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> These tech parents are hackers by nature, and I think they’re convinced that in homeschooling they’ve happened on the ultimate life hack: just opt out of bein

> These tech parents are hackers by nature, and I think they’re convinced that in homeschooling they’ve happened on the ultimate life hack: just opt out of being around average people. It's difficult to feel optimistic about a society that thinks this way, much less has a cultural and economic elite that is seemingly emboldened to think this way. "Average" people are the norm, the reality that "not average" people will have to deal with for the rest of their lives. Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you is a universally valuable experience, especially for people who would fashion themselves as "not average."

bdangubic 2y ago
"Average" people are the norm, the reality that "not average" people will have to deal with for the rest of their lives. if by “deal with” you mean serving them fries on their way to a ski trip, perhaps :)
- syndicatedjelly 2y ago
  I like to think you mean that the so-called “elites” end up studying some useless degree and only can get jobs as trust-fund burger stand employees, serving fries to the “dummies” who chose to work hard and become wealthy the old-fashioned way
  - briHass 2y ago
    It was a reference to 'Good Will Hunting'. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's first movie.
    - riffraff 2y ago
      Both Ben Affleck and Matt Damon had movies before that. It was Damon's breakthrough for sure tho.
  - scotty79 2y ago
    > who chose to work hard and become wealthy the old-fashioned way That's so last century. Now about as real as Santa. Now you can only get wealthy by inheritance or gambling. Even if it means gambling with you health you still need to win for it to amount to anything. There's absolutely no way to earn wealth now. I'm not sure if there ever was.
    - alvah 2y ago
      If you really think this way, you're absolutely correct you will never build wealth. It is definitely possible though.
      - scotty79 2y ago
        At some point in your life you'll look back at your past and notice how much of the hard work you did amounted to very little of your wealth and how most of your wealth can actually be attributed to gambles you took and won, even though similar people took similar gambles and lost. How the most work that contributed to your wealth wasn't particularly hard and some hard work you did actually delayed or diminished your success. At least you'll see it if you are going to be an honest person not one of those "I did it all by myself!" self-deluders.
        alvah 2y ago
        At some point in your life you'll realise that not everyone thinks the same way as you do. Hopefully it happens for you before your mindset seriously dents your future prospects. Your original assertion "There's absolutely no way to earn wealth now" is ludicrous: was it possible a month ago? a year ago? a decade ago? Did anyone become wealthy through methods other than gambling or inheritance a month ago? a year ago? a decade ago? If even one person did, this disproves your assertion, unless you want to claim some as-yet-unmentioned recent change that made it possible then and impossible now. Your supporting theory about gambling is only true if you define every single choice you make in life as a gamble to some extent, which is a weird way of thinking about the world. As for the "you didn't build that" stuff & snark, I don't recall claiming I did anything all by myself, nor did I see anyone claim you have to do everything all by yourself to "earn wealth". Nice strawman.
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smilebot 2y ago
> It's difficult to feel optimistic about a society that thinks this way. Maybe that's not how society thinks? That's one person's opinion.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  The well known adage of “buy the cheapest house you can afford in the most expensive neighborhood” is a sign that is what many think. The rat race to make sure your kids are in league with other parents of similar or higher stature is a huge contributor to home price dynamics.
  - forgetfreeman 2y ago
    Lol what? I've never heard that adage and it seems like really bad advice. Your neighbors aren't going to cut you a check at any point so what even is this.
    - gnkyfrg 2y ago
      It's about exposure to the way richer people think and access to the same community resources. Property taxes pay for schools. The best schools are in the richest communities.
      - forgetfreeman 2y ago
        Your local private school also isn't going to cut you a check, and I've yet to meet anyone with money that had a hard time sniffing out aspirational neighbors. Not buying it.
        ndriscoll 2y ago
        The assumption is that upper class kids are more likely to have the types of behaviors and attitudes that you'd like your kids to adopt (e.g. getting a C or even a B is embarrassing/shameful, AP classes are table stakes, drug use bad, video games/tv limited, more likely to have intact households, expected to be polite/treat others respectfully) while lower class kids are more likely to have the types of behaviors and attitudes you'd like your kids to avoid (e.g. no point in applying yourself, parents have no idea what you're up to or how you're doing in school anyway, drug use normal or cool, kids raised by tv/computer/phone, family tree is more of a chain with random links sticking out, family yells at each other so loud the neighbors hear it). It's an attempt to manipulate the Overton window that your kid will encounter interacting with peers.
matrix87 2y ago
> Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you is a universally valuable experience, especially for people who would fashion themselves as "not average." If those people have worse habits, are less motivated, less educated, less cultured, what is there to gain from it? Seems like there's only something to lose from adjusting to their shittiness. Like Harrison Bergeron And seeing the state of California trying to push math classes later because of "equity", seeing public schools dissolving gifted programs, it makes me think that privatization is the only way forward instead of trying to make amends with the current progressive stupidity
- woodruffw 2y ago
  > If those people have worse habits, are less motivated, less educated, less cultured, what is there to gain from it? This is prejudice in the most basic sense: you literally don't know any of these things about the people you're surrounded by in a society. The person who rides the bus next to you could be a couch potato, or a talented artist, or something entirely different that simply isn't legible to you. I don't know anything about California's math classes. I'm saying that, on a basic level, anybody who thinks this way about people they don't know is demonstrating the exact traits they're smugly claiming to be above.
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - r3trohack3r 2y ago
    I feel like you and the parents post are compatible views of the world that could be simultaneously held in the same brain without dissonance. Reading your comment, it seems to focus on the individual. “The person” you know nothing about. The parent comment seems to be Bayesian, the probability of “the person” being something. I do think it’s possible to simultaneously believe that: * every single person you meet in every possible circumstance might be an exceptional human * your are more likely to encounter exceptional humans in specific circumstances and you can optimize for that I believe this holds true regardless of your definition of exceptional. A (maybe) obvious example: if you believe exceptional humans want to grow their own food and live on communes, you probably don’t want to live in the financial district of Manhattan. That would be a bad way to optimize for finding people who share your values. Similarly you’re unlikely to find a thriving software developer community in Springfield Illinois. If you go to Springfield and assume everyone you meet can’t program, you’re going to be wrong - there are good programmers there. But if you want to live around people who know how to code, you don’t move to Springfield Illinois.
pj_mukh 2y ago
