Back when I was a grad student, we'd have this afternoon program for kids that excelled in math. A lot of that was training towards math competitions, both regional and national / international.
I'd 1/3 of the kids were there because they loved math, and solving math problems. Another third were there because they felt like they had to have something competitive on their resume and application letter, while the last third were there because their parents forced them to - and they seemed miserable. The same last third were also forced to play some instrument, or some other extracurricular - they basically followed a strict program that their parents had made for them. Check off the "correct" boxes.
A couple of years ago I curiously checked up where these kids had wound up later in life, and many of the kids that loved math had become math or physics Ph.Ds, or were on track to.
The rest seemed to work in tech, engineering, consulting, finance, and such fields.
With that said, kids these days have it tough. To competition is INSANE, and you have to excel at pretty much everything, to even have a chance. Having a perfect GPA is not enough, you also need a slew of other accomplishments. And even then, there's no guarantee.
And it continues like that into higher education.
The irony of it all is that the work these kids tend to pursue, does not even require 1/10th of the work they've put into their education / academic life. One exception would be for those that decide to pursue research - but far too many whip-smart overachievers will end up working on the dullest shit imaginable...but they do get paid.
EDIT: One thing you'll notice is that overachievers with such backgrounds need constant feedback, and any criticism goes straight to their heart. There's this name - "insecure overachiever" - and it rings true for many kids that went through that grind.
Some of them really need to be re-programmed, when they enter the workforce.
> you have to excel at pretty much everything, to even have a chance
That can't possibly be true. By definition, only a small minority can excel, and as a practical matter, to excel at something requires specialization and focus. So to "excel at pretty much everything" is a practical impossibility. If anyone who didn't "excel at pretty much everything" had no chance, most people would be on the street. This idea that you must excel to have a chance is necessarily a myth. And it's a pernicious and dangerous myth. It's this myth that is driving young people to burn themselves out, not anything in actual reality.
In the conclusion, this article rather clumsily introduces 'Common Core' as a causal factor, without having engaged with it in any of the preceding discussion. One might argue that the Common Core represents a baseline of common educational material, yet here it is deployed as a rhetorical flourish, an afterthought devoid of substantiation.
The argument navigates through a series of points about High Performing schools, only to suddenly invoke the specter of Common Core at the end. This abrupt shift is problematic, as it positions Common Core—an endeavor to standardize and elevate educational content—as a lowest common denominator, a diluted and reductionist framework.
Such a leap demands more rigorous reasoning. The article should interrogate the implications of its own critique: Are we suggesting that certain students should be exempt from foundational learning because it imposes stress? Are we advocating for a system where basic mathematical literacy, as defined by Common Core, is deemed too onerous? The absence of a cohesive argument leading to this conclusion undermines the critique and leaves us questioning the coherence of the proposed educational standards.
It seems like this is all compatible with the root cause being parental/family values of achievement rather than the school per se.
As a parent, I’m always super conscious that one is tempted to praise the achievement, but this is good summary of why that is a bad idea. Instead we try hard to praise the effort, especially when our kids fail. Not always easy!
>Instead we try hard to praise the effort, especially when our kids fail.
That type of advice depends on particular circumstances so you have to explain the different situations so kids are not confused by getting mixed messages.
(1) sometimes the effort is more important than the result. E.g. kids attempt to cook a meal for Mother's Day and they burn the food a bit. Or one is self-learning dancing or pottery and the results are not professional quality and it doesn't matter.
(2) but sometimes, the result is more important than the effort. The "real world" out there such as job performance reviews, college entrance SAT scores, etc cares about the results. If the judge finds the results unacceptable and the only comeback is "but I tried really really hard", it will be perceived as just making excuses.
Each situation above has also been misapplied. The infamous "Tiger Mom" focused too much on (2) and criticized her daughter for a amateur hand-drawn Mother's Day card and told her to do it again. Likewise, employees are sometimes blindsided and shocked for being fired for "underperformance" because they misapply (1) to the employer/employee relationship.
There was a quote from Winston Churchill that I saw once: “ No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it.”
When it comes to sports, school — anything really — I try to tell my kids that all they can do is prepare and do their best. They might win and not deserve it. They might also lose. But if they came prepared, did their best, and handled themselves with class, then they deserved victory.
I second this, ultimately a large part of who we all are is who we are surrounded by(you run with the wolves, you get fleas). Sure 40 hours a week is spent on school grounds with various teachers and students but the other 60+ plus waking hours is often with family.
