Some overwhelmed parents are abandoning at-home schooling - <AUTHOR> https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-growing-cohort-of-overwhelmed-parents-unengaged-children-drop/ <comment><USER3> At-home schooling, when you weren't prepared and cannot provide the time, is not at-home schooling.

The educators were caught off-guard. The parents were caught off-guard.

Let's not make decisions about what method works and doesn't work. These are unprecedented times. Just make sure your child reads about topics they enjoy, and do activities they enjoy.

Reading and Writing are the most important skills. This is for a short period of time anyways. Relax, you only need an hour or 2 a day. Ensure your child is happy and healthy. Those are the most important measurements.

All the best.

<comment><USER4> I fear that we'll come out of this with a warped, unreasonably negative perspective of several things that are actually very good and beneficial. Remote work is one thing that might take a hit, because people will think that _this_ is what remote work is like. I've been remote for 2.5 years now and this experience is _not_ representative.

I fear the same will happen to the notion of home schooling.

<comment><USER5> Before COVID, the only people I saw home schooling were doing so out of ideologic incentives.

(Other than extreme edge cases).

I see no issue with home schooling receiving a negative rep.

Unless you're a trained educator, I see no benefit to home schooling children and depriving them of standard curriculums and socializing.

(I'm biased having only experienced positive public school environments in Russia and Canada. Perhaps there is some dystopia with the American Public School system, but the root problem is America, not public schools)

<comment><USER6> Not everyone has the same image or experience of school. I see School as a day care for children to allow parents to work during the day, with some inefficient learning on the side. It's very convenient, but not the only option.

Personally I learned nothing (edit: not much) in school, was bullied, it was an awful experience and all I remember is watching the clock all day waiting for it to pass while daydreaming. Elementary school was like one year to learn to make additions, one year multiplication, for how many hours in school? To finally get a lot of children struggling to read in 6th grade. Middle school was more or less the same for me. I feel like I was the subject of an ideology too.

<comment><USER7> I was similarly bullied through school and would easily get bored with the ease of the content.

I think partly because I never had the fine tuned sense of social interaction that many are naturally blessed with and paired with a dangerous tendency to let pigheaded curiosity be a guiding principle.

But, the the stuff it has taught me is indispensable. It was never taught explicitly, but without school I would have grown up completely oblivious of the invisible walls, thorns and highways that inhabit the society we live in.

Like if you want to infiltrate into a rebel base as a spy, you would want to spend a lot of time learning their mannerisms and adopting a persona. School helped me tremendously in fitting in, because my type of person would have certainly ended up an outcast in this society, if I was to be homeschooled.

<comment><USER6> Yes that's pretty much the question I'm trying to answer, and how outside activities with other kids could maybe replace that aspect of school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The problem is that homeschooling and schooling in a classroom environment are two fundamentally different things. Tasking parents with mimicking a school environment and school schedule at home is a recipe for failure that teaches parents that they can't teach their kids.

We have been homeschooling our eldest son for a year now and can never imagine going back to full time school. It has brought an immense amount of freedom and bonding to our family, not to mention an incredible amount of life experience for him with various activities (grocery shopping, museums, parks, hikes, etc). However, it was miserable to start primarily because we tried to mimic the exact school environment and schedule at home; a complete disaster! Schools are designed to teach a large amount of children; parents and homes are designed to teach individual children.

Would you use an entire cafeteria kitchen to cook lunch for your kids?

<comment><USER9> Do you have any concerns about your son's social development? If so, how do you address these? Personally, I would be worried about accidentally isolating my kids and causing them to miss out on certain soft skills.

<comment><USER10> Do you have any concerns about the social development of kids who go to traditional schools, where they interact solely with other kids close to their own age or teachers who are much older than them and whose interactions are rigid and artificial?

Sorry to sound snarky, but the idea that homeschool kids are somehow socially stunted is a myth that needs to die. If anything, it's the other way around. Homeschool kids are exposed to a much wider variety of social situations which develops a broad base of social skills and preparation for adult responsibility much more effectively than the stifling and artificial environment of public schools does.

<comment><USER11> Are you telling me that a homeschooled kid will get exposed to more social situations than one in a public school where every race, ethnicity, and social strata are represented?

<comment><USER12> You can cherry pick in both directions. Are you telling me that a kid at a socially homogeneous local school of kids all within the same age bracket will be exposed to more social situations that a homeschooled one who regularly deals with shopkeepers, tradesmen, and people of all ages and all walks of life?

<comment><USER13> What does interaction with shopkeepers, tradesmen, and people of all ages and all walks of life have anything at all to do with homeschooling??? Kids can (and do) go to school and do all that too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The irony is that for kids that are actually homeschooled, they spend maybe 2 to 3 hours per day doing schoolwork. That kids spend so long in public school is not to their benefit, but to the benefit of those that need to keep their parents away from them for 9+ hours a day.

I can barely attend several hours worth of digital meetings, and I'm an adult. Imagine a 7-year old trying to do the same thing. Ridiculous.

<comment><USER15> The school isn't just about the academic part. It also teaches you invaluable soft skills. How to handle conflicts, how to present in front of the audience, how to make friendships, how to respond to bullying, how to find like minded people. All those skills are extremely important in your average team environment, and learning them as a kid is much easier than guessing why you've been laid off, while your useless, but very empathic colleague got promoted instead.

<comment><USER16> I didn't learn a single one of those skills from attending public school. Every public school I attended (and I attended several, since my parents were chasing the accelerated learning program every time it moved) was not only a huge waste of time, but actively psychologically harmful.

Based on the data I've seen, what I describe is a typical or even better-than- average public school experience.

Private school was infinitely better once I started going, and my homeschooled friends (who I met at university) are, on the whole, vastly better adjusted than the people I attended public school with.

Let's be honest - public schools' primary functions are to act as a daycare center and subsidized food distribution site. If you child is at all intelligent, you're probably better off leaving them at home with some books than sending them off to PS17851. I know I would have been better off that way!

<comment><USER17> > Let's be honest - public schools' primary functions are to act as a daycare > center and subsidized food distribution site. If you child is at all > intelligent, you're probably better off leaving them at home with some books > than sending them off to PS17851. I know I would have been better off that > way!

Would you have been though? There's a core curriculum that I really doubt most kids would learn if they had their own way. Even with intelligence there's lots of stuff kids would never learn as it never interests them. What are the odds that a child is interested in Shakespeare, civics, biology, and trigonometry? We're drug through a lot of it kicking and screaming (to an extent), but it has value to have gone through it.

<comment><USER16> > There's a core curriculum that I really doubt most kids would learn if they > had their own way.

Insofar as kids learn (and retain) things at all, chances are they were going to learn it on their own anyway.

The preponderance of evidence suggests that it basically doesn't matter what you forcibly try to teach kids between the ages of zero-13; their later academic outcomes aren't going to change much anyway.

This matches my anecdotal experience; kids who end up being good in some field are always way ahead of what public schools (which are forced to cater to the lowest common denominator) can teach them anyway, and kids who end up not being good at a field will probably pick up the same information they're being taught naturally, at a more natural and less painful pace.