I think a better question is: How did the median get so much better over 150 years, and why can't it keep getting better? 150 years ago, the average person was illiterate, poorer (in all senses of the word) and less connected to the world around them. Over a 100 year old grind, schooling fixed all that. Why can't it keep going? So the outlier, super special "phenom" today is the median of tomorrow.
- Arainach 2y ago
  >Why can't it keep going? Because an educated populace is harder for the ultrarich to control and abuse, because an educated populace with free time can revolt against those in power, and because as a consequence of those two things ultrarich conservatives have consolidated ownership of media and used it to defund education and convince the population that funding education is bad.
  - rnd0 2y ago
    >Because an educated populace is harder for the ultrarich to control and abuse, This is the bottom line; this right here. We're being led to a second dark age ON PURPOSE.
  - arkey 2y ago
    I agree with this and that's why I think social media, mass media and so on exist. However I'm curious as to why you attribute or limit this to 'conservatives' only. Is this really something exclusive or characteristic of the conservative side? At least where I am from it's the left that's more interventionist in regards to education rather than the right, that interventionism being used to make education more rigid and controlled by a biased government. And the media is definitely not consolidated, you've got clearly two sides competing at a pretty equal level.
    - jmb99 2y ago
      At least where I’m from, the majority of homeschooled children are in conservative Christian (or Mormon) families, with a minority (but still notable) in super-left-wing hippy families. Very, very few in non-extreme families.
chii 2y ago
> "Average" people are the norm society has always been this way, from the hunter gatherer days, to middle ages - that's why people want to become part of the elite. It's only recently that the average people have had the chance to become elites, rather than be born into it. But the desire to be elites, molded by evolutionary/darwinian pressure, is not gone, nor different, than in the past. Another word for it is "the human condition".
- autoexec 2y ago
  > It's only recently that the average people have had the chance to become elites, rather than be born into it. It still mostly depends on being born into it. In the US your odds of going from impoverished to wealthy are extremely slim and socioeconomic mobility is among the worst compared to other developed countries. The US falls behind South Korea, Lithuania, Estonia, Singapore, Malta, and Slovenia, while the Nordic countries top the list. Depending on the study, socioeconomic mobility in the US has either stagnated since the 1970s or actually declined. Average people have little hope of substantially improving the situation they were born into while the percentage of people born into wealth (but not the 1%) who slide downward in socioeconomic status grows. Wealth inequality continues to accelerate at an insane pace. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1962-_Net_personal_wealth_-_average_in_percentile_ranges_-_linear_scale_-_US.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1962-_Net_personal_wealth...) Just about everyone would like to be one of the "elites" but most people would be happy with a fair chance to meaningfully improve their lifestyle.
  - ty6853 2y ago
    I know an extended family of third world impoverished immigrants who became middle class by basically all going to nursing school. It is almost a joke that all Filipinos become nurses, it's almost fool proof way to have at least a car, shitty apartment and decent food to eat. It's worth looking into for anyone who is stuck, none of it is particularly difficult to learn although it is hard work.
    - autoexec 2y ago
gnkyfrg 2y ago
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cjbgkagh 2y ago
Thoroughly disagree, and I can draw on my experience of meeting average people to know that it wasn’t a universally valuable experience and I much prefer spending time around people that are more like myself. Perhaps that is what you meant by the valuable experience, to be disabused of my illusion that meeting average people was a good idea. Having learned that lesson I shouldn’t have to repeat it. Also, I don’t have to deal with average people, I have apps that do that for me. Having said that, two things can be true, I can prefer not to be around average people and I can be concerned for their lack of flourishing as I do prefer to live in more egalitarian society, especially one that can have better averages.
- gunian 2y ago
  people pretend to be this welcoming learned creatures but in reality it's still referral by people, who you know, like working with people that look like us etc no better place to see that than in tech and HN
alexashka 2y ago
> It's difficult to feel optimistic about a society that thinks this way, much less has a cultural and economic elite that is seemingly emboldened to think this way Optimism is the default state of non-broken children. Sober realism is what's needed and required from adults. Time to graduate - we have enough optimistic children running around with scissors already :)
ErigmolCt 2y ago
Not to forget that "Average" people are, in many ways, the foundation of any functioning society.
- programjames 2y ago
  Not since the industrial revolution.
endofreach 2y ago
> These tech parents are hackers by nature Why? Being in tech doesn't make you a hacker. Most people, even very talented engineers, are still happy to follow boss, do a 9 to 5, and don't really bend or break the rules... they don't go against the elite. They see themselves as the elite.
- bill_joy_fanboy 2y ago
  > Being in tech doesn't make you a hacker. Agreed. "Tech" includes a lot of people who are not hackers. It's worth pointing out though that the "hacker" types who go with the flow are in many cases doing so motivated by pragmatism and cynicism. They don't really believe in management or in the company or the product, but they gotta stick around until their shares vest or whatever. Speaking for a friend.
  - alsetmusic 2y ago
    > They don't really believe in management or in the company or the product, but they gotta stick around until their shares vest or whatever. This is exactly what I’m referring to when I tell people that the tech industry changed and is no longer fulfilling.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  > they don't go against the elite. They see themselves as the elite. These are not the only two options. Deciding some people are "the elite" and defining people as being either part of that group or in opposition to it is your choice, but it is not the only choice.
  - PittleyDunkin 2y ago
    [flagged]
lmm 2y ago
> Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you is a universally valuable experience, especially for people who would fashion themselves as "not average." Nope. For some people it may be valuable. For me it was miserable, almost to the point of being deadly. It does not prepare you for adulthood or life or what have you in any meaningful sense (think about what would happen in your everyday life if someone e.g. decided you had insulted them somehow, and punched you. Think about how different your experience of that probably is to the average person. And then think about what that experience is like for a schoolkid). It's just a whole load of unnecessary suffering.
- crabbone 2y ago
  Your argument is similar to burning the house down, once you discover that you don't like the couch in the living room. Or, more realistically, arguing against taxation based on the idea that rich people avoid being taxed anyways, and it's only poor people who will get the short end of the stick. The school system isn't perfect, and is hard to improve due to many reasons, but this doesn't mean we shouldn't try. It has a purpose which is much more important than the suffering of any individual who goes through it. It's a shared good that can only be made better if everyone participates. When people who can contribute the most are allowed to be excluded, the whole thing becomes worthless. But, guess what, those who thought that they may be exempt from contributing to the public pool will inevitably find out that the public who was in this way deprived of a public good hates them, and will eventually come after them with pitchforks and torches.
  - programjames 2y ago
