5 ms·

Watch Season 4 of The Wire (and the previous three seasons as well, it's arguably the best show ever put on TV). This is a multi-dimensional failure at all lev

by greedo 6y ago

Watch Season 4 of The Wire (and the previous three seasons as well, it's arguably the best show ever put on TV). This is a multi-dimensional failure at all levels. It's a failure at the Federal level, where NCLB etc pervert education. It's a failure at the state level to provide and enforce educational standards, and to address systemic poverty. It's a failure at the municipal level where crime, corruption and bureaucracy failed. And it's a failure at the personal level where a mother and son aren't communicating, aren't taking care of themselves. This failure didn't just happen in the last three years to this young man. His path to failure started in kindergarten, in a dysfunctional society that didn't care about him on any level.

g9yuayon 6y ago
Yet in the mean time we see this: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/05/07/12/28112238-8296195-image-a-27_1588849541261.jpg https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/05/07/12/28112238-8296195-... Nearly 50% of students in junior high schools will not be able to enter high schools in China. They will enter vocational high schools, in a way similar to those in Germany. And what do Chinese do? They do this: https://images.app.goo.gl/pKvyBtNtBgMhMK1T9 https://images.app.goo.gl/pKvyBtNtBgMhMK1T9 In the picture Chinese parents send their kids to math tutoring classes, and they stayed in the back of the classroom to study too, so they can help their kids after class. Yeah, laugh all you want, believing that training 5 hours a day for whatever bullshit sports is superior to doing algebra a couple of hours a day. But this is how some millions of kids fight to get into college and change their life, despite limited resource and all the struggles in their life. And the government? They make sure teachers can be fired. They make sure teacher's work can be measured. They make sure teachers will have a career ladder. They make sure teachers can have decent income especially pension. And states in the US (K12 education is the responsibility of individual states)? I'm sure they do a better job at K12 education. The US, after all, is a developed country, right?
- vmception 6y ago
  yes, a wonderful dystopia. I can see you are cynical, the culture that appreciates sports will be less competitive than the culture that appreciates family involvement in STEM. if you change any rules in society, some cultures will be more competitive at it. Germans were a quirky precision obsessed culture long before it became useful in the industrial revolution. Some cultures from Asia are competitive in Western Society, whether it is strenuous manual labor or intellectual pursuits. The actual solution is related to pooling resources to improve society, as this makes it safer and more productive for all. Making it easier improves the fitness of society, as stressors harm society over multiple generations. So just talking about how one can stress themselves out to "make it out" is not productive. We can certainly appreciate it, but it is not a solution for society.
- addicted 6y ago
  I don’t know about China, but is there any evidence that measuring and firing teachers plays a big role in countries with better educational outcomes? I would be extremely surprised if China, or Scandinavian countries would have weaker labor protections for teachers than they have for their general populace. P What they do have is excellent training, paying teachers well, high teacher to student ratios, modern educational systems based on the latest research and/or a culture and familial backgrounds that emphasize and prioritize education.
  - g9yuayon 6y ago
    They don't have high teacher to student ratios. Usually schools have 1:50+ teacher-to-students. Teachers do grade students' homework and exam carefully. Teacher's quality and dedication overweights the ratio, by far.
- greedo 6y ago
  I think one thing that China has that makes this easier is a more homogeneous society, as well as a form of government that can enforce nationwide policies in a manner that many Western countries would find distasteful.
rayiner 6y ago
> This is a multi-dimensional failure at all levels. It's a failure at the Federal level, where NCLB etc pervert education. It's a failure at the state level to provide and enforce educational standards, and to address systemic poverty. It's a failure at the municipal level where crime, corruption and bureaucracy failed. And it's a failure at the personal level where a mother and son aren't communicating, aren't taking care of themselves. I agree with all of the above. But I feel like you’re missing a key component, in between the distant federal bureaucracy and the over-burdened single mom. At 61%, this school has a daily attendance rate 10 points lower than Bangladesh did in 2000, when almost 70% of girls were married by age 18 and where, even today, children get pulled out of school because they are needed to work in subsistence agriculture. How does this happen? My dad told me that he used to walk several miles in his village in Bangladesh to go to school, and people kept an eye on him the whole way. If he had not been in class a couple of days, word would have gotten back to his father. I’m talking here about a real village, where people relied on growing rice and mustard greens and fishing to live. His school house had no walls. A third of children died by age 5. They had nothing, other than a tight-knit community where nearly every single child was being raised by two parents, and were intrusively involved in the raising of all of the community’s children. You’re correct that a “dysfunctional society” failed this kid. But society that’s missing here is the society of people who are supposed to keep an eye on this kid. Literally, not metaphorically. That social infrastructure has been destroyed—for a variety of reasons, from mass incarceration to social normalization of single parenthood. There is no replacement for this society. A federal bureaucracy with standards and metrics can’t fix this problem, because it doesn’t operate at that level.
- gwerbret 6y ago
  > You’re correct that a “dysfunctional society” failed this kid. But society that’s missing here is the society of people who are supposed to keep an eye on this kid. That social infrastructure has been destroyed—for a variety of reasons, from mass incarceration to social normalization of single parenthood. There is no replacement for this society. A federal bureaucracy with standards and metrics can’t fix this problem, because it doesn’t operate at that level. Very, very well-said, particularly as your example articulates how one of the most fundamental elements of society -- the immediate community -- should work. This loss of society as community (as opposed to society as formalized bureaucracy), affects everyone in myriad ways that I'm sure we fail to appreciate. Unfortunately, the effects are disproportionately felt by the less privileged: a wealthier parent would simply have sent her son to a better school.

