8 ms·

I know what you're trying to say, and I understand that you believe you have a set of individuals with upbringings that are relatively equal, for all intents an

by Denzel 13y ago

I know what you're trying to say, and I understand that you believe you have a set of individuals with upbringings that are relatively equal, for all intents and purposes, but as an African-American your comment rubs me the wrong way. Sometimes, even when people come from the same family, you have to realize that each person's situation is unique. Especially when you have such a disparity in age: from 42 years old to 18 years old. Allow me to present some counter anecdotal "evidence." I have two brothers. We're all 6 years apart; I'm 21, the middle is 27, and the oldest is 33. We've ended up in vastly different situations due to a series of personal choices affected and limited by the environment we were given. The environment that one grows up in, even within their family, is such an important factor. The amount of money and mobility my parents had, when my oldest brother was born, was an order of a magnitude less than what they had when I was born. As a result, my oldest brother's only option was public school in an underfunded district for grades 1-12. College was out of the qusetion, even if he could make it! On the other hand, my middle brother had the option to go to private school for grades 1-12, and graduated from University of Miami. For me, it was private school for grades 1-8, and when my parents were faced with the decision of sending me to the same public school my oldest brother went to, they moved instead to send me to one of the best public schools in the state. My oldest brother didn't have that option. So when you see my oldest brother unable to hold down a moderately well-paying blue-collar job, and me working a low six-figure white-collar job, you can't simply say that one of us needs to "step it up." We are largely a product of the totality of our environment.