The teachers of such a school aren't there because they want to change the system either. And the administration wants the school to stay a "HAS". So no incentive for anybody involved.
My wife and I listened to a podcast on this subject a few months ago. My son got into a fairly high achieving magnet school (for DISD anyway), Townview SEM in Dallas, so we were interested. It really boils down to home life and how hard you push and what values you instill in a child. Attending a high achieving high school isn’t the real problem, it’s how you setup a child’s perspective of their own self worth.
Completely concur. Setting high standards and then providing a supportive environment to get these sets kids for success rather than failure.
I would have been more charitable to the author if I read this a few years ago but of late, there's been so much negativity against any kind of pressure and a "glorification" of mediocrity and doing nothing done, it's almost like being an achiever is something to be ashamed of. Of course it has costs, of course there are risks. The point is to tackle and overcome all that and achieve something great. Not to sit idly being "safe" all the time.
> When one controls for background factors, such as parents’ income and indices of ability, it makes no difference what college a person attends. But that research has been ignored and the belief persists.
I personally think this is a bit of a stretch, a person from a middle to low-income background will certainly get a boost in their life if they get accepted somewhere prestigious like MIT, Harvard, Cambridge etc, heck even the relationships that you build in such places on their own could be worth it, they can prove very valuable.
I'm interested in seeing the research mentioned by the author about this.
Has anyone read the underlying studies for the first section? I tapped out but I find it somewhat hard to believe that rates of hard substance abuse are higher in places like Cupertino than in some ghetto school (the author specifically implies this with their vagueness).
I can see high achieving kids having an unneeded Adderall prescription or binge drinking, but am I really being led to believe that rates of crack abuse are similar? Did they look at kids who drop out/never attend (probably not)? Just feels a bit off.
This not surprising at all. The stories of suicide in High Achieving School in Asia is common knowledge. Same can be said about "High Achieving Jobs" and "High Achieving ______"
Do we want to live or just be high achieving in life?
I'd say the good approach is to set high standards and then work towards achieving them in a supportive environment. Every the pursuit brings happiness.
I teach adolescents at a Montessori school. The families are higher SES but they value holistic education and the wellbeing of their kids above academic performance. The programming reflects these values, so it works all around.
IMO there is a way forward for schools. It doesn’t need to be Montesssori but it does need to reduce the extrinsic manipulations of students from within the school as much as possible. Those manipulations lead to many of the maladaptive effects discussed in the article.
This is exactly why i now agree with homeschooling or unschooling.
I do think - with my experience as a counselor who taught science and did experiments with children of all age and background - that unschooling is overall worse than homeschooling (which relies less on the parents to be great), and homeschooling was overall worse than a public, normal school with a normal number of children per class (no more than 28, so that half classes are 12 to 14 max).
However, the number of "normal" schools is lower than ever, and diminishing, and i now think if you average everything, homeschooling seems better, at least since Covid in my country, probably earlier in other.
BTW, circa 2010-2013, I've met a homeschooling community that basically reinvented school (and who were pretty close to unschooling as they re-did the curriculum to shove kids from different age together) and called external volunteers from education NGOs (i was one) on some subjects. I think they regularly invited a microrocket guy, my NGO, and local guys (a farmer and a warden/ranger/gamekeeper, whatever the english translation is). I do think this is a great alternative model, but i understand that this can only happen in small villages (i think they did this because the school was closed and the bus took too long), and not in suburbia.
I’ve seen plenty of failed homeschooling outcomes as well. Families that are well resourced and have a supportive, positive culture will generally see their children do well no matter what type of education they choose.
Something feels off about this. I mean, it can go both ways, no? Perhaps, pressure from attending a HAS might push one towards substance abuse and more. But couldn't pressure from attending an elite institution and being an elite also make push one against activities like substance abuse?
If we assume that the type of school affects lifelong outcomes, then we should also control for something like parent's latent neuroticism, which would affect both what school their child goes to and (I presume) also life-long probability of engaging in substance abuse as a coping mechanism.
> Something feels off about this. I mean, it can go both ways, no?
man, it can go every way imaginable. Childhood is so short and no on worries like a parent does. Every parent wants to get it 100% right but that's an impossible task yet there's very serious consequences for your child when you get it wrong. Further, parents are just regular people who get misinformed or are ignorant of the path forward and have to just do their best at every crucial step in a child's development. Parenthood is an impossible task to get perfect and you have to give yourself grace but you have to work and learn from your mistakes and improve because a life is at stake.