by greedo 6y ago

g9yuayon 6y ago

Yet in the mean time we see this: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/05/07/12/28112238-8296195-image-a-27_1588849541261.jpg https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/05/07/12/28112238-8296195-... Nearly 50% of students in junior high schools will not be able to enter high schools in China. They will enter vocational high schools, in a way similar to those in Germany. And what do Chinese do? They do this: https://images.app.goo.gl/pKvyBtNtBgMhMK1T9 https://images.app.goo.gl/pKvyBtNtBgMhMK1T9 In the picture Chinese parents send their kids to math tutoring classes, and they stayed in the back of the classroom to study too, so they can help their kids after class. Yeah, laugh all you want, believing that training 5 hours a day for whatever bullshit sports is superior to doing algebra a couple of hours a day. But this is how some millions of kids fight to get into college and change their life, despite limited resource and all the struggles in their life. And the government? They make sure teachers can be fired. They make sure teacher's work can be measured. They make sure teachers will have a career ladder. They make sure teachers can have decent income especially pension. And states in the US (K12 education is the responsibility of individual states)? I'm sure they do a better job at K12 education. The US, after all, is a developed country, right?

vmception 6y ago
yes, a wonderful dystopia. I can see you are cynical, the culture that appreciates sports will be less competitive than the culture that appreciates family involvement in STEM. if you change any rules in society, some cultures will be more competitive at it. Germans were a quirky precision obsessed culture long before it became useful in the industrial revolution. Some cultures from Asia are competitive in Western Society, whether it is strenuous manual labor or intellectual pursuits. The actual solution is related to pooling resources to improve society, as this makes it safer and more productive for all. Making it easier improves the fitness of society, as stressors harm society over multiple generations. So just talking about how one can stress themselves out to "make it out" is not productive. We can certainly appreciate it, but it is not a solution for society.
addicted 6y ago
I don’t know about China, but is there any evidence that measuring and firing teachers plays a big role in countries with better educational outcomes? I would be extremely surprised if China, or Scandinavian countries would have weaker labor protections for teachers than they have for their general populace. P What they do have is excellent training, paying teachers well, high teacher to student ratios, modern educational systems based on the latest research and/or a culture and familial backgrounds that emphasize and prioritize education.
- g9yuayon 6y ago
  They don't have high teacher to student ratios. Usually schools have 1:50+ teacher-to-students. Teachers do grade students' homework and exam carefully. Teacher's quality and dedication overweights the ratio, by far.
greedo 6y ago
I think one thing that China has that makes this easier is a more homogeneous society, as well as a form of government that can enforce nationwide policies in a manner that many Western countries would find distasteful.

rayiner 6y ago

> This is a multi-dimensional failure at all levels. It's a failure at the Federal level, where NCLB etc pervert education. It's a failure at the state level to provide and enforce educational standards, and to address systemic poverty. It's a failure at the municipal level where crime, corruption and bureaucracy failed. And it's a failure at the personal level where a mother and son aren't communicating, aren't taking care of themselves. I agree with all of the above. But I feel like you’re missing a key component, in between the distant federal bureaucracy and the over-burdened single mom. At 61%, this school has a daily attendance rate 10 points lower than Bangladesh did in 2000, when almost 70% of girls were married by age 18 and where, even today, children get pulled out of school because they are needed to work in subsistence agriculture. How does this happen? My dad told me that he used to walk several miles in his village in Bangladesh to go to school, and people kept an eye on him the whole way. If he had not been in class a couple of days, word would have gotten back to his father. I’m talking here about a real village, where people relied on growing rice and mustard greens and fishing to live. His school house had no walls. A third of children died by age 5. They had nothing, other than a tight-knit community where nearly every single child was being raised by two parents, and were intrusively involved in the raising of all of the community’s children. You’re correct that a “dysfunctional society” failed this kid. But society that’s missing here is the society of people who are supposed to keep an eye on this kid. Literally, not metaphorically. That social infrastructure has been destroyed—for a variety of reasons, from mass incarceration to social normalization of single parenthood. There is no replacement for this society. A federal bureaucracy with standards and metrics can’t fix this problem, because it doesn’t operate at that level.

gwerbret 6y ago
> You’re correct that a “dysfunctional society” failed this kid. But society that’s missing here is the society of people who are supposed to keep an eye on this kid. That social infrastructure has been destroyed—for a variety of reasons, from mass incarceration to social normalization of single parenthood. There is no replacement for this society. A federal bureaucracy with standards and metrics can’t fix this problem, because it doesn’t operate at that level. Very, very well-said, particularly as your example articulates how one of the most fundamental elements of society -- the immediate community -- should work. This loss of society as community (as opposed to society as formalized bureaucracy), affects everyone in myriad ways that I'm sure we fail to appreciate. Unfortunately, the effects are disproportionately felt by the less privileged: a wealthier parent would simply have sent her son to a better school.