> What are the odds that a child is interested in Shakespeare, civics, > biology, and trigonometry

High? Lots of kids choose to read books on various topics with their free time and focus, which they would have more of if they weren't swamped with pointless make-work.

Plus, it's not like you're actually going to get a comprehensive or even useful understanding of any of those things from the bottom 80% of schools.

> but it has value to have gone through it

Even if this is true (but I suspect the "kicking and screaming" might actually be net counterproductive), I really doubt it's worth the cost of spending something like 25% of your waking hours in Factory Labor Simulator for the first 13 (or whatever) years of your life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The overwhelming number of websites utilized for an elementary school education drastically overcomplicates attempting to complete my son's school work..

Just for math alone, often times to complete a single day's activitiy, four different websites are involved, usually all requiring different login/password information.

Get assignments from Google Calendar Watch instruction on youtube. Do lesson on Zearn.org. Watch video on Khan Academy. Complete quiz on iReady. Take picture of your scratch work so you can upload to google calendar.

I am a technology junkie and always have been, but I definitely miss the days from my own schooling where everything I needed to both learn and do in Math for the day was in a single textbook... It's sad how much we have complicated things with technology.

Now they have completely changed how math should be done, require many extra "steps" that seem to be unnecessary that parents were never taught, and do not provide a book at all for reference of what these new methods are. It almost seems like they are trying to make learning as frustrating as possible.

<comment><USER19> Oh god, so much this. If they'd just use books and worksheets and the occasional Youtube video maybe, it'd be _so_ much better. We had prepped worksheet packets for the first couple weeks and it's been hell since those ran out.

I'd also love just a simple (please, just the plainest of HTML, it does not need to be another fucking app or "webapp") checklist of what's due for the current week, per day, with a check for "submitted", a check for "received/acknowledged", and a check for "graded" (so don't bother submitted or updating if you didn't already). Maybe make the name of each thing linkable when relevant.

[EDIT] Oh and

> Now they have completely changed how math should be done, require many extra > "steps" that seem to be unnecessary that parents were never taught, and do > not provide a book at all for reference of what these new methods are. It > almost seems like they are trying to make learning as frustrating as > possible.

Yes. Ugh. "Word sentence". No. It's a fucking equation. I swear I can't figure out what they even want half the time because they're using weird terms. And this is _first grade_ math.

<comment><USER19> Edit option's gone but I meant "number sentence", of course. Heh. And yes that's really what they call them. Half the kids can't even kind-of tell you what a sentence is in English and they're using them as a metaphor in math. Clearly a good and useful idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Lots of kids in LA seem to be spending all day skateboarding 20 people deep on the less crowded streets, playing full court basketball and soccer matches with hundreds of spectators at the supposedly closed public parks. Summer break began when LAUSD went online for a lot of kids.

And its no wonder. 15% of students have yet to be in contact with their teachers during this survey period (1). In south central, 16% of students lack basic internet access. It's hard to imagine this perspective for a lot of the HN demographic, where we imagine internet has been ubiquitous in the U.S. for decades, but this is still not the case for low income areas in one of the largest cities in north america.

1\. [https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-22/getting-...](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-22/getting- free-internet-hard-for-poor-students-despite-provider-promises)

<comment><USER21> Wasn't it obvious from the start that that would be the result? The idea that children should study at home during the school closure is ludicrous. I'm almost 40, have a Master's degree and have self-studied my whole life but I often have trouble being efficient when I'm home. So no way children seven to fifteen years old can do it.

Maybe children with academic parents will get some home-schooling, but children from poor backgrounds won't. Those are the ones who will be paying the price of the lock down. Two, three months without schooling will significantly hamper their development.

<comment><USER22> > Two, three months without schooling will significantly hamper their > development

Are you sure about that? Having gone through lots of school, I'm fairly certain that missing three months of it would have no negative effect on anyone's development.

<comment><USER23> In this case, we have an existing study. Some countries habitually have a three month gap, with schools closing at the end of spring and opening at the beginning of autumn. Overall, a three month gap in schooling results in sliding back by one month's worth of learning. So, missing three months of school results in being four months behind where students should be.

Source: [http://www.ldonline.org/article/8057/](http://www.ldonline.org/article/8057/)

<comment><USER24> I believe the previous comment was implying that progress in school and personal development are not the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> We have 5 kids in school. Every single kid has a different schedule of zoom meetings, different websites they are supposed to be doing, etc. It is a nightmare to try to organize. Hopefully this will be a wakeup call for the school district to figure out an organized way of doing this for the next time. Ideally there would be a single place we could go that would show everything for all of our kids on one page with what they should be doing that day and the links. Instead we are getting text messages from this teacher, emails from another, we've even received snail mail letters!

<comment><USER26> 3 kids here, pre-k, 1st and 2nd grade, so no self-directed learning of any kind going on. 2 working parents, one of us working much harder than normal during this time. We are doing our best to have school directed by our au pair, but her English isn't great so learning new material is not really possible. We just focus on the basics, have them read, write, do math, art, throw in a bit of science, and line up as many zooms with their teach/classmates as we can handle. I was pushing too hard for a while, and the kids were getting upset, which stressed me out, which stressed them out. Came to a head when my 1st grader was screaming at me that he didn't want to do a book report and then literally ran away down the street with me chasing after him. I made a decision to stop stressing that day. I eased up on the deliverables, shortened the school day, and made sure we prioritize de- stressing. Now my wife likes me again.

Without an au pair it would be bedlam and they would learn absolutely nothing, and I recognize that we are far ahead of a lot of people in terms of resources, so I think barely anyone is going to actually have a good experience with at-home schooling unless the kids are older, can actually manage the schooling themselves, and are actually motivated to do so. Or you have one heckuva stay-at-home parent.

<comment><USER27> You have my sympathy. Two things are working against you: 1. You are being asked to do something you did not sign up for, and 2. You were blind-sided and did not have time to prepare.

We home schooled our child from the time we noticed pre-school was not exactly going great, until the day they left for college. (They were given a choice at middle school and high school to stop homeschooling, but they chose to stick with it.) We chose, we had time to prepare, and yet it was work.

Some things that make homeschooling easier: 1. Adjusting parent work/career to make time. Unfortunately, not so much an option for you. 2. Coops groups. Not an option for anybody during lock-down. 3. Curriculum themes. The way home- school parents handle multiple kids in different grades without going crazy is to pick a theme and assign appropriate work to each kid, example: The next 6 weeks everybody's world history is going to be South America, so 2nd grader does 2nd grade work product, middle schooler does middle school work product, high schooler does high school work product. But as a parent, at least the search space for resources is cut by 2/3's over having everyone do something different. I suspect your school isn't thinking that one through for you, either.

Frankly, if your school district lets you get away with it, it might be a good chance to try "unschooling" for a while. Unschooling is: Study what you want, but you must work on something. It will be an opportunity for the kids to learn how to be more self directed. ("unschooling" should not be confused with "raised by wolves" \-- I've seen that, too, call unschooling, but the result isn't quite the same.)

First grade is a little young for that to work well, though, I must admit, unless they have already developed a reading habit. But heck, maybe even that is OK -- "read what you want, but you must read for X minutes." Kindling a love of reading at that age goes a long way later on.