It's very hard to strike a balance. On one hand you want your kids to be successful, which on it's own has many nuances, and on the other, don't let them waste their potential. Make sure that you provided them the opportunities to achieve their potential. And be happy in life. But also be able to sustain themselves without worrying about tomorrow. And so on.
There is also the fact that if we all live and no one wants to be a high achiever, we'll still be in the dark ages.
I think what you are describing is the socializing of the burden of raising children, only to have mega-corps privately reap the output of their potential and your efforts raising them.
Pretty much, modern-day serfdom. Just see how we still discuss sustainance as a non-given.
Maybe we should instead start instead working on improving the society, so it better caters to develop the potential of its citizens and also give them better equity in return of their high achievements?
I think that the consequences of the opposite of "high achieving" needs to be put into the proper perspective. Let's call that "low achieving". The article focuses on the problems of HAS (high achieving schools) without really categorizing what the alternatives are.
Many folks don't understand what "low achieving" can ACTUALLY mean. It's not just slightly below grade level performance in reading and math. In many places it's 25%+ drop-out rates, half of the graduates not reading at a 5th grade level (illiteracy), overcrowded classrooms and forget about college except for small populations of exceptional students with driven parents. How prevalent are schools like that? Very. Most major metro areas have public school districts like this. This is what "neighborhood school" means for many people.
To make it worse, many of these troubled schools have no "safety net". If a student in a low achieving school has a mild learning disability, or even just a little more hard knocks than they can handle there's no way for them to get accommodated and as a result their learning goes off the rails and never recovers. And the resultant behavioral problems negatively impact their peers who are unlucky enough to share their classroom.
Because of what "low-achieving" can mean, the following suggestion by the article is an ABSOLUTE HARD NO for many parents, especially immigrant parents, regardless of what "the facts" say.
[...]If parents knew the facts and behaved reasonably, they would deliberately avoid an HAS for their kids. They would move out of that high-achievement school district. They would use the money otherwise spent on tutoring or tuitions for more enjoyable family pursuits. Here I present some of those facts, as documented by many research studies[...]
Just leave the US until the American Dream comes back to life; European companies need more forces and their pay is actually good, because the cost of living is not so high - in most places and countries.
I don't get the whole societal focus on these 'grade school kids attending college classes' type of "genius kids". They are advanced for their age, but that's about it. When you get in the real world, nobody cares about your age, just what you can do, and nothing seems to indicate that those kid wonders are any better off than anyone else.
In the conclusion, this article somewhat just drops in 'Common Core' as a cause, while not having discussed it in any of the earlier points.
My understanding is that Common Core is a name for baseline common material.
This is leaping from a series of arguments around High Performing schools, then at end brings in Common Core which is a lowest common denominator of material.
It seems a leap, there should have been some more reasoning to lead to that conclusion. What is the option? That some kids should be allowed to progress without learning material? Because it is stressful to learn the basic math in Common Core?
So, bit of a side question here, and I was hoping that HN could help.
Background: We've come into some money, we're in the 1% now. We did not grow up rich at all and had a HS experience and college admissions experience like the ones described in the article and the comments here (cutthroat). We have kids. We're still new to having 'escaped capitalism'.
Question: Um, how do I raise rich kids?
Like, do we even bother with the crazy college admissions process?
As long as we don't really touch the principle much, this thing will likely grow faster than my family. My kids aren't going to want for anything real, nor will any of my descendants, if they're not really stupid. Which is a pretty low bar to pass.
I don't want my kids languishing away like some of the rich kids that I have known. That usually leads to ennui and, honestly, a lot of drugs a booze. Knowing my SO and I, they are going to need 'meaning' in their lives. But who knows.
So, if anyone has any tips or tricks here, I would love to know.
Sorry for derailing the conversation here, if I have.
I don’t think this is a derailment. You’re asking how you might raise your kids in a way that promotes their well-being, probably contrary to the achievement culture discussed in the article.
A nice model to consider for well-being is “PERMA” from Marty Seligman, a pioneer of positive psychology. The letters stand for five foundations of well-being: positive emotion, engagement (including flow), relationships, meaning, and accomplishments.
From this model, I would explore questions like these:
- Are there schools near your family that focus on mastery rather than performance, and approach education more holistically?
- Do you and your SO have a community of friends that live nearby and have similarly aged children?
- Do you and your SO already find a higher meaning in your lives in ways that can be modeled and conveyed to your children?
