4 ms·

The bottom 5% is hopeless. Yeah it would be better if we did that, but people think about education as a means to provide the individual the chance for success

by turzmo 3y ago

The bottom 5% is hopeless. Yeah it would be better if we did that, but people think about education as a means to provide the individual the chance for success in life rather than thinking about the broader impact of individuals on society and the disproportionate effect that the top has. As far as most people are concerned, a kid that is acing everything is going to be fine in life and they don't worry about anything that could be going wrong there.

ryandrake 3y ago
My parents were both [retired] teachers, and sadly this is the truth. Some bottom N%, I don’t know if it’s 1 or 5 or 10 or whatever, but they are absolutely beyond anyone’s ability to rehab, let alone educate. Often no fault of their own. Broken families, parents don’t care, gangs, lots of reasons. Any effort spent on them is wasted. They are inevitably fucked, and will end up in some kind of institution (prison, mental health) or unemployable, by age 25. It’s a sad reality and not something politicians like to talk about. We pretend that if we just whip the teachers so they teach harder, these people will miraculously grow up to be functional adults. It’s not going to happen. I remember a guy in my high school whose claim to fame was he dragged some other poor kid into the wood shop and filed his teeth down to nothing with a band saw. Spending 50% of the school budget on these blockheads is not going to rehab them.
- XorNot 3y ago
  > I remember a guy in my high school whose claim to fame was he dragged some other poor kid into the wood shop and filed his teeth down to nothing with a band saw. Spending 50% of the school budget on these blockheads is not going to rehab them. What year and what school district did this happen in? I mean I'm curious because that's violent assault, of the sort that generally makes the local papers.
  - xyzzy123 3y ago
    I'm struggling to visualise how this would be physically possible.
- giardini 3y ago
  ryandrake says: "I remember a guy in my high school whose claim to fame was he dragged some other poor kid into the wood shop and filed his teeth down to nothing with a band saw." Citation needed!8-)) Sounds like an urban myth (a good one)! Also, it is unclear that the story is relevant to this discussion. That is, one might say that grinding another's teeth with a shop band saw is quite clever, albeit an extremely unsociable (if not psychopathological) act."
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    Well, I was in Junior High at the time. It could have been exaggerated, but we all saw the ambulance. Both students were never seen around school again. The 80s were wild!

by turzmo 3y ago

ryandrake 3y ago

My parents were both [retired] teachers, and sadly this is the truth. Some bottom N%, I don’t know if it’s 1 or 5 or 10 or whatever, but they are absolutely beyond anyone’s ability to rehab, let alone educate. Often no fault of their own. Broken families, parents don’t care, gangs, lots of reasons. Any effort spent on them is wasted. They are inevitably fucked, and will end up in some kind of institution (prison, mental health) or unemployable, by age 25. It’s a sad reality and not something politicians like to talk about. We pretend that if we just whip the teachers so they teach harder, these people will miraculously grow up to be functional adults. It’s not going to happen. I remember a guy in my high school whose claim to fame was he dragged some other poor kid into the wood shop and filed his teeth down to nothing with a band saw. Spending 50% of the school budget on these blockheads is not going to rehab them.

XorNot 3y ago
> I remember a guy in my high school whose claim to fame was he dragged some other poor kid into the wood shop and filed his teeth down to nothing with a band saw. Spending 50% of the school budget on these blockheads is not going to rehab them. What year and what school district did this happen in? I mean I'm curious because that's violent assault, of the sort that generally makes the local papers.
- xyzzy123 3y ago
  I'm struggling to visualise how this would be physically possible.
giardini 3y ago
ryandrake says: "I remember a guy in my high school whose claim to fame was he dragged some other poor kid into the wood shop and filed his teeth down to nothing with a band saw." Citation needed!8-)) Sounds like an urban myth (a good one)! Also, it is unclear that the story is relevant to this discussion. That is, one might say that grinding another's teeth with a shop band saw is quite clever, albeit an extremely unsociable (if not psychopathological) act."
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Well, I was in Junior High at the time. It could have been exaggerated, but we all saw the ambulance. Both students were never seen around school again. The 80s were wild!