Anyway, hang in. De-stressing is an important goal. I remember when mine was little and just starting violin -- at some point when the stress-meter was climbing, I decided it was more import that practice be fun every day than to accomplish everything that the teacher assigned every week. That was the right call, trust me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm having much more success designing our own curriculum for our 7 and 4 year olds, than dealing with random emails and updates and changes and new things to try and blah blah blah from their schools. It takes a couple hours max to cover the bases and progress is like 2x the rate they were learning in school.

Our schools have been great at trying to stay engaged, but I feel it's more stressful than helpful at this point. Schools are still trying to accommodate a huge range of kids, and trying to keep up with everything they're putting out is a huge time and energy sink. I appreciate the schools wanting to keep involved but the way things are now it's a distraction.

<comment><USER29> The only work my kids (10 and 7) are getting from school is maybe one question per subject per day.

My wife and I have designed our own curriculum to fill the gaps. The kids are done with their "day at school" after about 3 hours. They work with me in the morning, I've been able to keep up with their questions and guide them through their day while doing my own work and meetings. It's a lot like being a team lead again haha

EDIT: my kids are in DISD ( Dallas ) so the bar isn't exactly high. Even during regular school they were in various tutoring and clubs to fill the gaps

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This pain point may be a disguised blessing. The sudden demand for remote education might break the lock by local educators, exposing most subjects to global competition. Instead of getting the best teacher within walking or busing distance, parents are starting to level up to picking them from anywhere on the interweb. In many places it's the difference between no choice and some choice.

It's like the difference between being limited to books only by local authors, and being unlimited. It's worth a good deal of pain to get from here to there.

It is a massively less demanding task to curate and monitor your kid's education than to personally conduct it. And even the curating and much of the monitoring can be outsourced.

<comment><USER31> There is enough resistance to the idea of letting people choose between schools within walking distance that I can't ever imagine it being permissible to choose schools within an unlimited distance.

<comment><USER20> Public magnet schools exist in many districts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm in a similar boat though the school system where I am put mental health as top priority right from the start and very little emphasis on distance learning. The teachers do send resources in a do-what-you-want and let us know how we can help.

My kids do a bit of math with pencil and paper, some reading, journaling, art, and whatever creative or constructive activity they want to do. After supper they play video games, watch movies/shows/documentaries, play D&D, and FaceTime with their friends.

They do a lot more cooking and cleaning around the house than they would normally do. They're becoming a lot more self-sufficient around the house.

<comment><USER33> One week in I noticed some serious pre-burnout symptoms due to the stress of working full time, being the cook, cleaner, safe parent and teacher of the house. So on my week off from my kid (I co-parent every other week) I first of all wept due to the stress and how much of an asshole I was due to all the pressure and then decided fuck it I'll lower my expectations on what a work day is and what a school day is. We stop the schooling at 2pm latest, doesn't matter if something is unfinished it won't matter. We don't do all the assignments and I don't try to be the best possible employee as it is god damn impossible under these conditions.

<comment><USER34> Here here, we experienced the same thing. Somethings got to give and I'm not going to ruin my relationship with my kids forever, for a job or one semesters grades.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> HS student here. Our district made the decision to keep grades, or you can apply to drop distance learning if you meet certain circumstances. This is incredibly frustrating for me since 1) I can't slack off and work on my C++ projects ;) and 2) It's a ridiculous amount of work, and some teachers are not exactly being fair. Our school has the IB program, and I am in the "Precalculus" class before HL Math 1. The teacher is a bad teacher anyway in school, and yet out of school they are worse. We are given instruction in these obscure note packets that are basically a list of formulas. Every single time I need to solve the online problems we are given, I end up on Wikipedia, or Khan Academy... so why am I taking this class?

In other classes, the teachers don't seem to grok that we have other classes, and instead will give us one "trivial 1 hour" assignment a day.

I'm starting to feel burnt out, unlike during actual school which was manageable for me. I would rather we were given an assignment or two a week in each class, or shorter assignments each day. (Thankfully two of my teachers get this)

Also, google classroom can be frustrating if the teacher doesn't use it well. Let's say they post a couple announcements a day, along with assignments, and there was a project assigned on Monday. I have to go hunting to see if there was something. It gets buried in a big stack, and sometimes it will just up and surprise me on Friday when it pops up as "Due today". This I blame more on google than the teachers, since I think there should be a way to visually represent the assignments that isn't a twitter feed.

<comment><USER36> I find math courses (as an adult doing a masters in biostatistics) can be very poorly taught sometimes. I think this comes from a desire to "keep things simple" and elegant. But the lack of practical examples and no alternative explanations can make it really difficult for some people to learn concepts. Sometimes you get a good maths course, but many are terrible.

As a suggestion, you could look to torrent a good textbook if you can find one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> My daughter is in preschool but she still has 10 zoom meetings a week plus extra activities to do. Both my wife and I are working full time which means she will occasionally miss a zoom meeting, and she rarely does the extra activities.

Luckily it doesn't matter much since she's in preschool. The only thing she really gets out of it is that she gets to see her teachers and friends.

I don't know how people who work full time and have multiple kids in school manage to do it. I'm exhausted and we have it relatively easy. My heart goes out to all the single parents out there!!

<comment><USER38> Zoom meetings for preschool?!

I had no idea.

<comment><USER37> Oh yeah. It's as much of a disaster as you think it is. Half the kids aren't paying attention or wander off. The rest are all talking at once. It took a few days for the teachers to realize they should mute everyone at the beginning of the call and only unmute one at a time when it's time to participate.

My daughter enjoys seeing her friends and teachers so we call in as much as we can, and as long as she is dressed and interested in it. It's a lot of work for my wife and I though. If our work schedules weren't flexible we'd skip them entirely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'd like to hear from parents who are managing well.

I have a hypothesis that in households where children's behavior is better regulated (through example, discipline, or disposition) things are going better than they would otherwise. (I have evidence from my own childhood that this would be the case), but I'd like to know, if this situation is manageable or even _an improvement_ for your child's education, what are you doing to make it so?

<comment><USER40> This is my experience. One part luck, one part upbringing, one part privilege. Both my kids are thoughtful, even tempered, curious, and tenacious. Often they are called "mature" for their ages (8/11). Such is not a description that fits most of the children in their peer group at school. FWIW most would probably call me a strict parent. Not in a punitive sense, but we do keep our standards high and do not normalise behaviours that we don't like.

Honestly the school board's efforts have been phenomenally bad. We're in BC, Canada, which appears to have said "hey teachers, here's your Zoom license! Get on that e-learning thing - kthxbye!" In aggregate it's a bum deal for the teachers, students, and parents. Hopefully it works for some but it doesn't for anybody that I know.

However... I took control of the curriculum. I'm not a teacher so I didn't presume I knew best: I based it on the Khan School Closure Schedule [1]. We sprinkle in a few arts & crafts projects with their mom, some nature walks in the afternoon, some Khan math and language arts in the morning, and an hour or so of coding after lunch. They have a few extra chores around the house - nothing too onerous. We've increased their music practice sessions.

I've been working from home for several years so I did not have much adjustment to my working situation. It took a bit to find our education groove but, by and large, I'm happy with it now that we've deprioritised the haphazard din coming from the teachers.