I’m a developmental psych guy, so if you want more detail it might be helpful to know roughly how old your kids are or if there’s a developmental stage you’re more or less concerned about. Anyway, maybe this gives you something to chew on.
My children are too young for school right now, but my wife and I constantly go back-and-forth on this exact issue. To a large extent, I think you have to consider each child's individual personality and how they are likely to respond to a high-pressure environment. I suspect there is (unfortunately) a strong genetic component to this—some people are able to shrug off others' expectations of them with ease, whereas for many "failure" in the eyes of their peers or family is mentally crippling.
There's also an environmental component on how a "high achieving personality" manifests psychologically (i.e., whether in a healthy or unhealthy way) that is due to upbringing and expectations. Personally, I've always felt a significant amount of pressure to achieve certain goals, but this pressure has always been self-induced / intrinsically motivated. I've never felt pressure from others to "succeed", and my parents always placed a strong emphasis on the actual learning rather than playing the grades game. As a result, my personal vision of "material success" (as opposed to the much more important "moral success") is quite different than society's: I want to achieve financial independence as quickly as possible so I can spend 8-10 hours a day working on moonshot research projects that would never be funded by a company or lab due to the high likelihood that the research goes absolutely nowhere. The fact that I ended up working at a FANG company is merely an incidental byproduct of what I consider an efficient path to achieving my primary objective—it was never the objective itself. I would gladly take a job as a window cleaner if I thought it helped me reach my goal quicker (perhaps a horrifying notion to many students at high achieving schools...)
On the other hand, my wife has told me that her motivation is primarily extrinsic. When she was in high school, her parents would take her siblings out to restaurants to celebrate their academic achievements (both were valedictorians) and leave her at home. Despite being very intelligent, she remains extremely insecure about the subject—her mom used to call her "the pretty one" and her sister "the smart one". This seems to have permanently damaged her self-esteem, and she told me she is often scared to try new things in life due to an intense fear of failure. It's hard to fail at something you never attempt, right?
We currently live in an area where the schools aren't considered that good by conventional standards, but we do have the ability to move when our children are old enough to attend school. I think we're going to take a wait-and-see approach. It's also worth considering that schools have a strong influence on what children consider culturally normal or socially acceptable while growing up, so there are non-academic considerations that we have to weigh as well. I know of many students who committed suicide while attending high achieving schools in Palo Alto or Cupertino. But I also know of students who ended up in low paying and dead-end careers due to a desire to stay near their family in areas of the country where merely graduating is an achievement. It's a delicate balance that's hard to get right, but the decision of where to send children to school is probably one of the most important ones that parents can make.
[+] [-] TrackerFF|1 year ago|reply
I'd 1/3 of the kids were there because they loved math, and solving math problems. Another third were there because they felt like they had to have something competitive on their resume and application letter, while the last third were there because their parents forced them to - and they seemed miserable. The same last third were also forced to play some instrument, or some other extracurricular - they basically followed a strict program that their parents had made for them. Check off the "correct" boxes.
A couple of years ago I curiously checked up where these kids had wound up later in life, and many of the kids that loved math had become math or physics Ph.Ds, or were on track to.
The rest seemed to work in tech, engineering, consulting, finance, and such fields.
With that said, kids these days have it tough. To competition is INSANE, and you have to excel at pretty much everything, to even have a chance. Having a perfect GPA is not enough, you also need a slew of other accomplishments. And even then, there's no guarantee.
And it continues like that into higher education.
The irony of it all is that the work these kids tend to pursue, does not even require 1/10th of the work they've put into their education / academic life. One exception would be for those that decide to pursue research - but far too many whip-smart overachievers will end up working on the dullest shit imaginable...but they do get paid.
EDIT: One thing you'll notice is that overachievers with such backgrounds need constant feedback, and any criticism goes straight to their heart. There's this name - "insecure overachiever" - and it rings true for many kids that went through that grind.
Some of them really need to be re-programmed, when they enter the workforce.
[+] [-] lisper|1 year ago|reply
That can't possibly be true. By definition, only a small minority can excel, and as a practical matter, to excel at something requires specialization and focus. So to "excel at pretty much everything" is a practical impossibility. If anyone who didn't "excel at pretty much everything" had no chance, most people would be on the street. This idea that you must excel to have a chance is necessarily a myth. And it's a pernicious and dangerous myth. It's this myth that is driving young people to burn themselves out, not anything in actual reality.