    > The school system isn't perfect, and is hard to improve due to many reasons, but this doesn't mean we shouldn't try. The people you hear giving up today have tried to fix the system. It's a little insulting to insinuate otherwise. When I was in high school, I tried to start a CS club, but no one was interested. I helped run MATHCOUNTS at the local middle school, and we had five people show up on a good day (<1% of the student body). Most students don't care anymore, and why should they when you have to fight the school to take AP Biology as a freshman? Gifted programs are being eliminated in the name of equity, and common core standards are lower than they ever have been. A friend who immigrated in seventh grade said America's seventh grade math classes are years behind China's (and she went to a better school than me). How do you get years behind in seven years?! I don't think it is possible to fix the education system. The student body has adopted an anti-learning culture, administrators are lowering standards to raise their metrics, and most teachers would be wholly unfit for an ideal classroom, let alone the ones they're supposed to oversee nowadays. I am all for "burning the house down". I think the best solution would be to fire everyone, raise salaries by 10x, and then hire back 10% as many people. After all, the professorship pyramid scheme has lots of PhDs who might be interested in teaching for $300K/year.
pfannkuchen 2y ago
> Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you is a universally valuable experience While true, it is true as like a side quest. Just because something is valuable doesn’t mean you should revolve your life around it.
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Sam6late 2y ago
Exposure to Diverse Perspectives: Diverse classrooms can expose students to different viewpoints, problem-solving approaches, and ways of thinking. 1 This can broaden their understanding and enhance their critical thinking skills. 2 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262420245_Effects_of_Diversity_Experiences_on_Critical_Thinking_Skills_Over_Four_Years_of_College#:~:text=(2006)%2C https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262420245_Effects_o... Gurin (1999,college is significantly linked to
hackernoops 2y ago
Average people aren't the problem. It's the below average. And that low getting lower is indulged for some reason.
scotty79 2y ago
"Average" does a lot of heavy lifiting here. People who affluent try to avoid are dangerous, mentally scarred and physically sick people. And if that's who you call average then it's a testament to failure of society and our systems. That's what the affluent are trying to check out of. They are the only ones who can try.
ajsnigrutin 2y ago
For me, it wasn't the "stay away from average people" but "remove the bottom percenters", and that made schooling much better. Out here, in my schooling, the first stage of schooling was an elementary school, from ~7-15yo (8 years), and by default, you're enrolled into the nearest school to your home. Sometimes there are ways to choose other schools, but all the other pupils there, are there, because it's their nearest school. What that means is, that you have, in a same class group (~25 people) a wide distribution of capabilities but also mental states, behaviours, etc. From geniuses that contribute to the whole schooling experience, to kids who somehow manage to stay basically illiterate even after 8 years of schooling, and just cause problems for everyone else. What that means is, that many of the lectures are based around trying to get the lower percentiles to learn at least enough for a minimum passing grade, and the top percentiles are either bored or lose interest. + all the behavioural issues. After you finished elementary school, your grades of the last few years (2? i forgot) are calculated, you do some standardized testing, the numbers are calculated by some formula, and you get a numeric score, that is then used to enroll into high schools (and in most cases, the top X candidates by that score get accepted to a school, depending on how many apply, and how many open spots (X) there are. There are many high school options, but most of the smarter kids enroll to 'general' high schools (gymansiums) for the next 4 years (and then college), and even those have reputations for some being better, and others worse, even though they technically teach by the same teaching programme (same courses, same subjects,...). Why are some better? Because smarter kids apply, and you get a high school where ALL of the students are from the "top 20%" of elementary schoolers. That means that teachers don't have to waste their time on "illiterate" kids, there are less behaviour problems, if everyone in class understands the lecture relatively quickly, the teacher can add some extra "college level" lectures, etc. This, for better students, is a much better learning experience, both from school lecture experience, to general interactions with classmates (where you're not the only smart one in the class and have noone to help). Add to this that smarter kids usually have smarter, more involved parents, and that means that also the teachers have to bring out their A-game, and not just bare minimum to get the kids a passing grade, because the grades and (another) standardized testing is then used to apply to colleges. So yeah... some separation is not a bad thing. TLDR: "staying away from averages" might sound stupid, but "removing the 'worst' students lets others perform better" is IMHO true.
tomp 2y ago
> "Average" people are the norm, the reality that "not average" people will have to deal with for the rest of their lives. What are you talking about?! I'm a highly educated, "high class" (professional career) person, and I've been socially segregated from "average" people since high school (so, since I was 15). Literally primary school was the last time I ever interacted with "average" people in a meaningful way (beyond "hi, thanks" to the supermarket cashier/bank teller). Society truly does segregate you by social class, and unless you truly seek different classes (which I don't really, I'm a geek so my interests are quite niche) you don't "normally" interact. No wonder that "elitist" politicians are so removed from the "average" people (hint: Brexit, Trunmp). Thank god for Twitter, allowing to break social bubbles at least a little bit!
- philipwhiuk 2y ago
  Trump isn't in any way "average". He's been more separated from "average" people than you have.
  - tomp 2y ago
    No, the point is that the preferences of "average" people (Brexit, Trump) are surprising for the "elites".
- crabbone 2y ago
  The fact that you don't personally meet with "average" people isn't the point. The point is that they exist, and they affect your existence, and they will not and cannot be made to disappear. The "average" people have to share resources with you, and in a way the resources cannot be segregated... unless we start building colonies in space, and send "non-average" people there or some similar dystopian project.
  - programjames 2y ago
    Someone comes in with a gripe that the bottom quintile imposes negative externalities on their education system. Your response is that the same people impose positive externalities when they grow up. These are not the same. If they were still imposing negative externalities when they grow up, I wouldn't want them to exist around me, and sending "non-average" people to space or some similar dystopian project [or jail] would be the correct game-theoretical response.
dani__german 2y ago
Exclusion of "average people" is fundamentally required for private property to exist, one of Humanity's best inventions. Few people enjoy private aspects of their life out in public. It is a completely natural and morally good thing to want your own space and to raise your kids your own way. Your kids don't need to be exposed to the often violent whims of society's bottom quartile for 8 hours a day for more than a decade. It doesn't need to happen. It would be better if it did not. It is a net negative experience, whose main lesson is: avoid these people. That can be taught pretty quickly by a parent.
- crabbone 2y ago
  You missed the point: if you don't like how school work today, you need to improve the schools. If you are saving yourself, especially before helping others (because you have the means that others probably don't), you are the bad person in this situation, and you should reflect on your ethical position some time, preferably soon.
