[teejers1]

I’d be interested in hearing your ideas for fixing the problem with”conventional” schools and black and brown kids. We actually may find some common ground - improving schools (and scholastic options) in economically depressed areas is needed.  On that I think we may actually agree.  But I truly don’t think staying home is the better of the two current options.

Me too.  Schools routinely fail disadvantaged populations and especially racial/ethnic minorities.  However, I have seen no data to suggest that no school is worse for them than the flawed schools we have.  Again, it is a bit hard to disentangle the difference between suggesting that schools should stay distance learning because of COVID and saying that schools are stacked against black and brown kids, but the leap to "no school would be better" is surprising, so I'd like to hear the entirety of brevin's thoughts before jumping in.

BC

Who should the burden of proof be placed on? A system that systematically increases disparities between BIPOC and white kids, or poor and rich kids over 13 years, or those who point out the harm of the system? A system that dumps resources on affluent neighborhoods and puts cops in poor schools, or those who point out the harm of the system? 

But I stand by my "no school" is better than conventional, white supremacist, hierarchical schools that force kids to compete against each other in mostly meaningless academic games so that they can rise to the top, only to find out at the end of the race that rising to the top of a dropout factory means nothing compared to being middle of the pack at an affluent public or private school. 

The schools and their focus on competition and performance in ways that are not relevant to the lives or the futures of BIPOC and poor children reward those who can play a meaningless game and win. Who has time to play a meaningless, all consuming game for 13 years, a game that is already tilted toward affluent white (and Asian) kids? And Frank Smith highlights in The Book of Learning and Forgetting, the field of education (which I work in) was in part built around testing kids on meaningless tasks in order to determine intelligence and merit, because only meaningless tasks can be devoid of prior or cultural knowledge. It was also in part built by eugenicists and those advocating genocide, but that's a different story. 

Why do we waste 13 years of young people's lives to play stupid little games that do not benefit them in terms of actually development? Many reasons. One is that many many adults profit from the system. And those adults vote, and donate to political candidates. Two is that we tend to assume that the status quo is necessary. Three is that families fear opting out of a system, even a harmful system, because they often believe that the system is the only path for their child to advance in a hierarchical system that can only anoint winners by anointing many more losers. 

Children could, alternatively be allowed to unschool, or join Self-Directed Education communities where they are not forced to compete against each other. Where the default curriculum isn't centered on white supremacy. Where children do not have their time wasted, forcing them to lose sleep to perfect beating out others for grades, in subjects that are mostly meaningless and on lessons they will mostly forget. 

My argument against conventional schooling is not an argument against education, nor is it an argument against publicly funded education. It is an argument that when we stop convincing kids that they are failures, or deficient, or stupid; that they can then learn skills and ways of thinking that are actually adaptive for an uncertain future; and they can develop a sense of self efficacy that can inoculate them against a system that was always intended to give the greatest advantages to those who need them the least.

---

I'm so serious that I refuse to overlook the scores of millions of Black and brown children who have been harmed by conventional schooling in America.

 I’d be interested in hearing your ideas for fixing the problem with”conventional” schools and black and brown kids. We actually may find some common ground - improving schools (and scholastic options) in economically depressed areas is needed.  On that I think we may actually agree.  But I truly don’t think staying home is the better of the two current options.

I'm not so sure we would agree on much regarding improving school. Some problems cannot be fixed within a system that was created to perpetuate inequities.

I don't think that we should conflate the question of what is better (remote or in-person) from the perspective of people who think conventional schooling helps kids, with what is better for public health in a pandemic, and with what is best for businesses that need workers. If we are talking exclusively about the health and welfare of the children, we should not discount all of the children who are benefiting from not being subjected to the harm of schooling right now.

I'm working in the poorest neighborhood in the Bay Area. All of the kids are now in online school. Most of the parents are close to illiterate. They cannot help their kids learn in these circumstances, and many do not bother having their kids attend class. For the poorest families, having their children go to school is the only hope for a future decent life. Your ideas about school are naive and ill informed. The problems these kids have in getting a good education are so complex that any issues with public schools probably account for 10% of the problem. They are malnourished, their parents are grossly under educated, the families are destitute, they don't always have housing, and they have medical problems that are the result of abject poverty. The public schools are the only place where they eat fruits or vegetables, the only place where an adult is in their life who understands what they will need to do to survive in our culture, and the only place they go where they feel safe. 

That being said, kids are resilient, and missing one year of school won't doom most of them. Missing more than that would be a disaster.

I'm glad you work in the poorest neighborhoods, but your experience in medicine does not mean you are an expert on how schooling harms children. The notion that children need to go to school as the only hope for a future decent life is naive and ill informed. You seem to suffer from survivor bias, ignoring the overwhelming majority of children from the poorest neighborhoods who are worse off because of schooling. While material conditions and social conditions are certainly harmful to these children, to waive off the impact of schooling, which takes up 15,000 hours of their lives, is kinda ... remarkable. Perhaps we could imagine a society where we can feed young people in need without subjecting them to the game of schooling?? And if you think school is the one place where poor Black and brown kids feel safe then I would argue you have not spent much time in the schools of the families you work with.

Kids are resilient. But chronic stress tears almost everyone down.

Back in the real world, Menlo is evidently re-opening (for 3 weeks) before the holidays.  Will be interesting to see how they fare.

