5 ms·

It's amazing public schools are permitted to do this. There's nothing for the kid to grow from in a child sitting around doing nothing. Children grow from exper

by mtempm 9y ago

It's amazing public schools are permitted to do this. There's nothing for the kid to grow from in a child sitting around doing nothing. Children grow from experiences and challenges. Minds forced into isolation with no stimulation are stunted, and there's scientific evidence to support that. Obviously one week is not going to make or break a person, but this school policy is exceptionally ignorant.

rgrieselhuber 9y ago
Agreed. Public schools, in my opinion, are as much about control as they are education.
ams6110 9y ago
So what's your solution to make the kid stop skipping classes?
- rgrieselhuber 9y ago
  Make school interesting. Actually, learning how to code and learning Japanese changed my life in this regard. I didn't know how to teach myself things until those two things happened, once I did, pretty much everything else opened up to me.
  - udkl 9y ago
    Learning Japaneeses opened up your life ? I'm now much curious about your story.
    - rgrieselhuber 9y ago
      Yup. I got interested in Japan after reading Shogun as a kid. When I was in college, I finally had the chance to study it well and they had a great program. What I learned there taught me how to learn in general, which I then used to learn Computer Science, which opened up a bunch more for me.
      - bariswheel 9y ago
        In what ways did you learn how to learn better by learning Japanese? I'm very intrigued by this. Perchance you can articulate on this.
        nicklaf 9y ago
        Perhaps: having tacitly written a 'compiler' for a natural language, he had aquired a subconscious appreciation for a field for which the artificial language compiler is in part the foundation. :-P
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    I think we like to believe that every child wants to be a creative spirit. But many of them are monsters. It's not till later in life that you develop a conscience, and many people in high school are straight-up barbaric to each other. It's hard to make school interesting with people like that in the system, and it's even harder to deal with those types. A friend with an affluent upbringing was telling me about how his school would filter out anyone they wanted, and give them the option to either transfer out or be expelled. Usually this was done for kids who had hit other kids. I couldn't help but think "You were way luckier than you probably appreciate." I thought it was just a fact of life that when you go to school as a kid, you have to worry about being attacked. Not so, apparently.
    - rgrieselhuber 9y ago
      Interesting point. Figuring out how to teach agency and spread consciousness on a planet still ruled by the law of the jungle in many ways is definitely one of humanity's biggest challenges.
    - schoen 9y ago
      I went to a private prep school for high school, and a weird aspect that people didn't talk about very much was that they expelled people at such a high rate (partly to preserve a better learning environment for the other students). I think I recall someone from the administration estimating that at least 10% of students were expelled before graduation. (At least I think it was 10% over the course of four years, not 10% every year.)
      - tsukikage 9y ago
        So what's the solution to make the 10% stop skipping classes in whatever sink school they end up in?
  - bariswheel 9y ago
    Tell us more about how learning Japanese changed you, I'm curious.
    - anigbrowl 9y ago
      Learning any language changes your thinking patterns to the implicit assumptions built into the language structure. you may find the work of Ferdinand Saussure of interest.
      - mtempm 9y ago
        note this is not really a scientific fact, and an idea which has been recently challenged as scientifically unfounded.
        icc97 9y ago
        Just a simple example of learning Dutch, which blew my mind. 1. Monday in Dutch is maandag, which means 'moonday' 2. Friday in Dutch is vrijdag, which means 'free day' (and is pronouced 'freydag') Obviously the French is lundi, but I never made the connection with lunar. So for 28 years (4 year's worth of Moondays) of my life I never considered the connection between Sunday, Monday and Moonday. Perhaps it's not scientific fact but actually learning another language fluently and seeing the differences was pretty freaking awesome to me. There's other fascinating differences like the difference between 'Icing sugar' in English and 'Flour suger' in Dutch, one explains what you do with it vs the other explains what it resembles. Perhaps it only challenges simple brains like mine.
        mtempm 9y ago
        I studied German and Japanese and it was very interesting indeed. However, what I was responding to is the common misnomer that language studies create cognitive improvements as my high school advisor and the above poster alluded to. The scientific consensus at the moment is that so far it only appears to help in word search ability. There's no other established improvement.
  - hahamrfunnyguy 9y ago
    Why does high school have to be so boring? The worst subject for me was math. I was struggling in math, and was less than motivated. I ended up failing the state exam freshman year and went to summer school to re-learn the material. I studied a couple hours a day during the 6 or so weeks of summer school. What I learned here was discipline and how to plow through something you're not crazy about to reach a goal. I never truly "got" the trigonometry and geometry until I started going graphics programming. High school is too much theory and not enough application of the theory and experimentation.
  - arjie 9y ago
    Hey, man, if you can make school more interesting than football with friends you're sitting on an education revolution. Demonstrate it and you'll not only be rich but revered.
frogpelt 9y ago
When parents fail, public school can't do much.
inimino 9y ago
Sitting quietly for a half hour with only one's own thoughts is hardly as terrible as you make it sound. If anything, it builds character. It is an experience and a challenge. Keep in mind that detention was introduced after corporal punishment became socially unacceptable.
- rgrieselhuber 9y ago
  This was sitting all day, not for a half hour.
  - inimino 9y ago
    I missed that. Still, I think it's reasonable. Being forced to sit and think is not such a terrible punishment, and it seems that it "fits the crime" in the case of truancy.
    - rgrieselhuber 9y ago
      Well, I got a good book recommendation out of the deal.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  > builds character Evidence needed.
  - icc97 9y ago
    Every time someone mentions 'builds character' all I can think of is Calvin and Hobbes: http://michaelyingling.com/random/calvin_and_hobbes/search.php?phrase=builds+character http://michaelyingling.com/random/calvin_and_hobbes/search.p...
dang 9y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14190274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14190274 and marked it off-topic.
- mtempm 9y ago
  What's wrong?

