5 ms·

The "difficult" kids in school are the ones who need help the most. They either have learning disabilities or difficult family/social situations that lead them

by GGfpc 5y ago

The "difficult" kids in school are the ones who need help the most. They either have learning disabilities or difficult family/social situations that lead them to either not try or not care about school. To say that teachers should put less effort into these kids due to "low ROI" is frankly very privileged.

zozbot234 5y ago
> The "difficult" kids in school are the ones who need help the most. Schools do very little to help these kids. There are ways to teach low-performers efficiently (they go under the general rubric of "direct instruction") but they go unused simply because teachers do not want to feel regimented in such a rigid structure, even if that's exactly what yields the best outcomes. (So, I'd definitely disagree with GP that "this segment is by its nature low ROI". It's not 'natural', it's pure dysfunction.)
- rmah 5y ago
  Very little? In my town's school district, something like 30% of the school's budget is allocated to these "difficult kids". Who make up less than 5% of the student body. They get a LOT of attention and extra help. As far as I can tell though, it doesn't help much.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    > something like 30% of the school's budget is allocated to these "difficult kids". ... Much of that money and effort is simply wasted if teachers aren't going to adopt effective approaches towards teaching and helping these kids.
    - throwaway210222 5y ago
      0% should be wasted on the incorrigible. And yes, they exist.
      - candiodari 5y ago
        Even the incorrigible will perform (much) better given 1-on-1 instruction. Less kids per teacher yields better results. The problem is that performance is exponential. That same 1-on-1 instruction will take a well performing kid to "surgeon". It will take the incorrigible ... maybe ... to only quit school at 10th grade. Which does directly translate to money for the school these days. What teachers/schools also effectively like about the incorrigible is that any (lowest wage) idiot that sticks to it will help the incorrigible. Not to surgeon levels, but better than before, sure. For obvious reasons you don't need much math. Some, yes, but not much. Whereas it takes a capable teacher to get good performers even higher. Teachers are protecting the incompetent among them by doing this.
        dntrkv 5y ago
        Many of these difficult kids are legit toxic to everyone around them. They make life hell for other students and any of the faculty that dares interact with them. At my school of ~2,000 I'd say at any given moment there would be at least 30 of these kids (they didn't last long). They were violent. They hit teachers. They were regularly dragged out of classes by police officers. After a few of these interactions, they would be transferred to the problem child school. Our school actually had some great teachers that really cared about the students, but many of these kids were broken. Their home lives were just horrid. Most ended up in juvie and later jail. Those were the worst of the bunch, but a good 20% of the school was beyond help. Daily fights, constant police presence, tons of kids brought weapons to school, lots of theft, vandalism every day, I could go on... That school was a nightmare, and it wasn't even the worst one in the city. Point is, there is nowhere near enough teachers and resources to fix these broken kids. Their broken homes are what need to be fixed.
        candiodari 5y ago
        > Point is, there is nowhere near enough teachers and resources to fix these broken kids. Their broken homes are what need to be fixed. The problem with that is if you can't fix their environment for 8 hours a day (most schools are more like 6 these days but for argument's sake), and you propose fixing their environments 24 hours a day ... This is not going to work for those kids. So it depends who you want to help. You want to help disadvantaged kids? This will, certainly in the short term, make it worse for them and make life better for advantaged kids.
ganzuul 5y ago
You are correct, but there are going to be cases where the help should come in the form of UBI or NIT. Otherwise people on the unfortunate end of the ability spectrum are going to have to get gainful employment somehow. We should definitely take care of them as a society built on solidarity, but we can be efficient about it too.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  > take care of them It sounds like you want to just pay people to stay alive without helping them to gain the skills necessary to make that life worthwhile to themselves. Before we try to be efficient we need to agree on what we are being efficient about.
  - chongli 5y ago
    The wrinkle in this discussion is the inevitable march of technology. It’s simply a lot more difficult to make a valuable contribution to society today than it was a few decades ago. It takes a lot more education and specialized training to gain the skills that put oneself in demand. The idea that we can push water uphill, and bring the most struggling students up above an ever-rising bar, is becoming a controversial one these days. There is a small but growing chorus of voices saying “enough already”, on both [1] sides [2] of the spectrum. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36319077-the-case-against-education https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36319077-the-case-agains... [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51087394-the-cult-of-smart https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51087394-the-cult-of-sma...
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
      The logical conclusion of this thought process is a question of what to do with laggards and I do not see it being addressed. Ignoring it is not a real option.
      - ganzuul 5y ago
        Please don't label people as laggards. It is dehumanizing. They could be your lost identical twin who had a chemical accident at a young age and never got the opportunity to develop properly.