[teejers1]

I’d be interested in hearing your ideas for fixing the problem with”conventional” schools and black and brown kids. We actually may find some common ground - improving schools (and scholastic options) in economically depressed areas is needed.  On that I think we may actually agree.  But I truly don’t think staying home is the better of the two current options.

Me too.  Schools routinely fail disadvantaged populations and especially racial/ethnic minorities.  However, I have seen no data to suggest that no school is worse for them than the flawed schools we have.  Again, it is a bit hard to disentangle the difference between suggesting that schools should stay distance learning because of COVID and saying that schools are stacked against black and brown kids, but the leap to "no school would be better" is surprising, so I'd like to hear the entirety of brevin's thoughts before jumping in.

BC

Who should the burden of proof be placed on? A system that systematically increases disparities between BIPOC and white kids, or poor and rich kids over 13 years, or those who point out the harm of the system? A system that dumps resources on affluent neighborhoods and puts cops in poor schools, or those who point out the harm of the system? 

But I stand by my "no school" is better than conventional, white supremacist, hierarchical schools that force kids to compete against each other in mostly meaningless academic games so that they can rise to the top, only to find out at the end of the race that rising to the top of a dropout factory means nothing compared to being middle of the pack at an affluent public or private school. 

The schools and their focus on competition and performance in ways that are not relevant to the lives or the futures of BIPOC and poor children reward those who can play a meaningless game and win. Who has time to play a meaningless, all consuming game for 13 years, a game that is already tilted toward affluent white (and Asian) kids? And Frank Smith highlights in The Book of Learning and Forgetting, the field of education (which I work in) was in part built around testing kids on meaningless tasks in order to determine intelligence and merit, because only meaningless tasks can be devoid of prior or cultural knowledge. It was also in part built by eugenicists and those advocating genocide, but that's a different story. 

Why do we waste 13 years of young people's lives to play stupid little games that do not benefit them in terms of actually development? Many reasons. One is that many many adults profit from the system. And those adults vote, and donate to political candidates. Two is that we tend to assume that the status quo is necessary. Three is that families fear opting out of a system, even a harmful system, because they often believe that the system is the only path for their child to advance in a hierarchical system that can only anoint winners by anointing many more losers. 

Children could, alternatively be allowed to unschool, or join Self-Directed Education communities where they are not forced to compete against each other. Where the default curriculum isn't centered on white supremacy. Where children do not have their time wasted, forcing them to lose sleep to perfect beating out others for grades, in subjects that are mostly meaningless and on lessons they will mostly forget. 

My argument against conventional schooling is not an argument against education, nor is it an argument against publicly funded education. It is an argument that when we stop convincing kids that they are failures, or deficient, or stupid; that they can then learn skills and ways of thinking that are actually adaptive for an uncertain future; and they can develop a sense of self efficacy that can inoculate them against a system that was always intended to give the greatest advantages to those who need them the least.

---

I'm so serious that I refuse to overlook the scores of millions of Black and brown children who have been harmed by conventional schooling in America.

 I’d be interested in hearing your ideas for fixing the problem with”conventional” schools and black and brown kids. We actually may find some common ground - improving schools (and scholastic options) in economically depressed areas is needed.  On that I think we may actually agree.  But I truly don’t think staying home is the better of the two current options.

I'm not so sure we would agree on much regarding improving school. Some problems cannot be fixed within a system that was created to perpetuate inequities.

I don't think that we should conflate the question of what is better (remote or in-person) from the perspective of people who think conventional schooling helps kids, with what is better for public health in a pandemic, and with what is best for businesses that need workers. If we are talking exclusively about the health and welfare of the children, we should not discount all of the children who are benefiting from not being subjected to the harm of schooling right now.

I'm working in the poorest neighborhood in the Bay Area. All of the kids are now in online school. Most of the parents are close to illiterate. They cannot help their kids learn in these circumstances, and many do not bother having their kids attend class. For the poorest families, having their children go to school is the only hope for a future decent life. Your ideas about school are naive and ill informed. The problems these kids have in getting a good education are so complex that any issues with public schools probably account for 10% of the problem. They are malnourished, their parents are grossly under educated, the families are destitute, they don't always have housing, and they have medical problems that are the result of abject poverty. The public schools are the only place where they eat fruits or vegetables, the only place where an adult is in their life who understands what they will need to do to survive in our culture, and the only place they go where they feel safe. 

That being said, kids are resilient, and missing one year of school won't doom most of them. Missing more than that would be a disaster.

I'm glad you work in the poorest neighborhoods, but your experience in medicine does not mean you are an expert on how schooling harms children. The notion that children need to go to school as the only hope for a future decent life is naive and ill informed. You seem to suffer from survivor bias, ignoring the overwhelming majority of children from the poorest neighborhoods who are worse off because of schooling. While material conditions and social conditions are certainly harmful to these children, to waive off the impact of schooling, which takes up 15,000 hours of their lives, is kinda ... remarkable. Perhaps we could imagine a society where we can feed young people in need without subjecting them to the game of schooling?? And if you think school is the one place where poor Black and brown kids feel safe then I would argue you have not spent much time in the schools of the families you work with.

Kids are resilient. But chronic stress tears almost everyone down.

Back in the real world, Menlo is evidently re-opening (for 3 weeks) before the holidays.  Will be interesting to see how they fare.