  - dani__german 2y ago
    Your suggestion that the educational system, any meaningful part of it, is welcoming of constructive criticism of any kind is not compelling. The US government has put such enterprising parents on terrorist watch lists for speaking up at school board meetings. If a system is specifically set up against you, runs poorly, and in a real sense hates you, you have the option to let it fail without you. It is the polite, and least conflict path to leave it to its failure, and to forge your own way. On the other hand, listening to people who tell you that you are unethical, guilty of an *ism of some kind, or bad, does not have a good track record of success. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. What you suggest is specifically not going to happen on my part.
    - crabbone 2y ago
      > Your suggestion that the educational system, any meaningful part of it, is welcoming of constructive criticism of any kind is not compelling. Then you, as a conscientious citizen, need to put pressure back on the US government. Instead, you are trying to save yourself at the expense of others, who cannot save themselves. You are like a grown-up man, who's trying to escape a sinking ship by pushing women and children off the deck to make way to the lifeboat. I don't think your attitude warrants any kind of niceties. You should be treated like any other narcissistic egotist. It's not important to convince you, it's more important to either isolate you, or to prevent you from acting in the way you want by other means. Same way how it's not important to convince criminals to do good: it would've been nice if it was possible, but humans don't live long enough, and often lack capacity to reform, while the rest of the society usually lacks the resources to reform the offenders.
BeFlatXIII 2y ago
> Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you is a universally valuable experience, especially for people who would fashion themselves as "not average." Yet it's not worth the cost of a slowed curriculum.
- gmm1990 2y ago
  I'd argue social skills are more valuable than improved curriculum. Not saying you couldn't learn social skills outside of the school system too, but seems to me that curriculum is easier to learn outside of the system than social skills.
  - BeFlatXIII 2y ago
    The main social skill I seem to have taken away from K–12 is "man, I fuckin' hate normies"
rbanffy 2y ago
> Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you A billion times this. School is not to train you on Math, English or Science. It's also to teach you how to cooperate, how to reach consensus, how to make decisions as a group, and so on. These soft skills are absolutely critical to maintain a properly functioning society.
- volkk 2y ago
  why can't homeschooling involve the same attributes? genuine question. from what i've been seeing in modern trends, homeschooling doesn't literally mean you sit and your mother teaches you all day and then you "go home" by migrating to your bedroom. you're still in a small group with other children, all of whom likely still share characteristics where disagreements will naturally happen, and cooperation will need to occur to move forward. the way I see homeschooling is simply a parallel to the traditional public school path, but in smaller, more focused groups with a far more controlled environment. not seeing how this is inherently bad
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    > far more controlled environment They risk being able to function better in highly controlled environments with other kids that share the same background as them. Not optimal.
  - arccy 2y ago
    they risk being totally unprepared for less controlled environments later in life when it's harder to change habits, like in uni or in the workplace.
    - volkk 2y ago
      yeah i see the argument, and its an important skillset to be able to deal with chaos/bullies but this other part of me wonders whether dealing with bullying early on is healthy at all? to be clear, i do believe that tough personalities that aren't straight up bullying can still happen inside of a group homeschooled environment.
ToDougie 2y ago
I don't want my children to have to learn at the pace of the bottom quintile. Obviously average and less-than-average people exist. But I will _not_ be hamstringing my kids to placate the whims of the state or some "modern" moral standard. I know how harmful it is because I went through it.
- tomrod 2y ago
  I am a strong supporter of public school, to the point I volunteer often and advocate for them. "Whims of the state" -- I'd recommend you make sure to advocate for a strong department of education, which for its many activities is a facilitator of credentialing. It's fundamentally societal and operated politically and bureaucratically. '"modern" moral standard" -- I agree, we should target humanist ideals only as they are sourced from naturalism, otherwise we have neomodern or otherwise misaligned religious tenets creep in as "values" when they're really misplaced. Some folks advocating pro-religious values in schooling are quite insidious -- using religious freedom (where people have a right to practice in their homes and even the public square) as an injection to favor their religion as the majority in an area, to the exclusion of people who do not believe as they do. It's quite sad to see the Constitution, written fundamentally by Deists who were motivated more by motives closer to religious existentialism than current triumphalism, be run so roughshod over! If you meant something else by modern moral standard, my apologies, I simply see this common thought-terminating cliche in a lot of places and it falls apart with 2 seconds of introspection.
- RationPhantoms 2y ago
  At Least in the northeast US, there are advanced courses or tracts a student can be placed in if they're above their peers. Is that not the case in your schools?
- aalimov_ 2y ago
  Your perspective is valid, but I think its worth reconsidering some of the assumptions youre making. Assuming your child is above average may not always reflect reality. Being above average at a thing does not make you above average at all things. The public education system provides resources like gifted programs, AP courses, and extracurricular activities to challenge / engage students at all levels of above/below average. So if your kid is an advanced learner they can still thrive without being “hamstrung.” I think using terms like “hamstring” dismisses the value public education provides in fostering diversity of experiences, social skills, and engagement with peers.. things that cant be replicated in a homeschooling environment.
tristor 2y ago
>"Average" people are the norm, the reality that "not average" people will have to deal with for the rest of their lives. > Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you is a universally valuable experience, especially for people who would fashion themselves as "not average." Context is /everything/. Dealing with "average" people as an adult means dealing with them under the boundaries, strictures, customs, and etiquette of adults in your society enforced, in some sense at least, by laws, and with people are are, at least in theory, bound to serve and protect who will come to your aid when those boundaries are broken. Dealing with "average" people (really just the lowest quintile cause all the problems) for me in school resulted in multiple fractures, trips for stitches, and ultimately /my expulsion/ from one school district because I had the gall to hit back rather than just let some kid beat me to death while a teacher watched and did nothing. I've been accused of all manner of things in other comment threads for my ardent desire to protect my children from what you think of as "average", and I'll happily take your words and savor them because it means my children will never be beaten, robbed, see a dead body at a bus stop on their way home for school, or any of the other horrible shit that happened to me because I had to be surrounded by the "average". The entire point of my own economic mobility and gaining wealth was to create a better future for my children, and that /very much/ includes their education. You can take your exposure to the "average" a.k.a. unnecessary torture and shove it.