My wife's impression is that both kids are performing at a higher level than they were in meatspace school. The kids and I agree.

I could probably sustain this indefinitely as my kids are kind of self- directing their way through the assignments. I'm keen for the new normal to kick in but, from my POV, this has unexpectedly turned into one of those "golden years" moments for me. We're making some memories and the kids are fine. Lemons and lemonade, I guess.

[1] [https://keeplearning.khanacademy.org/daily- schedule](https://keeplearning.khanacademy.org/daily-schedule)

<comment><USER39> Hadn't actually read these schedules, they seem great, especially the Maths first and done with "school" by 2pm bits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> As a parent in a crisis situation, your job is to provide emotional stability for your kids. So you need to ensure your own physical and emotional health first (see also: "put your oxygen mask on before helping others"). So if "home school" has to take a backseat to showing the kids that "this is different, but this can be healthy/interesting/stimulating too", then so be it. And some days are good homeschool days, some are less. Take each day as it comes.

However, juggling work and home school is just impossible. In a two salary family, someone needs to go on disability or take unpaid leave or whatever. Your kids need you right now more than your boss does.

</comment><comment><USER28> Anybody else with the opposite problem? I find the at-home schooling quite fun. At-home work just sucks though -- new product dev right now seems so disconnected with reality. That said, obviously fortunate still to have a job at all.

</comment><comment><USER42> Remote K-12 education has given me a newfound respect for parents who effectively conduct home-schooling full time.

It also makes me realize how much kids are missing by not being in a classroom with their peers and a professional teacher.

<comment><USER43> I've always wondered what the learning outcomes were like for homeschooled kids vs. those that attended school (public or private). My assumption has been that homeschooling is less successful than sending the kids to school.

<comment><USER44> Generally speaking, what research I've seen mostly says that homeschooled children are more successful on various outcomes than average. However, homeschooling is hardly random and presumably means more parental involvement than average, among other differences that are probably fairly difficult to tease apart.

<comment><USER20> I feel like economic outcomes would be more aligned to socioeconomic factors than anything. The economic success of your parents determine your future more than your schooling for the most part. More telling would be measuring social skills.

<comment><USER45> Home schooled children generally get plenty of "socialization", it's just with adults rather than with large groups of children. All of the ones I know had social skills at or above average.

And yes, socioeconomic factors play a huge part in outcomes.

<comment><USER46> I find the "socialization" argument to be one of the weakest, honestly. Being able to "socialize" in a group of, say, second-graders with one teacher to 25 students is probably worse than useless; it's a pathologically bad socialization environment for spreading bad habits and incorrect expectations created only by the schooling environment in the first place. Unless you become a second-grade teacher, it'll never come up again, and you should actively _not_ use a lot of the socialization skills you "learned" in that environment. While better than literally sitting in a room by yourself, I can't rate it above much else, and "sitting in a room by yourself" is not actually the alternative on offer. (After all, the _parents_ aren't going to be able to stand that either, except in extremely pathological cases which are going to be pathological no matter what.)

If the schools were set up more like Montessori schools, this argument against homeschooling would carry a lot more weight. Age-based cohorts are pathologically bad environments, and if you look at history as a whole, a bizarre exception to the normal human environment. If it wasn't for the fact that the people arguing happened to grow up in that environment and thereby consider it normal, despite how abnormal it actually is, nobody would be arguing it's a good idea.

<comment><USER20> Its not the in class socializing, but out of class. Hanging out with your friends at lunch. In the halls. Walking to and from school. If you try socializing in class you get sent to the principle for being disruptive. Meeting kids your age in your area and seeing and talking with them every day is the social aspect, not class time.

I was educated montesorri until middle school, and while there was plenty of socializing it was ultimately detrimental imo. A couple of us including me had serious trouble getting assignments done with all the distractions and were always in the principles office as a result. One kid just had to work in a separate 'office' because he could not actually get his stuff done with his friends there in the class room available to talk all day. I didn't get my work ethic up until high school, didn't really apply myself until college, and to this day I struggle with self discipline and staying focused on the task at hand.

<comment><USER46> "I was educated montesorri until middle school, and while there was plenty of socializing it was ultimately detrimental imo."

So, you went from what I describe as a reasonable environment, where you did OK, to what I describe as a pathological environment where suddenly you had a lot of trouble, and apparently mostly (but not entirely) recovered when back out in a more reasonable environment.

This is basically what I would predict with my theory. You were damaged by entry into a pathological environment. How would you be if you had never been exposed to it? How much more damaged are those who never knew anything else?

I don't think your experienced is evidence against my point... it's evidence _for_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Since this is only temporary one thing to try is what Erik Demaine did as a home schooled kid, his father told to look up whatever he was interested in and pursue it directly in the library which for him was programming games and origami. They're just going to hard reset the school year anyway

</comment><comment><USER48> My local high school district went to online classes. The district said 10% of the students "disappeared". They haven't shown up for a single class or turned in any work, nor even answered a single email.

<comment><USER49> That's nothing. One teacher in our high school has seen a 39% drop rate in her classes. And this is an honors teacher.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I have six kids, eldest 10, so 3 in school, other 3 pre K and younger. I think I essentially gave up today on online learning. I decided to grab some math circle books and a whiteboard. I'm also going to get the Mathematica for schools setup and teach them myself. I essentially have to make a choice between doing my job full time at home, or letting them essentially whither into gaming/YouTube addicts. Not sure what will happen, but school for them has been a joke so far.

</comment><comment><USER51> We've also been overwhelmed juggling a full time job (while working at home), but I've learned to compensate by picking and choosing what they do. My childrens' school is throwing more work at them than they could possibly handle (elementary school kids cannot handle huge amounts of self study), so there's no way they can do it all.

So I just pick a variety of lessons, intersperse them with periods of free time throughout the day, and if everything doesn't work out, oh well. I'd rather have them do less than having them be stressed out and me feeling stressed out from having to do so much.

I've been emphasizing reading practice with some math exercises, where they can be self-directed and letting the other stuff (which means lots of time for me) only be occasional. I've found they've made some significant improvements in reading, so I'm content with that.

</comment><comment><USER52> Ontario, Canada reporting.

This is the general note at the top of the weekly schedule we get (paraphrased):

"Students in Grade 4-6 are to be doing 5 hours a week of at home learning - total Math, Language (French and English), Science, and Social Studies"

That's 1 hour a day. The schedule that a teacher has provided luckily takes close to 2+ hours a day if you do it diligently. There are still issues that come up in terms of clarity of question, or how much depth an answer should have. Word problems are especially hard - I am not sure how to _teach_ the analysis and solution of word problems. This is going to have a detrimental effect on my kid in spite of my ability to help them. I supplement with Khanh Academy but she is so focused on achieving Mastery she spends a long time there. Sometimes I see her guess her way through some problems.

</comment><comment><USER53> ""A part of me does feel guilty," said Ms. Belyea, who lives in Toronto. "I am the parent, and sometimes kids have to do what they don't want to do. But it's just too much. I can't fight with him every day like this."

Having an Asian mother, this all just sounds so alien to me.

</comment><comment><USER54> I think this might be a great thing for those kids. They'll actually get to experience reality outside of the rat race for a bit longer than they otherwise would have.

