking child from a working-class family that is very good in school for which the teachers would not try very hard to convince the parents to let them study). > How did he manage to maintain the belief in himself despite having no academic role models? I can't even imagine why the US-Americans are so obsessed on role models (in Germany this is a word that hardly anyone uses). I had no role model: I studied mathematics and computer science and I know no person in the extended family of which I claim that he or she has an above average talent in empirical or structural sciences, is working in this area or has studied something in this direction. I studied it since I was very good in mathematics and computer science and loved these areas. My father and my sister also had no role model (and particularly for my sister I'm very sure about it).
  • sveme 10y ago
    You misunderstand my point. I wasn't really criticizing the German school system, I am fully aware that there are plenty of examples of people that did not follow in their parent's footsteps. In both ways, by the way. The experience of your father came from your grandfather's hardworking ethos. What would have happened if your grandfather would not have instilled this in your father? What would have happened if your father would not have instilled this in you? Anyone's parent influences their kid's educational pathway in myriads of ways: are there books at home? What kinds of books? Is it mostly the TV that acts as a nanny? Are there computers, or are they computer-illiterate? Do your parents make you believe that you can choose your own path, or are they instilling you with the belief that what they have is good enough for you as well? You have experienced examples of the first kind: a family that creates a learning environment, with the experience of your father that social strata are permeable. I have a different experience which made it much harder for me. Maybe role model is the wrong word - instead ask yourself what kind of mental, imaginative boundaries have been nurtured by your family in you (few!) and what kind of mental boundaries have been nurtured in others, that are living the same lives as their parents despite maybe being pretty smart?
    • wolfgke 10y ago
      > What would have happened if your grandfather would not have instilled this in your father? That you pose this question rather shows that you don't understand my argument: I wanted to document that it is not that important from what class you come, but rather that hardworking, intelligent children from any class can move up. In other words: In any class it is possible to live an acceptable life (#), thus many parents from non-academic class don't consider it as so much necessary for their child to move up in society (and (#) is actually quite good news!) in opposite to the strict necessity that my fatherly grandfather saw for his children to move up in society.