bluedino 13y ago
I understand what you're trying to say. The youngest siblings can have the advantage of seeings their older siblings success/failure and then attempt to emulate, or avoid that. They can also fall into the trap of being taken care of by the older siblings. >> Especially when you have such a disparity in age: from 42 years old to 18 years old. You're making the assumption that the successful children are all similar in age. They're not. >> As a result, my oldest brother's only option was public school in an underfunded district for grades 1-12. College was out of the qusetion, even if he could make it! None of your brothers classmates made it beyond high school?
- Denzel 13y ago
  Interesting, I'd be all for hearing more about your observations. Feel free to shoot me an email: [HN name].morris1 'at' gmail. >> None of your brothers classmates made it beyond high school? I can't say for sure because it's difficult to find the statistics from back then. The difference in expectations between the schools is definitely palpable. (I tutored there throughout HS.) Even in comparison today, his school's graduation rate is 63% and is ranked 482nd out of 489 districts by state assessment scores, while my school has a graduation rate of 94% and ranks in the top 5%.
  - goggles99 13y ago
    >Even in comparison today, his school's graduation rate is 63% and is ranked 482nd out of 489 districts by state assessment scores, while my school has a graduation rate of 94% and ranks in the top 5%. I am curious if you believe that this is because the schools was a bad school (under-funded, bad teachers and administrators), or because the parents of the kids that attended there were generally lower than average quality parents? (on drugs, welfare baby mommas, abusive, spend all their free time watching TV and not disciplining or spending any time with their children, non loving, single parent with 3 jobs to make ends meat, ETC.)
bedhead 13y ago
The problem is that you cannot say whether your older brother is the way he is because of a lifetime of crummy public schooling or just because he's wired that way. The age old causation vs correlation issue. All else equal (in this case, primarily your family), I don't think school quality has much to do with whether you are relatively dysfunctional as an adult. Family values, work ethic, and god-given intelligence probably make up 95% of your outcome in life.
- GVIrish 13y ago
  School quality absolutely has a big impact on how well you do in life, that's not even a question. If you go to a school where most of your classmates read 2 or 3 grades below grade level and your teachers struggle every day to maintain order in the class, much less teach the actual subjects, of course it hurts the students. When you go to a school that is overrun with gangs and you have to take care when walking home from school lest you get gunned down, that certainly makes it far more difficult to do well in school. A kid's upbringing and environment at home also play very large factors. Truth is that all of those things matter. I think whether or not someone does well in life is game of probabilities. If you go to a bad school, it lowers your probability of doing well in life. If they have great parents maybe that cancels out that negative, maybe it doesn't. Some people will beat the odds and do well at a bad school with bad parenting. But that doesn't mean that access to a quality school doesn't have a big impact.
  - bedhead 13y ago
    Well, I suppose you are right, but you have to cite an extreme case of literally worrying about getting murdered every day. Do those schools exist? Yes, but they are few and far between, and there is a world of difference between "underfunded" and the case you're citing. Since the original comment made no mention of a gangland war zone at his brother's school (seems relevant to the story) I assumed this was not the case, though I could be wrong in which case I'll concede the point. Does school quality have an impact? Sure, I think around the edges it does. It can certainly grease the wheels. But over time the people who are wired properly for success (good values, work ethic, god-given intelligence) usually figure out a way. Perhaps more accurately, they don't live relatively dysfunctional adult lives and are unable to hold "neck down" jobs.
joyeuse6701 13y ago
Interestingly, both of you highlight other factors aside from your ethnic background as the main reason for success or failure. So then, what is the difference between white and east Asians vs black/latino/south east Asians? (I add the split between Asian groups because there is definitely a difference in prosperity)
- Denzel 13y ago
  Good question. It's one that puzzles me every day. While my ethnic background appears to have had no bearing on my life, it most certainly affected my parents' lives.
  - bluedino 13y ago
    >> While my ethnic background appears to have had no bearing on my life Of course it has. You have to realize that everyone you encounter in your life is going to judge you differently based on your height, weight, clothes, skin color, hairstyle, and even your name. When you go for a job interview or on a sales call, people are going to have pre-concieved notions and their judgement affected by the name on your email signature. If you're 'Tom Gomez' or 'Dave Johnson' you're going to have pretty good head start over someone named 'Alejandra DeJesus Valtierra' or 'Wumi Hassan Abdullah'. If you're good and you can get past that, people don't care. You'll become 'my friend Hassan', or 'I know that guy with the dreads, I should introduce you'. But as unfair as it is, and it shouldn't be, it does affect first impressions. We're all guilty of it.
- bluedino 13y ago
  Your typical 'successful' Asian student most likely had the stereotypical strict Asian parents who placed school success very highly. Obviously all the parents aren't like that and you get Asian kids who join gangs and such.
sliverstorm 13y ago
as an African-American your comment rubs me the wrong way Can you briefly expand on why/how your ethnicity factors into your displeasure with his comment?
- Denzel 13y ago
  >> The truth is blacks and Latinos need to step it up. This generalized statement, specifically. I don't enjoy treating "blacks" as a group anymore than I like seeing "latinos" or "whites" treated as one. Most situations are unique to an individual.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Ok. I suspected it was something along those lines, but I wasn't quite sure as your specific objection to his logic was nothing to do with ethnicity.
goggles99 13y ago
So your parents sent your middle brother to private school from first grade on and simultaneously kept your oldest brother in a stink hole situation? That sounds pretty rough. Why didn't they put the oldest in private school instead? Surely by 7th grade you can see that there are problems there. Perhaps by 12 grade in the private school, he could have turned things around. Perhaps it was the mere fact that the younger brother was given such preferential treatment that the older never became successful. Perhaps it was the fact that your parents became better parents with more experience, or because they were less stressed out since they did not have the financial hardship that they had before. I am not trying to discount your story, but the problem lies in the fact that it can be compared with plenty of other similar situations as yours but having completely different results (the kids in public school fared better in life). Quality of school definitely CAN have a profound effect on a child's life. But in my experience and personal observation, this is only because of a failure on the parenting side. If a child is reared with enough love and enough wisdom, discipline and vision is imparted into them before, and during the school years - they will do fine if they are in a run down inner city school, or a middle class private school. So maybe you say that this is unfair that some parents have to raise their kids with such diligence to have them succeed, while some others don't (because of economic factors). Trust me, the kid and parents in the situation where extra attention is needed to enhance the likelihood of success in the child's life are better off and happier people than a wealthy parent that hires a nanny to raise their kids and sends them to private school. Which situation is true parenting after all? Which kid will carry on a true legacy of their parents and hold their ideals and values continuing their legacy?
- Denzel 13y ago
  >> Surely by 7th grade you can see that there are problems there. Perhaps by 12 grade in the private school, he could have turned things around. My parents didn't have the money to pay for private school. Both myself and my middle brother earned fully paid scholarships. They tried to send my oldest brother to the same private school, but due to his entrance exams, that would've required $20K a year that they didn't have. You're right, we don't know what the cause is. Whether it's the school or the parents, my point was that you can't just look at an individual and tell them to "step it up." It's not that simple.