Based on what I've seen, I'd say the following... Kids who love book learning do it voluntarily, for fun, whether or not they're formally in school. On the other hand, kids who don't love book learning don't get much from it one way or another no matter how hard the parents try, unless the parents resort to measures so overbearing that the kids become psychologically deformed as a result - and even then, those overbearing measures only work on some kids.

</comment><comment><USER55> My 1.5 year old is not in school, but I'd like to wonder aloud how damaging this might be to our 1 year olds.

Our daughter was in daycare at 2 months (both wife and I work full time). She adapted and quickly developed a very strong and social personality.

She was totally the type of kid that would greet new people, very confident. Even finding the occasional random grandma to pick her up.

Now when she sees people on our walks and doesn't wave or give any indication that she wants to interact, she definitely more frightened of things than she used to be.

I fear this whole thing is messing with her personality.

<comment><USER56> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_anxiety](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_anxiety)

It is a natural development process in most children.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Good. A home is not a school.

That's not to say you can't do lots of learning at home, but the way that learning takes place will (and should) be completely different from how it is done at school.

</comment><comment><USER58> We have primary school aged kids and after the first few weeks, have decided to just do a token hour a day on the work set by school, although we try and do other 'educational' things in some of the other time, but not following any curriculum. I only work 3.5 hours a week (already remotely before all this) but can't imagine what this is like for anybody working full-time.

I think the school is trying really hard to provide guidance but has fallen into an awkward half-way house where they have provided resources but not quite enough to make them work without some prep by the parent and extremely cooperative kids!

I feel like we should play to the strengths of being at home and do stuff where one-on-one (or one-on-two!) works better, following their interests, helping them with the stuff they are actually stuck on it (or in the zone of proximal development in pedagogical speak), reading and just enjoying spending precious time together. My husband is taking off half a day's leave a week (what else are we going to use it on this year?) to look after the kids for an hour a day too, which has been a lifesaver and give him some time with them.

Also, I think most people trying to do this home education thing at the moment are way too busy to write about it!

</comment><comment><USER59> I'm almost there...it's impossible to have two full time working parents also homeschooling + meals.

Technology isn't anywhere good enough yet that you can just give a kid a computer, no matter what the curriculum or the other side is doing (zoom, altitude etc...) and let them go.

I'm really of the mind that this is a unique period and that I'm not going to stress all to death that they didn't get their SOLs in for a few months.

</comment><comment><USER60> I am homeschooling my autistic son; his (mainstream) school have stipulated 3 hours of lessons a day, and we are hitting that. With the proviso that, obviously, I am nowhere near as good as a proper teacher, I'd argue that he is actually benefitting by getting more of the 1-1 attention that he needs than he would be getting at school. The downside is that in order to provide that, I need to be pretty much full time with him for those 3 hours, which is tiring and time-consuming (kudos to the professionals - teaching is hard work!), and interferes severely with my actual job (although the company are v supportive).

The key I have found is:

\- Focus on the core subjects, viz English, Maths and Science, but do mix in other subjects as well;

\- Just bin some other subjects entirely (specifically, those he's not going to be doing for GCSE);

\- Know at the end of each day what the lessons and topics are going to be for the following day, as this reduces stress all round;

\- Stick to some sort of timetable, albeit needing to be flexible because of work; we always do one hour lesson first thing, and a second mid- to late- morning, leaving just one after lunch.

</comment><comment><USER44> A more broadly pessimistic story from The Economist with some numbers around things like Internet access: [https://www.economist.com/international/2020/04/27/closing-s...](https://www.economist.com/international/2020/04/27/closing- schools-for-covid-19-does-lifelong-harm-and-widens-inequality)

</comment><comment><USER61> If anyone is curious about how "unschooling" or "relaxed homeschooling" works, I've been writing a blog about my ongoing experience with it and our 12-year old.

[https://medium.com/exploring-wisdom-unschooling-and-world- sc...](https://medium.com/exploring-wisdom-unschooling-and-world-schooling)

</comment><comment><USER62> Those of you here with kids should already have an underemployed tutor/helper working with your kids, and looking for an au pair for Fall. This is an investment opportunity for those with means while the other 90% falls behind.

It takes a village, but it's unlikely your village will be highly functional before 2021.

<comment><USER39> Are you suggesting remote or in-person?

<comment><USER62> Yes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I'm not a parent, but I remember as a kid in the 80s watching PBS specials during the day on science that were packed with interesting content. I stayed out of my parents hair during the summer watching these things. Yes, admittedly I was probably not the typical child.

But are there not public service lecture series on Youtube by teachers (funded by foundations, etc) that have produced videos for all kinds of grade levels and subjects? It feels like we have the world of knowledge at our fingers, but can't find anything productive to watch? Is it not possible to at least occupy a couple hours of kids' time with Khan Academy videos?

Why do parents have to make up curricula to teach?

<comment><USER64> The problem is that open medium like YT also contains ton of distracting and low quality content. It is too easy to let kid click on some "5 minute tricks" garbage or celebrities bait.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> I feel like we should be collecting a list of things to tackle given this huge social experiment.

The first one is air quality, but it sounds like the next might be, "yeah, teaching isn't so easy is it? Maybe that skill deserves some compensation, hmm?"

<comment><USER66> I think most people are realizing it isn't so much the _teaching_ aspect as it is the daycare function that schools serve. So the discussion might be about compensation, but it is very much about how much what I would call "structured daycare" is worth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I mean it's fair - you need support systems to support it at the best of times.

In NZ there is the NZ correspondence school for children that can't get to a physical school.

It provides the curriculum, materials, textbooks, grading, etc.

But the US treats homeschooling as a system to allow parents to indoctrinate kids rather than actually teach them so provides no such support (even though their are people who are homeschooled due to actual need and whose parents want their kids to be educated).

Couple that lack of support, with the lack of choice or real warning, and that many parents still do have to work and you've got a quagmire that is understandably overwhelming.

</comment><comment><USER68> I feel the proportion of students taking school seriously has been gradually decreasing over the last decade or so.

And now we treat college kids like children. It's hard to believe today's 18 year olds are old enough to vote.

These aren't just rose tinted glasses occluding my view. I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that people in general were expected to grow up a decade sooner than today. That's the price of increased living standards - <USER2> adulthood and reduced fertility. Then its the generation after that suffers from immature parenting.

</comment><comment><USER69> I understand how they feel. I'm being asked to serve as part time IT specialist, Nath Tutor and Booboo Nurse while trying to bill hours on my clients project.

I've also given up on tracking their assignments, I just give them a printout of the days of week each Monday and ask them to fill it out with due dates to organize themselves. Fortunately my kids are early teens and actually care about getting good grades.

</comment><comment><USER70> I remember a friend of mine in high school was pulled out to do homeschool. The parents had a family friend who was supposed to come over and teach them, but after a while, Family friend just come over and sit on American online all day… It was a couple of years before anyone realized the kids were not being taught anything. My friend "graduated" but he didn't know how to do multiplication.

</comment><comment><USER71> Been homeschooling my teenager for a few years. First year or two were huge learning experiences for all of us. It took a lot of work and prep and, among the adults, a bit of negotiation to cover the topics.