bdangubic 2y ago

"Average" people are the norm, the reality that "not average" people will have to deal with for the rest of their lives. if by “deal with” you mean serving them fries on their way to a ski trip, perhaps :)

syndicatedjelly 2y ago
I like to think you mean that the so-called “elites” end up studying some useless degree and only can get jobs as trust-fund burger stand employees, serving fries to the “dummies” who chose to work hard and become wealthy the old-fashioned way
- briHass 2y ago
  It was a reference to 'Good Will Hunting'. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's first movie.
  - riffraff 2y ago
    Both Ben Affleck and Matt Damon had movies before that. It was Damon's breakthrough for sure tho.
- scotty79 2y ago
  > who chose to work hard and become wealthy the old-fashioned way That's so last century. Now about as real as Santa. Now you can only get wealthy by inheritance or gambling. Even if it means gambling with you health you still need to win for it to amount to anything. There's absolutely no way to earn wealth now. I'm not sure if there ever was.
  - alvah 2y ago
    If you really think this way, you're absolutely correct you will never build wealth. It is definitely possible though.
    - scotty79 2y ago
      At some point in your life you'll look back at your past and notice how much of the hard work you did amounted to very little of your wealth and how most of your wealth can actually be attributed to gambles you took and won, even though similar people took similar gambles and lost. How the most work that contributed to your wealth wasn't particularly hard and some hard work you did actually delayed or diminished your success. At least you'll see it if you are going to be an honest person not one of those "I did it all by myself!" self-deluders.
      - alvah 2y ago
        At some point in your life you'll realise that not everyone thinks the same way as you do. Hopefully it happens for you before your mindset seriously dents your future prospects. Your original assertion "There's absolutely no way to earn wealth now" is ludicrous: was it possible a month ago? a year ago? a decade ago? Did anyone become wealthy through methods other than gambling or inheritance a month ago? a year ago? a decade ago? If even one person did, this disproves your assertion, unless you want to claim some as-yet-unmentioned recent change that made it possible then and impossible now. Your supporting theory about gambling is only true if you define every single choice you make in life as a gamble to some extent, which is a weird way of thinking about the world. As for the "you didn't build that" stuff & snark, I don't recall claiming I did anything all by myself, nor did I see anyone claim you have to do everything all by yourself to "earn wealth". Nice strawman.

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smilebot 2y ago

> It's difficult to feel optimistic about a society that thinks this way. Maybe that's not how society thinks? That's one person's opinion.

lotsofpulp 2y ago
The well known adage of “buy the cheapest house you can afford in the most expensive neighborhood” is a sign that is what many think. The rat race to make sure your kids are in league with other parents of similar or higher stature is a huge contributor to home price dynamics.
- forgetfreeman 2y ago
  Lol what? I've never heard that adage and it seems like really bad advice. Your neighbors aren't going to cut you a check at any point so what even is this.
  - gnkyfrg 2y ago
    It's about exposure to the way richer people think and access to the same community resources. Property taxes pay for schools. The best schools are in the richest communities.
    - forgetfreeman 2y ago
      Your local private school also isn't going to cut you a check, and I've yet to meet anyone with money that had a hard time sniffing out aspirational neighbors. Not buying it.
      - ndriscoll 2y ago
        The assumption is that upper class kids are more likely to have the types of behaviors and attitudes that you'd like your kids to adopt (e.g. getting a C or even a B is embarrassing/shameful, AP classes are table stakes, drug use bad, video games/tv limited, more likely to have intact households, expected to be polite/treat others respectfully) while lower class kids are more likely to have the types of behaviors and attitudes you'd like your kids to avoid (e.g. no point in applying yourself, parents have no idea what you're up to or how you're doing in school anyway, drug use normal or cool, kids raised by tv/computer/phone, family tree is more of a chain with random links sticking out, family yells at each other so loud the neighbors hear it). It's an attempt to manipulate the Overton window that your kid will encounter interacting with peers.

matrix87 2y ago

> Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you is a universally valuable experience, especially for people who would fashion themselves as "not average." If those people have worse habits, are less motivated, less educated, less cultured, what is there to gain from it? Seems like there's only something to lose from adjusting to their shittiness. Like Harrison Bergeron And seeing the state of California trying to push math classes later because of "equity", seeing public schools dissolving gifted programs, it makes me think that privatization is the only way forward instead of trying to make amends with the current progressive stupidity

woodruffw 2y ago
> If those people have worse habits, are less motivated, less educated, less cultured, what is there to gain from it? This is prejudice in the most basic sense: you literally don't know any of these things about the people you're surrounded by in a society. The person who rides the bus next to you could be a couch potato, or a talented artist, or something entirely different that simply isn't legible to you. I don't know anything about California's math classes. I'm saying that, on a basic level, anybody who thinks this way about people they don't know is demonstrating the exact traits they're smugly claiming to be above.
- deleted 2y ago
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- r3trohack3r 2y ago
  I feel like you and the parents post are compatible views of the world that could be simultaneously held in the same brain without dissonance. Reading your comment, it seems to focus on the individual. “The person” you know nothing about. The parent comment seems to be Bayesian, the probability of “the person” being something. I do think it’s possible to simultaneously believe that: * every single person you meet in every possible circumstance might be an exceptional human * your are more likely to encounter exceptional humans in specific circumstances and you can optimize for that I believe this holds true regardless of your definition of exceptional. A (maybe) obvious example: if you believe exceptional humans want to grow their own food and live on communes, you probably don’t want to live in the financial district of Manhattan. That would be a bad way to optimize for finding people who share your values. Similarly you’re unlikely to find a thriving software developer community in Springfield Illinois. If you go to Springfield and assume everyone you meet can’t program, you’re going to be wrong - there are good programmers there. But if you want to live around people who know how to code, you don’t move to Springfield Illinois.

pj_mukh 2y ago

I think a better question is: How did the median get so much better over 150 years, and why can't it keep getting better? 150 years ago, the average person was illiterate, poorer (in all senses of the word) and less connected to the world around them. Over a 100 year old grind, schooling fixed all that. Why can't it keep going? So the outlier, super special "phenom" today is the median of tomorrow.