by Denzel 13y ago

bluedino 13y ago

I understand what you're trying to say. The youngest siblings can have the advantage of seeings their older siblings success/failure and then attempt to emulate, or avoid that. They can also fall into the trap of being taken care of by the older siblings. >> Especially when you have such a disparity in age: from 42 years old to 18 years old. You're making the assumption that the successful children are all similar in age. They're not. >> As a result, my oldest brother's only option was public school in an underfunded district for grades 1-12. College was out of the qusetion, even if he could make it! None of your brothers classmates made it beyond high school?

Denzel 13y ago
Interesting, I'd be all for hearing more about your observations. Feel free to shoot me an email: [HN name].morris1 'at' gmail. >> None of your brothers classmates made it beyond high school? I can't say for sure because it's difficult to find the statistics from back then. The difference in expectations between the schools is definitely palpable. (I tutored there throughout HS.) Even in comparison today, his school's graduation rate is 63% and is ranked 482nd out of 489 districts by state assessment scores, while my school has a graduation rate of 94% and ranks in the top 5%.
- goggles99 13y ago
  >Even in comparison today, his school's graduation rate is 63% and is ranked 482nd out of 489 districts by state assessment scores, while my school has a graduation rate of 94% and ranks in the top 5%. I am curious if you believe that this is because the schools was a bad school (under-funded, bad teachers and administrators), or because the parents of the kids that attended there were generally lower than average quality parents? (on drugs, welfare baby mommas, abusive, spend all their free time watching TV and not disciplining or spending any time with their children, non loving, single parent with 3 jobs to make ends meat, ETC.)

bedhead 13y ago

The problem is that you cannot say whether your older brother is the way he is because of a lifetime of crummy public schooling or just because he's wired that way. The age old causation vs correlation issue. All else equal (in this case, primarily your family), I don't think school quality has much to do with whether you are relatively dysfunctional as an adult. Family values, work ethic, and god-given intelligence probably make up 95% of your outcome in life.

GVIrish 13y ago
School quality absolutely has a big impact on how well you do in life, that's not even a question. If you go to a school where most of your classmates read 2 or 3 grades below grade level and your teachers struggle every day to maintain order in the class, much less teach the actual subjects, of course it hurts the students. When you go to a school that is overrun with gangs and you have to take care when walking home from school lest you get gunned down, that certainly makes it far more difficult to do well in school. A kid's upbringing and environment at home also play very large factors. Truth is that all of those things matter. I think whether or not someone does well in life is game of probabilities. If you go to a bad school, it lowers your probability of doing well in life. If they have great parents maybe that cancels out that negative, maybe it doesn't. Some people will beat the odds and do well at a bad school with bad parenting. But that doesn't mean that access to a quality school doesn't have a big impact.
- bedhead 13y ago
  Well, I suppose you are right, but you have to cite an extreme case of literally worrying about getting murdered every day. Do those schools exist? Yes, but they are few and far between, and there is a world of difference between "underfunded" and the case you're citing. Since the original comment made no mention of a gangland war zone at his brother's school (seems relevant to the story) I assumed this was not the case, though I could be wrong in which case I'll concede the point. Does school quality have an impact? Sure, I think around the edges it does. It can certainly grease the wheels. But over time the people who are wired properly for success (good values, work ethic, god-given intelligence) usually figure out a way. Perhaps more accurately, they don't live relatively dysfunctional adult lives and are unable to hold "neck down" jobs.