It would be tough to suddenly have to take on, or cover, someone else's curriculum. Just understanding the requirements, time intervals, and external expectations can be a real challenge.

</comment><comment><USER72> My daughter is in special needs pre-school. They do a 15 minute kinda "wakeup" session at 9am and then a craft session at 9:15. Honestly, it's useless. The kids can barely pay attention and it's just an all around mess. We're honestly thinking of stopping because it just stresses my daughter out and she's really not getting anything out of it.

</comment><comment><USER73> There's a related thread at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23011419](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23011419).

Normally we'd merge threads that are that similar, but I couldn't figure out a good way to do it, so maybe they're different enough in some subtle way.

</comment><comment><USER74> It isn't really shocking to discover that people don't have the bandwidth to take on an additional full time job.

</comment><comment><USER75> Parents who both have to work because mortgage/rent now requires two salaries are going to find this next to impossible.

Yet they are living in a house that most likely stood during their parents' time and then it required just one income.

What changed? Lending against household income instead of primary income.

</comment><comment><USER76> I'm currently in this situation. Home schooling would be easy if we were a single income household where one parent remains working and the other dedicates their whole time to home schooling and preparing meals. But we're not. So are a lot of other parents.

<comment><USER77> I absolutely don't want to criticize, so I hope this doesn't come off that way. I'm wondering if this situation is making you (and people in your situation) re-think some of your life choices.

Do you think in the future you will make changes so you can live happily off a single income to give you more freedom and ability to adjust when something like this happens? i.e. smaller house, less cars, less consumption?

<comment><USER76> You're assuming everyone else has that option. Smaller house? Less cars? What?! I grew up with two parents making minimum wage. I have that choice, but others don't.

<comment><USER77> Sorry, I didn't mean to assume that at all.

I was just asking if it's something you are thinking about, and if this current situation will have long lasting impacts on your financial decisions going forward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Schools are daycare centers, the curriculum only expands to serve that purpose.

So why not use this opportunity to cut the bullshit and focus on reading, writing and math?

All of the other stuff is eventually forgotten anyway, to no detriment.

</comment><comment><USER79> Hopefully, this will drive some parents to appreciate a bit more the job that teachers do, I've heard so many parents trash-talking teachers' work. It's not easy dealing with a bunch of kids.

</comment><comment><USER80> Maybe this will help show parents just how valuable school and teachers are. Maybe they'll actually vote or even show some initiative when it comes to school budget and teacher salaries.

</comment><comment><USER81> Good! There are infinitely better ways to spend your childhood than in "schooling".

Sitting at a desk and filling your head with "important information" is relatively crappy.

</comment><comment><USER82> Is the issue that the parents can't help the students with homework? In Grade school I generally did all of my homework. Sometimes my parents would help but it stopped after going to high school. They did get me in an ACT prep course and I also took the SAT early since I was in a gifted program.

<comment><USER83> TFA says that the general problem is that

1\. Parents are now the primary enforcement mechanism for doing schoolwork, which is not a role they have necessarily been trained to do

2\. Teachers do not coordinate the amount of schoolwork, so parents are in the unenviable position of essentially executing multiple lesson plans in place of the multiple teachers, each which is probably complex in its own right.

2 was a problem when I went to public school normally and 8 teachers each giving 45mins-1 hr of homework easily added up and ate into free time. Now parents are actually exposed to the problem.

<comment><USER31> > _1\. Parents are now the primary enforcement mechanism for doing schoolwork, > which is not a role they have necessarily been trained to do_

Parents were always the primary enforcement mechanism for doing homework, what would the school do if a kid was getting all Fs because they didn't care? The _most_ a school can do is force kids to be quiet, and even then if the kids refuse to be quiet the school can't punish them - a child that does not voluntarily submit to punishments like sitting and not talking can only be sent home.

<comment><USER84> How do you plan to enforce this quiet time while holding down a job in another room, or conducting a video call, or trying to code something up while a 6 year old screams constantly?

<comment><USER31> How did you do it when they came home with eight hours of homework?

<comment><USER84> This may come as a shock to you, but I didn't have to be working a job at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> This just shows how many people don't have healthy respectful relationships with their children.

</comment><comment><USER86> Parenting is hard. Giving up is the wrong thing to do for the child.

<comment><USER87> Teachers and school district are not prepared to provide a curriculum for distance learning. It's takes months and years to develop a curriculum and no one had time to do that. Teachers may be doing their best but there's nothing wrong with stepping back and choosing to provide a different experience for your kid. Preparation for adulthood happens in different ways and parents should recognize that.

Also, parenting is hard and involves trade-offs every day. There are always going to be things you give up on to win the battles you can win.

<comment><USER88> > Teachers may be doing their best but there's nothing wrong with stepping > back and choosing to provide a different experience for your kid. > Preparation for adulthood happens in different ways and parents should > recognize that.

Would this statement sound as reasonable in non-pandemic times?

It feels like public schools would still be a better option if the choice were still available. It isn't, but as a result I feel like people who would have been able to go to school are missing out on something beneficial. Especially given how important expensive pieces of college-minted paper are for more and more careers, and how competitive it is to get a chance at earning one in public schools alone.

If I had children, which I do not, I would rather choose the teachers with the time available to prepare the in-depth curriculum specifically designed to earn the chance at the expensive piece of paper with some proven degree of success over what I could provide by myself, alongside what time it takes out of work and all that implies. That is assuming they have no difficulties in learning however. In that case the schools would likely be unprepared.

But of course nobody has that option now, so I would probably have much the same experience as the parents in the article. I'm not sure what else we can do in the short term.

<comment><USER87> Exactly, these are crazy, never-before-experienced times. In the short term there will be compromises. We should recognize that and give ourselves a break.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> Even when I use the web link I get stuck at the paywall and can't read this. I thought pages that require login were banned from HN?

</comment><comment><USER90> I and mostly the students Grandmother now are home schooling a first grader in the NYC public system and would like to provide a description of what our situation looks like to better facilitate this discussion for those that are not living though this.

1\. Everyday there is a video conference call.

This communication is mostly about trying to keep a relationship with the teacher and sharing stories they are writing only if a student desires.

2\. There is no teaching, just lesson plans.

The responsibility of the actual schooling has been left completely up to the caregivers at home.

3\. Schoolwork is expected to be uploaded daily.

There was no set way to do this. We are simply taking photos of the work done on paper (and at times screen shots if a login is shared for an activity) and pasting them in a google doc for each day in the students NYC google drive account.

4\. There has been zero specific feedback on any of the work submitted.

The only accountability has been an online sticker chart where parents award award stars and teacher do also. We have given 1 star a day for completing assigned work, and 2 for a day when it is done with less struggle to maintain attention. Each parent has their own view of what a star means.

5\. Writing has been the main focus over the past month.

My child already struggles with "writers block" even in school. We are fortunate to have a retired teachers assistant in our household who is able to do one-on-one teaching. While not trained or experienced in first grade education with the attention my child receives I have seen more improvement in the past month than the previous three months by a long shot.

6\. The schooldays often goes later than when in school, and rarely earlier.

This is skewed by a new 9:00 start time, so the actual time may be less, but I would say it feels like more. It took at least 3 weeks to get into a rhythm where the days did drag out from morning to night.