Arainach 2y ago
>Why can't it keep going? Because an educated populace is harder for the ultrarich to control and abuse, because an educated populace with free time can revolt against those in power, and because as a consequence of those two things ultrarich conservatives have consolidated ownership of media and used it to defund education and convince the population that funding education is bad.
- rnd0 2y ago
  >Because an educated populace is harder for the ultrarich to control and abuse, This is the bottom line; this right here. We're being led to a second dark age ON PURPOSE.
- arkey 2y ago
  I agree with this and that's why I think social media, mass media and so on exist. However I'm curious as to why you attribute or limit this to 'conservatives' only. Is this really something exclusive or characteristic of the conservative side? At least where I am from it's the left that's more interventionist in regards to education rather than the right, that interventionism being used to make education more rigid and controlled by a biased government. And the media is definitely not consolidated, you've got clearly two sides competing at a pretty equal level.
  - jmb99 2y ago
    At least where I’m from, the majority of homeschooled children are in conservative Christian (or Mormon) families, with a minority (but still notable) in super-left-wing hippy families. Very, very few in non-extreme families.

chii 2y ago

> "Average" people are the norm society has always been this way, from the hunter gatherer days, to middle ages - that's why people want to become part of the elite. It's only recently that the average people have had the chance to become elites, rather than be born into it. But the desire to be elites, molded by evolutionary/darwinian pressure, is not gone, nor different, than in the past. Another word for it is "the human condition".

autoexec 2y ago
> It's only recently that the average people have had the chance to become elites, rather than be born into it. It still mostly depends on being born into it. In the US your odds of going from impoverished to wealthy are extremely slim and socioeconomic mobility is among the worst compared to other developed countries. The US falls behind South Korea, Lithuania, Estonia, Singapore, Malta, and Slovenia, while the Nordic countries top the list. Depending on the study, socioeconomic mobility in the US has either stagnated since the 1970s or actually declined. Average people have little hope of substantially improving the situation they were born into while the percentage of people born into wealth (but not the 1%) who slide downward in socioeconomic status grows. Wealth inequality continues to accelerate at an insane pace. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1962-_Net_personal_wealth_-_average_in_percentile_ranges_-_linear_scale_-_US.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1962-_Net_personal_wealth...) Just about everyone would like to be one of the "elites" but most people would be happy with a fair chance to meaningfully improve their lifestyle.
- ty6853 2y ago
  I know an extended family of third world impoverished immigrants who became middle class by basically all going to nursing school. It is almost a joke that all Filipinos become nurses, it's almost fool proof way to have at least a car, shitty apartment and decent food to eat. It's worth looking into for anyone who is stuck, none of it is particularly difficult to learn although it is hard work.
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gnkyfrg 2y ago

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cjbgkagh 2y ago

Thoroughly disagree, and I can draw on my experience of meeting average people to know that it wasn’t a universally valuable experience and I much prefer spending time around people that are more like myself. Perhaps that is what you meant by the valuable experience, to be disabused of my illusion that meeting average people was a good idea. Having learned that lesson I shouldn’t have to repeat it. Also, I don’t have to deal with average people, I have apps that do that for me. Having said that, two things can be true, I can prefer not to be around average people and I can be concerned for their lack of flourishing as I do prefer to live in more egalitarian society, especially one that can have better averages.

gunian 2y ago
people pretend to be this welcoming learned creatures but in reality it's still referral by people, who you know, like working with people that look like us etc no better place to see that than in tech and HN

alexashka 2y ago

> It's difficult to feel optimistic about a society that thinks this way, much less has a cultural and economic elite that is seemingly emboldened to think this way Optimism is the default state of non-broken children. Sober realism is what's needed and required from adults. Time to graduate - we have enough optimistic children running around with scissors already :)

ErigmolCt 2y ago

Not to forget that "Average" people are, in many ways, the foundation of any functioning society.

programjames 2y ago
Not since the industrial revolution.

endofreach 2y ago

> These tech parents are hackers by nature Why? Being in tech doesn't make you a hacker. Most people, even very talented engineers, are still happy to follow boss, do a 9 to 5, and don't really bend or break the rules... they don't go against the elite. They see themselves as the elite.

bill_joy_fanboy 2y ago
> Being in tech doesn't make you a hacker. Agreed. "Tech" includes a lot of people who are not hackers. It's worth pointing out though that the "hacker" types who go with the flow are in many cases doing so motivated by pragmatism and cynicism. They don't really believe in management or in the company or the product, but they gotta stick around until their shares vest or whatever. Speaking for a friend.
- alsetmusic 2y ago
  > They don't really believe in management or in the company or the product, but they gotta stick around until their shares vest or whatever. This is exactly what I’m referring to when I tell people that the tech industry changed and is no longer fulfilling.
robertlagrant 2y ago
> they don't go against the elite. They see themselves as the elite. These are not the only two options. Deciding some people are "the elite" and defining people as being either part of that group or in opposition to it is your choice, but it is not the only choice.
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago
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lmm 2y ago

> Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you is a universally valuable experience, especially for people who would fashion themselves as "not average." Nope. For some people it may be valuable. For me it was miserable, almost to the point of being deadly. It does not prepare you for adulthood or life or what have you in any meaningful sense (think about what would happen in your everyday life if someone e.g. decided you had insulted them somehow, and punched you. Think about how different your experience of that probably is to the average person. And then think about what that experience is like for a schoolkid). It's just a whole load of unnecessary suffering.