by mtempm 9y ago

rgrieselhuber 9y ago

Agreed. Public schools, in my opinion, are as much about control as they are education.

ams6110 9y ago

So what's your solution to make the kid stop skipping classes?

rgrieselhuber 9y ago
Make school interesting. Actually, learning how to code and learning Japanese changed my life in this regard. I didn't know how to teach myself things until those two things happened, once I did, pretty much everything else opened up to me.
- udkl 9y ago
  Learning Japaneeses opened up your life ? I'm now much curious about your story.
  - rgrieselhuber 9y ago
    Yup. I got interested in Japan after reading Shogun as a kid. When I was in college, I finally had the chance to study it well and they had a great program. What I learned there taught me how to learn in general, which I then used to learn Computer Science, which opened up a bunch more for me.
    - bariswheel 9y ago
      In what ways did you learn how to learn better by learning Japanese? I'm very intrigued by this. Perchance you can articulate on this.
      - nicklaf 9y ago
        Perhaps: having tacitly written a 'compiler' for a natural language, he had aquired a subconscious appreciation for a field for which the artificial language compiler is in part the foundation. :-P
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  I think we like to believe that every child wants to be a creative spirit. But many of them are monsters. It's not till later in life that you develop a conscience, and many people in high school are straight-up barbaric to each other. It's hard to make school interesting with people like that in the system, and it's even harder to deal with those types. A friend with an affluent upbringing was telling me about how his school would filter out anyone they wanted, and give them the option to either transfer out or be expelled. Usually this was done for kids who had hit other kids. I couldn't help but think "You were way luckier than you probably appreciate." I thought it was just a fact of life that when you go to school as a kid, you have to worry about being attacked. Not so, apparently.
  - rgrieselhuber 9y ago
    Interesting point. Figuring out how to teach agency and spread consciousness on a planet still ruled by the law of the jungle in many ways is definitely one of humanity's biggest challenges.
  - schoen 9y ago
    I went to a private prep school for high school, and a weird aspect that people didn't talk about very much was that they expelled people at such a high rate (partly to preserve a better learning environment for the other students). I think I recall someone from the administration estimating that at least 10% of students were expelled before graduation. (At least I think it was 10% over the course of four years, not 10% every year.)
    - tsukikage 9y ago
      So what's the solution to make the 10% stop skipping classes in whatever sink school they end up in?
- bariswheel 9y ago
  Tell us more about how learning Japanese changed you, I'm curious.
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    Learning any language changes your thinking patterns to the implicit assumptions built into the language structure. you may find the work of Ferdinand Saussure of interest.
    - mtempm 9y ago
      note this is not really a scientific fact, and an idea which has been recently challenged as scientifically unfounded.
      - icc97 9y ago
        Just a simple example of learning Dutch, which blew my mind. 1. Monday in Dutch is maandag, which means 'moonday' 2. Friday in Dutch is vrijdag, which means 'free day' (and is pronouced 'freydag') Obviously the French is lundi, but I never made the connection with lunar. So for 28 years (4 year's worth of Moondays) of my life I never considered the connection between Sunday, Monday and Moonday. Perhaps it's not scientific fact but actually learning another language fluently and seeing the differences was pretty freaking awesome to me. There's other fascinating differences like the difference between 'Icing sugar' in English and 'Flour suger' in Dutch, one explains what you do with it vs the other explains what it resembles. Perhaps it only challenges simple brains like mine.
        mtempm 9y ago
        I studied German and Japanese and it was very interesting indeed. However, what I was responding to is the common misnomer that language studies create cognitive improvements as my high school advisor and the above poster alluded to. The scientific consensus at the moment is that so far it only appears to help in word search ability. There's no other established improvement.
- hahamrfunnyguy 9y ago
  Why does high school have to be so boring? The worst subject for me was math. I was struggling in math, and was less than motivated. I ended up failing the state exam freshman year and went to summer school to re-learn the material. I studied a couple hours a day during the 6 or so weeks of summer school. What I learned here was discipline and how to plow through something you're not crazy about to reach a goal. I never truly "got" the trigonometry and geometry until I started going graphics programming. High school is too much theory and not enough application of the theory and experimentation.
- arjie 9y ago
  Hey, man, if you can make school more interesting than football with friends you're sitting on an education revolution. Demonstrate it and you'll not only be rich but revered.

frogpelt 9y ago

When parents fail, public school can't do much.

inimino 9y ago

Sitting quietly for a half hour with only one's own thoughts is hardly as terrible as you make it sound. If anything, it builds character. It is an experience and a challenge. Keep in mind that detention was introduced after corporal punishment became socially unacceptable.

rgrieselhuber 9y ago
This was sitting all day, not for a half hour.
- inimino 9y ago
  I missed that. Still, I think it's reasonable. Being forced to sit and think is not such a terrible punishment, and it seems that it "fits the crime" in the case of truancy.
  - rgrieselhuber 9y ago
    Well, I got a good book recommendation out of the deal.
eeZah7Ux 9y ago
> builds character Evidence needed.
- icc97 9y ago
  Every time someone mentions 'builds character' all I can think of is Calvin and Hobbes: http://michaelyingling.com/random/calvin_and_hobbes/search.php?phrase=builds+character http://michaelyingling.com/random/calvin_and_hobbes/search.p...

dang 9y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14190274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14190274 and marked it off-topic.

mtempm 9y ago
What's wrong?