7\. There is no homework anymore.

Well, more correctly homework was initially part of the daily lesson plan, but we always did it during the day.

8\. Reading, social studies and science have been done almost exclusively online.

This is the easiest for us as it is mostly self directed at this point. Additionally no work needs to be uploaded. IT started with Social Studies and Science each day, but they are now alternating days.

9\. Friday's have just become catch up days.

This is great, but in our situation was not necessary. We are hoping this means a 4 day school week.

10\. We left NYC to a place where we have space to have school in a separate room behind a closed door.

I don't think it would have been possible in our NYC apartment to limit distractions. There is also a younger sibling that requires attention and provides distraction to the student. In addition we now have ample outdoor space to allow the children to play with zero pandemic anxiety involved.

11\. We still get assignments for the enrichment classes (music, art, physical education, and foreign language) separate from the primary teacher.

The first three are generally videos posted of the teacher providing interactive instruction. Foreign language is done with an online lesson and mimics social studies and science comments above.

The morning conference call does not address these at all.

In summary, my child has probably been doing better or as well as most in their class, and I don't think they are falling behind. However, this is due to the time we have to teach them ourselves and not the attention given by the teacher. The teacher has been good at creating lesson plans and lowering our expectations, but other than that has been diminished to a technical support role in our case. There has been little to no remote teaching. We do have the ability to call hotlines and request more help from the teacher, but I can't comment on those methods.

</comment><comment><USER91> I'm a single, full-time dad to two girls - a six year old kindergartener and two year old toddler.

I'll share some of my observations and thoughts so far (in no particular order):

\- It's nice to be around them more. Seriously. I personally invest a lot into their development and seeing them positively grow is a great feeling. Being around them more during the day seems to amplify this. "Time" is finite.

\- I put my daughter into private school and the expensive monthly tuition bill still came at full price. Was it fair? I don't know. I knew I could get by financially so never brought it up with hopes it might just help a teacher keep a paycheck. The teachers are passionate and are really trying with distant learning too. If anything, they deserve more.

\- No longer paying for a babysitter nor after school care returned a lot back into the wallet. This actually turned into a new and positive financial investment adventure. I've saved more money in the last two months than I have in a year. "Wow" is the feeling.

\- The heightened risk around handled food has mentally "forced" me into eating exclusively at home from grocery store goods. We three were a 99% eat- out/takeout everyday family beforehand. Surprisingly, the adaptation has been a lot easier than expected. Eating out was almost never for self-pleasure, just convenient usually. This also has helped save lots of $$$.

\- The commute to work has lightened up a little. I think maybe 10ft (+/\- a foot or two for you anal type). The car has been with a full tank for over a month. ~5 miles in this timeframe, all of which for grocery store (wow more money saved).

\- Morning commute consisted of driving girls to school and babysitter, then to work. That short distance in the car alone cost me ~1 hour each way, so ~2 hours of time returned daily. I normally lay outfits out the night before, the toddler is usually chill about what outfit to wear, and the school requires uniforms, so morning prep was fast and smooth, usually. Maybe 30 minutes returned here.

\- Standard of cleaning dipped lower than desired once we became the three musketeers. New found time went as fast as it came here. Having our apartment a little more clean feels good though.

\- My official title at the 9-5 is "software engineer", so the concept of working from home is realistic. Doing so with children as a single parent is where reality hits the fan too. Just one child around is not too bad, doesn't matter which one. Having both means girls argue, fight over stuff like who gets the last corndog, if Barbie should or shouldn't go stand in the corner in timeout for doing something bad, so on. My concentration skills with work have been tested here FOR SURE. It's easy and then it's not. Productivity is overall on average higher when they take an afternoon nap and lower when awake and about.

\- This whole online learning concept sounds nice on paper and might be the best alternative next to in-person schooling, but man it really is difficult to pull off during the week for me. An hour or two a day? I'm already writing this at 3am if that tells you anything. That might be realistic to some, but it's not for me, and I'm not even dismissing any opportunity to save time. For example, I have it figured out when I wake up: first use the restroom, wash hands, then proceed to brush teeth after washing hands, but before drying. This saves from wetting hands and drying with towel twice. When time is at a premium, it makes you think about weird stuff like that. I try for weekends to catch up on daughters schooling. We are a week and a half behind. I also emailed the teacher on my own behalf to simply let her know I'm having a hard time keeping up and to ask if she had any tips or suggestions to offer.

Overall, social distancing hasn't phased us since we keep to ourselves in our private time for the most part already. No real negatives experienced on a personal level and our health is good. I suspect this concept of online learning might be easy for some, if not most, but it sure as hell hasn't been for me with time already at a premium.

My girls and I will get through it, just like the rest of you reading this will.

</comment><comment><USER92> Just want to take exception to what you have said here. The issue is a matter of culture, not of access to teachers or the Internet. I home school my children and they have NO access to the Internet, have had no other teachers except for myself and my wife and yet you would not find them shirking their educational opportunities like this. We taught them discipline, to learn, to value education, and a love for knowledge; after that we could not keep them away from education. They were teaching themselves and pulling ahead of their peers years ago. They used pencils, paper and books...libraries and the books in them. That is not to say they don't love the outdoors; they also love to hunt, camp, hike and play baseball but they keep it in it's proper place. My children are the way they are because of our family culture. If those children had such a culture then this would not be a problem. But the truth is that the parents hand their children over to the schools and then that is it. They are not involved in any other way...it is no wonder the children are the way they are.

<comment><USER93> This reads very closely to just blaming parents for not being good enough, and not raising good enough children.

While I'm sure family culture is incredibly important, we shouldn't forget that growing up in such a culture is an incredible privilege. One enabled by having moderately wealthy parents.

Being moderately wealthy doesn't mean having large saving or a fancy house. It means being able to provide 3 meals a day and clothes for your children. It means having enough time after work to pick up your kids, and read them a bedtime story.

There are many people living in the western world who aren't that wealthy. Who have children and work 3 jobs just to keep them fed. You may even be tempted to say that the parents are irresponsible for raising children without proper financial stability, but that doesn't help the children they have. It just provides an excuse to ignore a real social problem.

<comment><USER94> Watch Captain Fantastic - one of my favorite movies.

What most kids really need: time, attention, and role models who instill the values mentioned above (intellectual curiosity, love of reading/learning, creativity, achievement.) Kids are pretty minimalist when it comes to money.

<comment><USER95> Thanks for removing the part of your comment that came off as "I haven't encountered this in my personal experience thus it must not be true." I agree with your assessment on "what kids really need."

Still relevant: the money-time connection is very real and doesn't have to be as extreme as "works 3 jobs to put food on the table" to have detrimental effects to kids. It's pretty hard to influence your kids' lives the more stressed and busy you are. Life circumstances can come from all kinds of places, from having to support more folks e.g grandparents in poor health, or from having kids with special needs, or from having mental health issues personally or a spouse with such issues, etc -- the list goes on. Also if you can't home school or private school and your local school districts are total garbage, your kids might pick up values you can't control very well.

In general the idea <that a parent's ability to instill values on their kids is fairly correlated with wealth/privilege> doesn't feel like a stretch.

