Comment by saalweachter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by saalweachter | Hacker News Reader

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See, I hear techies grumble about education constantly. Our education system is teaching the wrong skills or not challenging students or just an elaborate babysitting racket.

I hear teachers, on the other hand, complain that after decades of trying everything they can, they've realized that they cannot help students unless those students have safe, stable, supportive home lives.

It's easy to say we should introduce children to programming early, even easy to do. It is easy to complain about critical thinking skills and kids these days. It is easy to see that overtesting schools and overreacting to those test scores wastes resources and the time of children and teachers.

It's hard to find a way to ensure one in six children in the US subject to food insecurity always get three good meals a day. It is hard to figure out how to provide stability in a single family, let alone all families. It is hard to say a child shouldn't drop out of school and work whatever job they can when their parents have been unable or unwilling to provide for them.

We have been talking about and trying to fix "education" my entire life; maybe we should try fixing some of the underlying problems first, even if they are hard.

> they cannot help students unless those students have safe, stable, supportive home lives

As someone from a teaching family, this is absolutely true.

That said, the underlying problems can only be fixed by a combination of economic improvement and education. Education empowers in the future, but economic status empowers educational opportunities in the present.

And when it comes down to it, the government can't afford to replace the future wealth created by an educated citizenry.

Yes this is a problem that certainly deserves attention.

But the education issues also apply to the other five in six children who do have food security. The education problem is one that affects anyone who does not have access to the best private schools.

When I say fix education, I don't mean teach people programming or whatever skills or knowledge that might give them a marginal leg up. Those things are becoming increasingly less valuable.

I mean teach people how to be well adjusted people, teach them soft skills of empathy and understanding others, teach them why and how to continuously improve themselves, teach them how to identify areas where they can contribute to society without waiting for a teacher or boss to tell them exactly what to do.

Without these abilities, more and more will fall into the poverty trap as the need for worker bees diminishes.

You can aim at other models that aren't trying to improve the 18-year batch model. The great stratification that happens at the end of that, where you're either raised to the great meritocracy in the sky or cast into the abyss, would probably still be unconscionable if it were done fairly, and it's not.

So focus on the parts that happen once you're an adult. MOOCs aren't a panacea but you don't have to miss a class because your shift moved. If the objection is they aren't taken seriously by employers, my objection is that's still playing the old prestige and rank game, and there is always going to be someone at the bottom of that anyway. So make them useful to themselves if employers don't want them.

(I believe fixing childhood poverty involves the US Government doing things it's not going to do soon, and that private business isn't going to do it. We must cultivate our garden.)

None of those are particular hard. Start by ending snap and using the money to increase the number of meals in schools to three a day. Second those meals must be some protein, some veggies and potatoes, pizza, etc are not food.

One of the difficulties in guaranteeing adequate childhood nutrition is that children are only in schools for about 180 days a year, in the US, but need to eat approximately 365 days each year.

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