[+] [-] FrustratedMonky|1 year ago|reply
The argument navigates through a series of points about High Performing schools, only to suddenly invoke the specter of Common Core at the end. This abrupt shift is problematic, as it positions Common Core—an endeavor to standardize and elevate educational content—as a lowest common denominator, a diluted and reductionist framework.
Such a leap demands more rigorous reasoning. The article should interrogate the implications of its own critique: Are we suggesting that certain students should be exempt from foundational learning because it imposes stress? Are we advocating for a system where basic mathematical literacy, as defined by Common Core, is deemed too onerous? The absence of a cohesive argument leading to this conclusion undermines the critique and leaves us questioning the coherence of the proposed educational standards.
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dbuxton|1 year ago|reply
As a parent, I’m always super conscious that one is tempted to praise the achievement, but this is good summary of why that is a bad idea. Instead we try hard to praise the effort, especially when our kids fail. Not always easy!
[+] [-] jasode|1 year ago|reply
That type of advice depends on particular circumstances so you have to explain the different situations so kids are not confused by getting mixed messages.
(1) sometimes the effort is more important than the result. E.g. kids attempt to cook a meal for Mother's Day and they burn the food a bit. Or one is self-learning dancing or pottery and the results are not professional quality and it doesn't matter.
(2) but sometimes, the result is more important than the effort. The "real world" out there such as job performance reviews, college entrance SAT scores, etc cares about the results. If the judge finds the results unacceptable and the only comeback is "but I tried really really hard", it will be perceived as just making excuses.
Each situation above has also been misapplied. The infamous "Tiger Mom" focused too much on (2) and criticized her daughter for a amateur hand-drawn Mother's Day card and told her to do it again. Likewise, employees are sometimes blindsided and shocked for being fired for "underperformance" because they misapply (1) to the employer/employee relationship.
[+] [-] tcbawo|1 year ago|reply
When it comes to sports, school — anything really — I try to tell my kids that all they can do is prepare and do their best. They might win and not deserve it. They might also lose. But if they came prepared, did their best, and handled themselves with class, then they deserved victory.
[+] [-] Willingham|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ReleaseCandidat|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] chasd00|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] noufalibrahim|1 year ago|reply
I would have been more charitable to the author if I read this a few years ago but of late, there's been so much negativity against any kind of pressure and a "glorification" of mediocrity and doing nothing done, it's almost like being an achiever is something to be ashamed of. Of course it has costs, of course there are risks. The point is to tackle and overcome all that and achieve something great. Not to sit idly being "safe" all the time.
[+] [-] aliasaria|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jacooper|1 year ago|reply
I personally think this is a bit of a stretch, a person from a middle to low-income background will certainly get a boost in their life if they get accepted somewhere prestigious like MIT, Harvard, Cambridge etc, heck even the relationships that you build in such places on their own could be worth it, they can prove very valuable.
I'm interested in seeing the research mentioned by the author about this.
[+] [-] sdfgtr|1 year ago|reply
I can see high achieving kids having an unneeded Adderall prescription or binge drinking, but am I really being led to believe that rates of crack abuse are similar? Did they look at kids who drop out/never attend (probably not)? Just feels a bit off.
[+] [-] vmfunction|1 year ago|reply
Do we want to live or just be high achieving in life?
[+] [-] noufalibrahim|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] hnthrowaway0328|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Eddy_Viscosity2|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tamad|1 year ago|reply
IMO there is a way forward for schools. It doesn’t need to be Montesssori but it does need to reduce the extrinsic manipulations of students from within the school as much as possible. Those manipulations lead to many of the maladaptive effects discussed in the article.
[+] [-] orwin|1 year ago|reply
I do think - with my experience as a counselor who taught science and did experiments with children of all age and background - that unschooling is overall worse than homeschooling (which relies less on the parents to be great), and homeschooling was overall worse than a public, normal school with a normal number of children per class (no more than 28, so that half classes are 12 to 14 max).
However, the number of "normal" schools is lower than ever, and diminishing, and i now think if you average everything, homeschooling seems better, at least since Covid in my country, probably earlier in other.
BTW, circa 2010-2013, I've met a homeschooling community that basically reinvented school (and who were pretty close to unschooling as they re-did the curriculum to shove kids from different age together) and called external volunteers from education NGOs (i was one) on some subjects. I think they regularly invited a microrocket guy, my NGO, and local guys (a farmer and a warden/ranger/gamekeeper, whatever the english translation is). I do think this is a great alternative model, but i understand that this can only happen in small villages (i think they did this because the school was closed and the bus took too long), and not in suburbia.