by GGfpc 5y ago

zozbot234 5y ago

> The "difficult" kids in school are the ones who need help the most. Schools do very little to help these kids. There are ways to teach low-performers efficiently (they go under the general rubric of "direct instruction") but they go unused simply because teachers do not want to feel regimented in such a rigid structure, even if that's exactly what yields the best outcomes. (So, I'd definitely disagree with GP that "this segment is by its nature low ROI". It's not 'natural', it's pure dysfunction.)

rmah 5y ago
Very little? In my town's school district, something like 30% of the school's budget is allocated to these "difficult kids". Who make up less than 5% of the student body. They get a LOT of attention and extra help. As far as I can tell though, it doesn't help much.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > something like 30% of the school's budget is allocated to these "difficult kids". ... Much of that money and effort is simply wasted if teachers aren't going to adopt effective approaches towards teaching and helping these kids.
  - throwaway210222 5y ago
    0% should be wasted on the incorrigible. And yes, they exist.
    - candiodari 5y ago
      Even the incorrigible will perform (much) better given 1-on-1 instruction. Less kids per teacher yields better results. The problem is that performance is exponential. That same 1-on-1 instruction will take a well performing kid to "surgeon". It will take the incorrigible ... maybe ... to only quit school at 10th grade. Which does directly translate to money for the school these days. What teachers/schools also effectively like about the incorrigible is that any (lowest wage) idiot that sticks to it will help the incorrigible. Not to surgeon levels, but better than before, sure. For obvious reasons you don't need much math. Some, yes, but not much. Whereas it takes a capable teacher to get good performers even higher. Teachers are protecting the incompetent among them by doing this.
      - dntrkv 5y ago
        Many of these difficult kids are legit toxic to everyone around them. They make life hell for other students and any of the faculty that dares interact with them. At my school of ~2,000 I'd say at any given moment there would be at least 30 of these kids (they didn't last long). They were violent. They hit teachers. They were regularly dragged out of classes by police officers. After a few of these interactions, they would be transferred to the problem child school. Our school actually had some great teachers that really cared about the students, but many of these kids were broken. Their home lives were just horrid. Most ended up in juvie and later jail. Those were the worst of the bunch, but a good 20% of the school was beyond help. Daily fights, constant police presence, tons of kids brought weapons to school, lots of theft, vandalism every day, I could go on... That school was a nightmare, and it wasn't even the worst one in the city. Point is, there is nowhere near enough teachers and resources to fix these broken kids. Their broken homes are what need to be fixed.
        candiodari 5y ago
        > Point is, there is nowhere near enough teachers and resources to fix these broken kids. Their broken homes are what need to be fixed. The problem with that is if you can't fix their environment for 8 hours a day (most schools are more like 6 these days but for argument's sake), and you propose fixing their environments 24 hours a day ... This is not going to work for those kids. So it depends who you want to help. You want to help disadvantaged kids? This will, certainly in the short term, make it worse for them and make life better for advantaged kids.

ganzuul 5y ago

You are correct, but there are going to be cases where the help should come in the form of UBI or NIT. Otherwise people on the unfortunate end of the ability spectrum are going to have to get gainful employment somehow. We should definitely take care of them as a society built on solidarity, but we can be efficient about it too.

kwhitefoot 5y ago
> take care of them It sounds like you want to just pay people to stay alive without helping them to gain the skills necessary to make that life worthwhile to themselves. Before we try to be efficient we need to agree on what we are being efficient about.
- chongli 5y ago
  The wrinkle in this discussion is the inevitable march of technology. It’s simply a lot more difficult to make a valuable contribution to society today than it was a few decades ago. It takes a lot more education and specialized training to gain the skills that put oneself in demand. The idea that we can push water uphill, and bring the most struggling students up above an ever-rising bar, is becoming a controversial one these days. There is a small but growing chorus of voices saying “enough already”, on both [1] sides [2] of the spectrum. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36319077-the-case-against-education https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36319077-the-case-agains... [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51087394-the-cult-of-smart https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51087394-the-cult-of-sma...
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
    The logical conclusion of this thought process is a question of what to do with laggards and I do not see it being addressed. Ignoring it is not a real option.
    - ganzuul 5y ago
      Please don't label people as laggards. It is dehumanizing. They could be your lost identical twin who had a chemical accident at a young age and never got the opportunity to develop properly.