crabbone 2y ago
Your argument is similar to burning the house down, once you discover that you don't like the couch in the living room. Or, more realistically, arguing against taxation based on the idea that rich people avoid being taxed anyways, and it's only poor people who will get the short end of the stick. The school system isn't perfect, and is hard to improve due to many reasons, but this doesn't mean we shouldn't try. It has a purpose which is much more important than the suffering of any individual who goes through it. It's a shared good that can only be made better if everyone participates. When people who can contribute the most are allowed to be excluded, the whole thing becomes worthless. But, guess what, those who thought that they may be exempt from contributing to the public pool will inevitably find out that the public who was in this way deprived of a public good hates them, and will eventually come after them with pitchforks and torches.
- programjames 2y ago
  > The school system isn't perfect, and is hard to improve due to many reasons, but this doesn't mean we shouldn't try. The people you hear giving up today have tried to fix the system. It's a little insulting to insinuate otherwise. When I was in high school, I tried to start a CS club, but no one was interested. I helped run MATHCOUNTS at the local middle school, and we had five people show up on a good day (<1% of the student body). Most students don't care anymore, and why should they when you have to fight the school to take AP Biology as a freshman? Gifted programs are being eliminated in the name of equity, and common core standards are lower than they ever have been. A friend who immigrated in seventh grade said America's seventh grade math classes are years behind China's (and she went to a better school than me). How do you get years behind in seven years?! I don't think it is possible to fix the education system. The student body has adopted an anti-learning culture, administrators are lowering standards to raise their metrics, and most teachers would be wholly unfit for an ideal classroom, let alone the ones they're supposed to oversee nowadays. I am all for "burning the house down". I think the best solution would be to fire everyone, raise salaries by 10x, and then hire back 10% as many people. After all, the professorship pyramid scheme has lots of PhDs who might be interested in teaching for $300K/year.

pfannkuchen 2y ago

> Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you is a universally valuable experience While true, it is true as like a side quest. Just because something is valuable doesn’t mean you should revolve your life around it.

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Sam6late 2y ago

Exposure to Diverse Perspectives: Diverse classrooms can expose students to different viewpoints, problem-solving approaches, and ways of thinking. 1 This can broaden their understanding and enhance their critical thinking skills. 2 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262420245_Effects_of_Diversity_Experiences_on_Critical_Thinking_Skills_Over_Four_Years_of_College#:~:text=(2006)%2C https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262420245_Effects_o... Gurin (1999,college is significantly linked to

hackernoops 2y ago

Average people aren't the problem. It's the below average. And that low getting lower is indulged for some reason.

scotty79 2y ago

"Average" does a lot of heavy lifiting here. People who affluent try to avoid are dangerous, mentally scarred and physically sick people. And if that's who you call average then it's a testament to failure of society and our systems. That's what the affluent are trying to check out of. They are the only ones who can try.

ajsnigrutin 2y ago

For me, it wasn't the "stay away from average people" but "remove the bottom percenters", and that made schooling much better. Out here, in my schooling, the first stage of schooling was an elementary school, from ~7-15yo (8 years), and by default, you're enrolled into the nearest school to your home. Sometimes there are ways to choose other schools, but all the other pupils there, are there, because it's their nearest school. What that means is, that you have, in a same class group (~25 people) a wide distribution of capabilities but also mental states, behaviours, etc. From geniuses that contribute to the whole schooling experience, to kids who somehow manage to stay basically illiterate even after 8 years of schooling, and just cause problems for everyone else. What that means is, that many of the lectures are based around trying to get the lower percentiles to learn at least enough for a minimum passing grade, and the top percentiles are either bored or lose interest. + all the behavioural issues. After you finished elementary school, your grades of the last few years (2? i forgot) are calculated, you do some standardized testing, the numbers are calculated by some formula, and you get a numeric score, that is then used to enroll into high schools (and in most cases, the top X candidates by that score get accepted to a school, depending on how many apply, and how many open spots (X) there are. There are many high school options, but most of the smarter kids enroll to 'general' high schools (gymansiums) for the next 4 years (and then college), and even those have reputations for some being better, and others worse, even though they technically teach by the same teaching programme (same courses, same subjects,...). Why are some better? Because smarter kids apply, and you get a high school where ALL of the students are from the "top 20%" of elementary schoolers. That means that teachers don't have to waste their time on "illiterate" kids, there are less behaviour problems, if everyone in class understands the lecture relatively quickly, the teacher can add some extra "college level" lectures, etc. This, for better students, is a much better learning experience, both from school lecture experience, to general interactions with classmates (where you're not the only smart one in the class and have noone to help). Add to this that smarter kids usually have smarter, more involved parents, and that means that also the teachers have to bring out their A-game, and not just bare minimum to get the kids a passing grade, because the grades and (another) standardized testing is then used to apply to colleges. So yeah... some separation is not a bad thing. TLDR: "staying away from averages" might sound stupid, but "removing the 'worst' students lets others perform better" is IMHO true.

tomp 2y ago

> "Average" people are the norm, the reality that "not average" people will have to deal with for the rest of their lives. What are you talking about?! I'm a highly educated, "high class" (professional career) person, and I've been socially segregated from "average" people since high school (so, since I was 15). Literally primary school was the last time I ever interacted with "average" people in a meaningful way (beyond "hi, thanks" to the supermarket cashier/bank teller). Society truly does segregate you by social class, and unless you truly seek different classes (which I don't really, I'm a geek so my interests are quite niche) you don't "normally" interact. No wonder that "elitist" politicians are so removed from the "average" people (hint: Brexit, Trunmp). Thank god for Twitter, allowing to break social bubbles at least a little bit!

philipwhiuk 2y ago
Trump isn't in any way "average". He's been more separated from "average" people than you have.
- tomp 2y ago
  No, the point is that the preferences of "average" people (Brexit, Trump) are surprising for the "elites".
crabbone 2y ago
The fact that you don't personally meet with "average" people isn't the point. The point is that they exist, and they affect your existence, and they will not and cannot be made to disappear. The "average" people have to share resources with you, and in a way the resources cannot be segregated... unless we start building colonies in space, and send "non-average" people there or some similar dystopian project.
- programjames 2y ago
  Someone comes in with a gripe that the bottom quintile imposes negative externalities on their education system. Your response is that the same people impose positive externalities when they grow up. These are not the same. If they were still imposing negative externalities when they grow up, I wouldn't want them to exist around me, and sending "non-average" people to space or some similar dystopian project [or jail] would be the correct game-theoretical response.

dani__german 2y ago

Exclusion of "average people" is fundamentally required for private property to exist, one of Humanity's best inventions. Few people enjoy private aspects of their life out in public. It is a completely natural and morally good thing to want your own space and to raise your kids your own way. Your kids don't need to be exposed to the often violent whims of society's bottom quartile for 8 hours a day for more than a decade. It doesn't need to happen. It would be better if it did not. It is a net negative experience, whose main lesson is: avoid these people. That can be taught pretty quickly by a parent.

