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Comment by kaliszad | Hacker News Reader

Well, not going to such a school might be more beneficial in the right family setting than going.

Also, if you think that 3 months out of 12 or so years of schooling will "abandon the kid and their future" than we should probably add years you have to go to school to minimise the effect of aggregated absence because of e.g. illness. Of course, 3 months of missed school are probably below any kind of measurability and natural and familiar influences are going to have a much higher bearing.

The kid is also probably not going to stay in a vacuum even when at home, it is definitely going to learn something on its own too. Maybe not something that will get it a better grade but most likely something rather useful in the real life.

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> we should probably add years you have to go to school to minimise the effect of aggregated absence because of e.g. illness.

How many sick days did you take as a kid? I'm pretty sure I didn't get close to 3 months in aggregate until I was out for a full month at once with mono in college. Missing three months all at once is very unusual and disruptive.

Anyway, the problem here is not the actual lost learning - we know that actual academic education is spotty at best in American schools. The problem is that relatively small disturbances to the happy-path of social and bureaucratic progression as a kid can have outsize effects because of path dependence, and he's now tagged as A Problem Child forever. He will never, ever get the benefit of the doubt. He'll likely have subtle social difficulties because kids will look at him funny. To the extent that school is meant as a gentle introduction to how to deal with other people in the "real" world, his is pretty well fucked.

The authorized absence rate seems to be just above 3 %: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-sta... which amount to ~ 3 days of absence per term/ ~ 6 days per year. 6 * 12 = 72, which is quite a bit more than three months in aggregate (it is more like 3,5 months). This is in the UK but it is probably reasonably similar elsewhere.

Maybe it will "be a problem child" forever. Maybe it will actually learn to be more assertive thanks to that and either end up in jail or as a high performing employee or founder. Nobody knows and it really depends. The happy-path of social and bureaucratic progression as a kid could be to develop some thick skin early. The school in the general case is a very harsh introduction to the real world. More often than not, kids are mean to each other. Either you develop some elbows or you are generally loved or you like most kids somehow make it through.

Either way, it could be, the parents of that kid would or will move to a different city altogether and socially start from scratch.

12 years worth of absence in one go sounds like a lot.

Well, 12 years worth of _authorized_ absence (so maybe like 3,5 months in total) _on average_. I know of people, who maybe had a few days of absence in total over the 12 years of schooling. I know of people, who missed more than a year in total and they are doing very, very well in general professionally even when their health isn't so great.

I was out of school for a 3-month period at 10 for an extended family holiday, and a 2-month period at 16 for illness. It honestly wasn't that disruptive - at 10 I probably learnt more on the road than in school, being tutored directly by my parents, and at 16 I had all my textbooks plus extreme boredom as motivation.

I think you’re grossly underestimating the psychological impact of being labeled a bad kid and missing out on 3 months of social interaction in school. Also when he comes back he will also carry the stigma of being a problem child.

I think you are grossly underestimating the psychological impact of for whatever reason being labeled such and such and being at school. There are schools that are mostly a happy place, I know a few. The general case however is you spend ~12 years somewhere you would rather avoid if you could.

So what is the child doing for 3 months while being suspended that’s better than being at school? It’s not like school punishment having an impact on your life isn’t well documented.

“School to prison pipeline” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline

Even the kid and his family in the article says he liked the school

“ Malachi said he liked Couch Middle School before his suspension. Science class was his favorite because he liked the teacher, whom he is accused of bombarding with racial slurs, and he liked the quiz games they played in class.”

And they also mention the struggles of this event

“ His 21-year-old aunt has been home schooling him while juggling a full course load at Kennesaw State University.

…

“It’s really hard for him to go through this and to be associated with such horrible words,” said Malachi’s grandmother, Gillian Gardener-Valbrun. “That is a stain.”

Malachi said he would feel uncomfortable returning to Couch, where his friends and classmates know what he is accused of.“

Why would you assume to know better than the kid and his family on the impact of this?

Interested to see your evidence countering this.

Of course there are problems but personally, when I was at school, I didn't quite understand suspensions. You mean I don't have to go to school? That's fantastic! I wish I was naughty enough to get suspended! School is hell for a lot of kids.

But we don't know, how the situation would unfold, if he was at school after the incident, do we?

I hope, this kid will like science after this whole thing is over still. It really seems, he was wrongly accused (as in the movie The Fugitive with Harrison Ford) and it is nice the family is trying to give him support.

In general, today's kids might work on their projects while at home. I have a colleague, who was sick at home for a long time and he basically learned to program the computer during that time. He has written a game, learned recursion and other concepts on his own and much more. He almost certainly wouldn't have learned the same at school. He programs professionally now, has a PhD. in math and worked at Google. It really depends on the family, the child and the school of course (in case of absence for whatever reason, this has less influence).

Yes we don’t know something that hasn’t happened but I imagine the kid and his family have a better idea on it than you. And if your only data point is a colleague who was sick while working that doesn’t really bolster your argument :)

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