joyeuse6701 13y ago

Interestingly, both of you highlight other factors aside from your ethnic background as the main reason for success or failure. So then, what is the difference between white and east Asians vs black/latino/south east Asians? (I add the split between Asian groups because there is definitely a difference in prosperity)

Denzel 13y ago
Good question. It's one that puzzles me every day. While my ethnic background appears to have had no bearing on my life, it most certainly affected my parents' lives.
- bluedino 13y ago
  >> While my ethnic background appears to have had no bearing on my life Of course it has. You have to realize that everyone you encounter in your life is going to judge you differently based on your height, weight, clothes, skin color, hairstyle, and even your name. When you go for a job interview or on a sales call, people are going to have pre-concieved notions and their judgement affected by the name on your email signature. If you're 'Tom Gomez' or 'Dave Johnson' you're going to have pretty good head start over someone named 'Alejandra DeJesus Valtierra' or 'Wumi Hassan Abdullah'. If you're good and you can get past that, people don't care. You'll become 'my friend Hassan', or 'I know that guy with the dreads, I should introduce you'. But as unfair as it is, and it shouldn't be, it does affect first impressions. We're all guilty of it.
bluedino 13y ago
Your typical 'successful' Asian student most likely had the stereotypical strict Asian parents who placed school success very highly. Obviously all the parents aren't like that and you get Asian kids who join gangs and such.

sliverstorm 13y ago

as an African-American your comment rubs me the wrong way Can you briefly expand on why/how your ethnicity factors into your displeasure with his comment?

Denzel 13y ago
>> The truth is blacks and Latinos need to step it up. This generalized statement, specifically. I don't enjoy treating "blacks" as a group anymore than I like seeing "latinos" or "whites" treated as one. Most situations are unique to an individual.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Ok. I suspected it was something along those lines, but I wasn't quite sure as your specific objection to his logic was nothing to do with ethnicity.

goggles99 13y ago

So your parents sent your middle brother to private school from first grade on and simultaneously kept your oldest brother in a stink hole situation? That sounds pretty rough. Why didn't they put the oldest in private school instead? Surely by 7th grade you can see that there are problems there. Perhaps by 12 grade in the private school, he could have turned things around. Perhaps it was the mere fact that the younger brother was given such preferential treatment that the older never became successful. Perhaps it was the fact that your parents became better parents with more experience, or because they were less stressed out since they did not have the financial hardship that they had before. I am not trying to discount your story, but the problem lies in the fact that it can be compared with plenty of other similar situations as yours but having completely different results (the kids in public school fared better in life). Quality of school definitely CAN have a profound effect on a child's life. But in my experience and personal observation, this is only because of a failure on the parenting side. If a child is reared with enough love and enough wisdom, discipline and vision is imparted into them before, and during the school years - they will do fine if they are in a run down inner city school, or a middle class private school. So maybe you say that this is unfair that some parents have to raise their kids with such diligence to have them succeed, while some others don't (because of economic factors). Trust me, the kid and parents in the situation where extra attention is needed to enhance the likelihood of success in the child's life are better off and happier people than a wealthy parent that hires a nanny to raise their kids and sends them to private school. Which situation is true parenting after all? Which kid will carry on a true legacy of their parents and hold their ideals and values continuing their legacy?

Denzel 13y ago
>> Surely by 7th grade you can see that there are problems there. Perhaps by 12 grade in the private school, he could have turned things around. My parents didn't have the money to pay for private school. Both myself and my middle brother earned fully paid scholarships. They tried to send my oldest brother to the same private school, but due to his entrance exams, that would've required $20K a year that they didn't have. You're right, we don't know what the cause is. Whether it's the school or the parents, my point was that you can't just look at an individual and tell them to "step it up." It's not that simple.