crabbone 2y ago
You missed the point: if you don't like how school work today, you need to improve the schools. If you are saving yourself, especially before helping others (because you have the means that others probably don't), you are the bad person in this situation, and you should reflect on your ethical position some time, preferably soon.
- dani__german 2y ago
  Your suggestion that the educational system, any meaningful part of it, is welcoming of constructive criticism of any kind is not compelling. The US government has put such enterprising parents on terrorist watch lists for speaking up at school board meetings. If a system is specifically set up against you, runs poorly, and in a real sense hates you, you have the option to let it fail without you. It is the polite, and least conflict path to leave it to its failure, and to forge your own way. On the other hand, listening to people who tell you that you are unethical, guilty of an *ism of some kind, or bad, does not have a good track record of success. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. What you suggest is specifically not going to happen on my part.
  - crabbone 2y ago
    > Your suggestion that the educational system, any meaningful part of it, is welcoming of constructive criticism of any kind is not compelling. Then you, as a conscientious citizen, need to put pressure back on the US government. Instead, you are trying to save yourself at the expense of others, who cannot save themselves. You are like a grown-up man, who's trying to escape a sinking ship by pushing women and children off the deck to make way to the lifeboat. I don't think your attitude warrants any kind of niceties. You should be treated like any other narcissistic egotist. It's not important to convince you, it's more important to either isolate you, or to prevent you from acting in the way you want by other means. Same way how it's not important to convince criminals to do good: it would've been nice if it was possible, but humans don't live long enough, and often lack capacity to reform, while the rest of the society usually lacks the resources to reform the offenders.

BeFlatXIII 2y ago

> Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you is a universally valuable experience, especially for people who would fashion themselves as "not average." Yet it's not worth the cost of a slowed curriculum.

gmm1990 2y ago
I'd argue social skills are more valuable than improved curriculum. Not saying you couldn't learn social skills outside of the school system too, but seems to me that curriculum is easier to learn outside of the system than social skills.
- BeFlatXIII 2y ago
  The main social skill I seem to have taken away from K–12 is "man, I fuckin' hate normies"

rbanffy 2y ago

> Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you A billion times this. School is not to train you on Math, English or Science. It's also to teach you how to cooperate, how to reach consensus, how to make decisions as a group, and so on. These soft skills are absolutely critical to maintain a properly functioning society.

volkk 2y ago
why can't homeschooling involve the same attributes? genuine question. from what i've been seeing in modern trends, homeschooling doesn't literally mean you sit and your mother teaches you all day and then you "go home" by migrating to your bedroom. you're still in a small group with other children, all of whom likely still share characteristics where disagreements will naturally happen, and cooperation will need to occur to move forward. the way I see homeschooling is simply a parallel to the traditional public school path, but in smaller, more focused groups with a far more controlled environment. not seeing how this is inherently bad
- rbanffy 2y ago
  > far more controlled environment They risk being able to function better in highly controlled environments with other kids that share the same background as them. Not optimal.
- arccy 2y ago
  they risk being totally unprepared for less controlled environments later in life when it's harder to change habits, like in uni or in the workplace.
  - volkk 2y ago
    yeah i see the argument, and its an important skillset to be able to deal with chaos/bullies but this other part of me wonders whether dealing with bullying early on is healthy at all? to be clear, i do believe that tough personalities that aren't straight up bullying can still happen inside of a group homeschooled environment.

ToDougie 2y ago

I don't want my children to have to learn at the pace of the bottom quintile. Obviously average and less-than-average people exist. But I will _not_ be hamstringing my kids to placate the whims of the state or some "modern" moral standard. I know how harmful it is because I went through it.

tomrod 2y ago
I am a strong supporter of public school, to the point I volunteer often and advocate for them. "Whims of the state" -- I'd recommend you make sure to advocate for a strong department of education, which for its many activities is a facilitator of credentialing. It's fundamentally societal and operated politically and bureaucratically. '"modern" moral standard" -- I agree, we should target humanist ideals only as they are sourced from naturalism, otherwise we have neomodern or otherwise misaligned religious tenets creep in as "values" when they're really misplaced. Some folks advocating pro-religious values in schooling are quite insidious -- using religious freedom (where people have a right to practice in their homes and even the public square) as an injection to favor their religion as the majority in an area, to the exclusion of people who do not believe as they do. It's quite sad to see the Constitution, written fundamentally by Deists who were motivated more by motives closer to religious existentialism than current triumphalism, be run so roughshod over! If you meant something else by modern moral standard, my apologies, I simply see this common thought-terminating cliche in a lot of places and it falls apart with 2 seconds of introspection.
RationPhantoms 2y ago
At Least in the northeast US, there are advanced courses or tracts a student can be placed in if they're above their peers. Is that not the case in your schools?
aalimov_ 2y ago
Your perspective is valid, but I think its worth reconsidering some of the assumptions youre making. Assuming your child is above average may not always reflect reality. Being above average at a thing does not make you above average at all things. The public education system provides resources like gifted programs, AP courses, and extracurricular activities to challenge / engage students at all levels of above/below average. So if your kid is an advanced learner they can still thrive without being “hamstrung.” I think using terms like “hamstring” dismisses the value public education provides in fostering diversity of experiences, social skills, and engagement with peers.. things that cant be replicated in a homeschooling environment.

tristor 2y ago

>"Average" people are the norm, the reality that "not average" people will have to deal with for the rest of their lives. > Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you is a universally valuable experience, especially for people who would fashion themselves as "not average." Context is /everything/. Dealing with "average" people as an adult means dealing with them under the boundaries, strictures, customs, and etiquette of adults in your society enforced, in some sense at least, by laws, and with people are are, at least in theory, bound to serve and protect who will come to your aid when those boundaries are broken. Dealing with "average" people (really just the lowest quintile cause all the problems) for me in school resulted in multiple fractures, trips for stitches, and ultimately /my expulsion/ from one school district because I had the gall to hit back rather than just let some kid beat me to death while a teacher watched and did nothing. I've been accused of all manner of things in other comment threads for my ardent desire to protect my children from what you think of as "average", and I'll happily take your words and savor them because it means my children will never be beaten, robbed, see a dead body at a bus stop on their way home for school, or any of the other horrible shit that happened to me because I had to be surrounded by the "average". The entire point of my own economic mobility and gaining wealth was to create a better future for my children, and that /very much/ includes their education. You can take your exposure to the "average" a.k.a. unnecessary torture and shove it.