Neutrality of Teachers

1) I've worked in education, yes. I can't say more, sorry. And yes .. it was in public schools - where there is a full array of socioeconomics in the student body.

2) Again, we'll have to differ. I believe (absolutely) that poverty doesn't affect education in the way you're suggesting. If it did, poor migrants would never make good - and plenty do. What impacts education is CULTURE, and culture exists irregardless of wealth. And it's not about kids 'going above' culture - that's the parents' job. And parents only accept a negative cultural habit, if they themselves don't want to do the work in 'going above'. A family is a strong enough unit to break away from bad influences and operate independently. Again, that's how poor migrants do it. They keep themselves separate from bad influences in their new community by being psychologically separate. As in, they don't require approval or acceptance from those kinds of people, so don't give a damn what is thought of them.

3) I never said it was easy. Nothing worth fighting for ever is. And once again, if they FAMILY and FRIENDS won't support the child to do well, there is no hope. That's (very bad) personal choices made by those who claim to care about us, predicated on their own comfort.

4) Had that nice girl in your class been Asian, she wouldn't have given a damn what people said about her. She would actually have appreciated the acknowledgement (negative as it was) that she was doing well. It's all in the parenting. Self-esteem, separation from bad influences, etc etc. Nothing to do with money.

5) I come from poverty, educated myself by going to university at night, and have spent years working amongst the poorest in my First World nation. I've also lived in the Third World, and spent time in poor but highly ambitious societies. I guarantee I know more about real poverty than most on these boards.

6) Kids selling drugs at school? Long lost. And not your responsibility anyway.

7) But it IS simple. Put your kids first, and don't rest til your work is done. Claiming it's complex is the eternal cop-out. Not yours, but anyone who claims it's too complex to fix. The fix is the simplest thing on earth. Don't be a lazy and selfish parent. We WANT it to be complex - because it assuages our guilt and gives us permission to keep misbehaving.

8 ) In the First World, we all have the power to 'do more' for ourselves. But you're right, too many (and an ever increasing number) have been led to believe that someone else will fix things, so they don't even bother trying. And like you, I'm also idealistic about humanity. I hope that Western nations recognise the harm they're doing in making it easier and easier for adults to slack off.

 

I would say that there is a "culture of poverty", but that is not due to actual poverty. It's a frame of mind that there are powerful forces at work to keep poor people poor, so why bother?

I've known plenty of people like that. The one thing they all have in common is that they blame somebody else for their situation.

That is not due to poverty, but is learned behavior.

 

It sounds like the trick is to get them to see a different world. I know they have a scared straight program for troubled teens, but that's just showing them the world and probable future they're already well aware of. My parents briefly participated in a program that had kids from the hood come to our farm for a week during summer vacation, but for some reason, they weren't interested in waking up at 5am to milk goats, collect chicken eggs, and pick weeds from my grandma's vegetable garden. I seem to recall a few complaints about the TV reception (it worked at night if you didn't mind snow and a local uhf channel, and lots of refusals to drink goats milk (I couldn't fault them for that). All that did was make the ghetto seem like an urban utopia full of lazy days and food that comes from stores like the good lord intended.

 

Great thread here and the comments are genuine. You point out that these kids need a different perspective to escape their birth circumstances. I agree. This is but one of the reasons why I believe in mandatory service for all kids ages 18-21. Get them out of their private worlds and expose them to what is possible rather then let them see the world as a spectator.

 

1) I'm not assuming anything about parental structure. There is just as much divorce in the wealthy as in the poor, and just as much apathy sometimes. The point is merely that POVERTY is not the cause of the problems, culture is. Some of the poorest people on earth have healthy and supportive family structures, and no one gets divorced, does drugs or crime, etc etc.

2) I've spent time around the poorest and most dysfunctional indigenous communities in my country, AND the very poor in the Third World. I've also spent (too much) time around middle class failures .. who technically had every advantage, but as a result of terrible parenting ended up at the bottom - with those living below the poverty line.

3) You can't help kids who are that lost. Don't waste time on them, when there are kids who will actually use your help to help themselves.

4) Can't agree. It's VERY simple. We all have a decision to make before we start breeding. Will we commit our all to it? Or will we do it with the very least disturbance to ourselves as possible? There is nothing complex about that, and no external factors short of a world war will deter us if we're determined to do it right. Not poverty, not 'bad culture', not peer pressure, not geography, not our own limited education, not even language (see my points re: refugees). No 'complexity' will be allowed to thwart it.

 

Nothing worth having is 'easy'. No one is suggesting it is, or that it should be.

 

MTGM (military trained gang members) are a big problem, and gangs have infiltrated every branch of the military. They join the military as gang members in order to learn military tactics and learn how to operate military weapons.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...ned_gang_members_-_Two_different_perspectives

 

OMG, seriously?

Wow.

 

Yeah, at first glance it might seem like a good idea to send those poor kids from the hood to the marines to get some discipline, but you have to stop and think what they are taught. You want to send gang bangers to a place where they are taught how to operate machine guns, as well as how to obtain machine guns, grenades, and rocket launchers?

Maybe not the best idea in the history of ideas.

 

The problem is that kids in the states aren't in poverty. It's a matter of figuring out how to help kids, yes? They can be poor or rich or whatever, but poverty isn't something that Americans truly understand. Maybe relative to rich kids in the hills, but relative to actual poor people? It's really hard to garner sympathy for Americans when you've seen true poverty. I'm talking about kids in India who were mutilated by gangs so they can beg for money from sympathetic tourists, or street children in Cambodia who sniff glue (destroying their brains) because sniffing glue helps stop the pain of hunger.

That's a hard sell, dude.

I understand that you look at the kids in the states and think they need help. Just understand that relatively, they are complaining about...

 

Yeah, I know. Just talking about poverty isn't really ruffling any air up my skirts. Kids need help no matter what their situation is, but poverty in the states is a hard sell.

You need to look at other things like the culture of poverty you mentioned earlier. That's not really poverty so much as it is a mindset born of willful ignorance. I don't know how to combat that. What I do know is that you're going to have to deal with the willful part. And yes, it is willful. They have all seen those pictures of African kids with distended bellies due to starvation, yet still think that they have it bad?

First world problem children.

You can try to help them, but I've got better things to do.

 

Our military types are too nerdy (mostly) for gangs .. haha!

 

I understand what you're saying, but my point was that when parents are determined, environment won't stop them. Hence the success of so many refugees and migrants.

 

That's a very important point though. When you understand what real poverty is, you understand that there's no such thing in the First World. Which can lead you to only one conclusion .. educational failure is a parental choice.

 

The only thing that will 'help' is a good hard dose of real hunger. Welfare has a LOT to answer for.

 

Are you suggesting that no heirs should inherit wealth or property then? Inheriting millions or billions is definitely "easy".

 

This argument has been raised by right wing media people repeatedly not in a way that would support our poor but in order to shame them by comparing them to the poor of a Third World nation. It is the same type of lesson taught by giving a starving man one biscuit while owning a bakery full of biscuits. One biscuit is far better then no biscuits is the logic, be thankful for the biscuit. Calvinism at its most Christlike.