<comment><USER96> > In general the idea <that a parent's ability to instill values on their kids > is fairly correlated with wealth/privilege> doesn't feel like a stretch.

Wealth is one way to avoid a toxic culture - if your public high school is terrible you have the money to put them into a different school etc.

But you can have a great culture without wealth. In fact I'd argue a great culture is one of the building blocks of wealth.

<comment><USER95> > But you can have a great culture without wealth. In fact I'd argue a great > culture is one of the building blocks of wealth.

That statement is true but also not at odds with the point you're responding to. The point is that if you start off with less, you need to work that much harder to build that culture. It's like picking how to allocate skill points in an RPG. If someone gets 40 skill points to spread along attack/defense/hp vs you who only get 10 (this is what a wealth gap does), you could allocate all of them to 1 dimension to have reasonable performance there, but it will come at a cost. And even then you won't beat someone who had the luxury of allocating all 40 points to the same thing, since they have more to begin with.

What really irks me is when folks worship the character with maxed out stats in every dimension and then for lesser characters they say "didn't grind enough" or "didn't optimize correctly." Maybe just acknowledge the truth of the matter, that folks with maxed out stats probably grinded a lot (yes yes, very admirable) but also started with a better dice roll. And if kids grow up with less education-centric culture or worse learning outcomes you can't just blame parents for not instilling that. Some parents can do more, that's guaranteed. Some parents can't, that's also for certain.

<comment><USER96> > It's like picking how to allocate skill points in an RPG

To stretch your analogy:

And then we try to make up for the skill points gap by throwing money at the unlucky and tell them to just buy some better items to make up for it.

And it doesn't work.

> Some parents can do more, that's guaranteed. Some parents can't, that's also > for certain.

But that's the beauty - you don't need everyone to be able to in order to build a better culture and a better future.

> And if kids grow up with less education-centric culture or worse learning > outcomes you can't just blame parents for not instilling that.

In my culture that's exactly what we do. It's not always fair on the parents but in practice for the community it works a lot better than throwing money at the problem.

<comment><USER95> > And then we try to make up for the skill points gap by throwing money at the > unlucky and tell them to just buy some better items to make up for it.

I didn't assert anything about how we allocate dollars to level the playing field for parents. Identifying a wealth gap doesn't mean the solution is to simply throw cash at the problem (though solutions _do_ require money). Pretty hard to fix family culture if parents can't afford to spend time with their kids.

> But that's the beauty - you don't need everyone to be able to in order to > build a better culture and a better future.

You certainly have a way of responding to things that weren't asserted in the first place. The statement you were responding to was intended to illustrate why we should have empathy for those lower on the wealth ladder. "Culture" is loaded because it's easier to build education-centric culture the higher on the wealth ladder you are. Because time, emotional bandwidth, and money are deeply connected in reality.

Your statement that in your culture you blame parents for not instilling education-centric culture is the thing I totally disagree with. I don't think shaming parents is producing results the way you think it is, or producing a "better culture and a better future," as you would say. Nobody wants to live in a culture where you get blamed for things outside of your control. And you should probably recognize that there are limits to how parents affect their children even under "perfect" conditions. These aren't nice little math functions where input -> output, these are complex human beings we're talking about.

<comment><USER96> > You certainly have a way of responding to things that weren't asserted in > the first place.

I thought we were having a discussion and not a point-counterpoint style debate.

> I don't think shaming parents is producing results the way you think it is, > or producing a "better culture and a better future," as you would say.

My parents grew up with actual famine, high levels of pollution, horrible factory jobs etc. So did almost all of my uncles and aunties.

A minimum wage job at Walmart in the US would have provided a huge increase in quality of life for them.

Yet looking at their education levels they were still miles ahead of the bottom 25% of US high school graduates.

> And you should probably recognize that there are limits to how parents > affect their children even under "perfect" conditions.

Of course - but we can't really untangle the complexities involved except by trial and error.

I feel we have tried providing more money/funding in the US with overall poor outcomes.

I'm telling you about a method that has worked - for a different culture in a worse economic environment. Maybe the success is not from the shaming but in spite of it - but like I said it's difficult to untangle.

I'm not even really promoting it as I still remember the pain from getting caned for getting poor results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> Maybe if people had to actually raise them, people would stop having so many kids.

<comment><USER97> It's funny how this got flagged. Breeders are so sensitive about their god- given right to breed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> Many parents are discovering that the problem with "why johnny can't learn" wasn't the teachers or the schools.

<comment><USER99> Most parents are trying to juggle a full schedule of teaching and jobs at the moment. I don't think it's fair to compare that against an environment dedicated to learning (ish).

<comment><USER100> I feel like the comment was more directed on the kids' parents having to walk a mile in the Teacher's shoes. And the ease with which it is someone else's problem to make sure your kid learns.

<comment><USER101> There is certainly some of that. Being a teacher is certainly very difficult. However, theoretically at least, they are trained to be teachers, and it is their full time job, while for most parents it is not.

Additionally, being onsite at school there are fewer distractions, and just the environment of physically being on a school campus conveys that the primary focus of the day is education.

<comment><USER102> So, what you're saying is that teachers are trained _professionals_ , and that school environments are _engineered_ to be spaces for learning?

Shocking.

Perhaps teachers and schools don't suck as much as people thought ...

<comment><USER103> The context of the comments matter. Just saying...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: some good examples of html5 information display - <AUTHOR>

What are the best examples of html5 info displays that you've seen? <comment><AUTHOR> Type of examples I'm looking for: <http://everytimezone.com/></comment>


Paytm Founder, Vijay Shekhar Sharma's Incredible Life Story - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.in/Paytm-Founder-Vijay-Shekhar-Sharmas-incredible-life-story/articleshow/50497089.cms <comment><USER2> This may seem like an incredible story to the general public but I think many of us who are founders know that in our community there are many people like Vijay Shekhar. People who have put everything on the line because they have this vision of being a world changer and creating a legacy for themselves. The only difference between the Vijays of the group and the rest is opportunity. It really is. All of them have the drive and intelligence, but only a very very few have the right opportunity strike at the right time and know what to do with it. He is special, no doubt, but this article glorifies his achievements.</comment>


Zero-cost abstractions in Julia: indexing vectors by name with LabelledArrays - <AUTHOR> http://www.stochasticlifestyle.com/zero-cost-abstractions-in-julia-indexing-vectors-by-name-with-labelledarrays/ <comment><USER2> I've definitely run into people who don't beleive its possible to have nice abstractions with zero runtime cost so this is a nice read!

Really cool to see how effortless it is to implement things like this in Julia.</comment>


A functional architecture for autonomous driving (2015) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.kth.se/polopoly_fs/1.580283!/wasa2015.pdf <comment><USER2> Sometimes, when you define the internal structure of a system in a way that is more conceptually accessible for humans, it actually performs worse.

A simple model based RL system, like this ([https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~sutton/book/ebook/figtmp63.p...](https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~sutton/book/ebook/figtmp63.png)), trained with enough data would implicitly recover all the necessary sub- systems.

<comment><USER3> RL can in principle recover necessary subsystems, but you can't tell if that has actually happened. A human designed system may not be as comprehensive asymptotically as a learned system, but the designer can ensure that critical portions of the state space are covered.</comment></comment>