[+] [-] velcrovan|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Unlisted6446|1 year ago|reply
If we assume that the type of school affects lifelong outcomes, then we should also control for something like parent's latent neuroticism, which would affect both what school their child goes to and (I presume) also life-long probability of engaging in substance abuse as a coping mechanism.
[+] [-] chasd00|1 year ago|reply
man, it can go every way imaginable. Childhood is so short and no on worries like a parent does. Every parent wants to get it 100% right but that's an impossible task yet there's very serious consequences for your child when you get it wrong. Further, parents are just regular people who get misinformed or are ignorant of the path forward and have to just do their best at every crucial step in a child's development. Parenthood is an impossible task to get perfect and you have to give yourself grace but you have to work and learn from your mistakes and improve because a life is at stake.
[+] [-] ludovicianul|1 year ago|reply
There is also the fact that if we all live and no one wants to be a high achiever, we'll still be in the dark ages.
[+] [-] throwanem|1 year ago|reply
> on the other, don't let them waste their potential
Those are the same hand.
[+] [-] rippeltippel|1 year ago|reply
How about wanting your kids to be just _happy_, regardless of what _you_ consider to be "successful"?
[+] [-] m000|1 year ago|reply
Pretty much, modern-day serfdom. Just see how we still discuss sustainance as a non-given.
Maybe we should instead start instead working on improving the society, so it better caters to develop the potential of its citizens and also give them better equity in return of their high achievements?
[+] [-] chasd00|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] crispyambulance|1 year ago|reply
Many folks don't understand what "low achieving" can ACTUALLY mean. It's not just slightly below grade level performance in reading and math. In many places it's 25%+ drop-out rates, half of the graduates not reading at a 5th grade level (illiteracy), overcrowded classrooms and forget about college except for small populations of exceptional students with driven parents. How prevalent are schools like that? Very. Most major metro areas have public school districts like this. This is what "neighborhood school" means for many people.
To make it worse, many of these troubled schools have no "safety net". If a student in a low achieving school has a mild learning disability, or even just a little more hard knocks than they can handle there's no way for them to get accommodated and as a result their learning goes off the rails and never recovers. And the resultant behavioral problems negatively impact their peers who are unlucky enough to share their classroom.
Because of what "low-achieving" can mean, the following suggestion by the article is an ABSOLUTE HARD NO for many parents, especially immigrant parents, regardless of what "the facts" say.
[+] [-] cafard|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] drewcoo|1 year ago|reply
Can't we just give the elite some safe spaces and fainting couches already?
[+] [-] servus45678981|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] spiderxxxx|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] FrustratedMonky|1 year ago|reply
My understanding is that Common Core is a name for baseline common material.
This is leaping from a series of arguments around High Performing schools, then at end brings in Common Core which is a lowest common denominator of material.
It seems a leap, there should have been some more reasoning to lead to that conclusion. What is the option? That some kids should be allowed to progress without learning material? Because it is stressful to learn the basic math in Common Core?
[+] [-] aaomidi|1 year ago|reply
Not to get too dark, but I wonder why Cornell needs suicide nets.
[+] [-] blitzar|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] HSthrowaway2|1 year ago|reply
Background: We've come into some money, we're in the 1% now. We did not grow up rich at all and had a HS experience and college admissions experience like the ones described in the article and the comments here (cutthroat). We have kids. We're still new to having 'escaped capitalism'.
Question: Um, how do I raise rich kids?
Like, do we even bother with the crazy college admissions process?
As long as we don't really touch the principle much, this thing will likely grow faster than my family. My kids aren't going to want for anything real, nor will any of my descendants, if they're not really stupid. Which is a pretty low bar to pass.
I don't want my kids languishing away like some of the rich kids that I have known. That usually leads to ennui and, honestly, a lot of drugs a booze. Knowing my SO and I, they are going to need 'meaning' in their lives. But who knows.
So, if anyone has any tips or tricks here, I would love to know.
Sorry for derailing the conversation here, if I have.
[+] [-] tamad|1 year ago|reply
A nice model to consider for well-being is “PERMA” from Marty Seligman, a pioneer of positive psychology. The letters stand for five foundations of well-being: positive emotion, engagement (including flow), relationships, meaning, and accomplishments.
From this model, I would explore questions like these:
- Are there schools near your family that focus on mastery rather than performance, and approach education more holistically?
- Do you and your SO have a community of friends that live nearby and have similarly aged children?
- Do you and your SO already find a higher meaning in your lives in ways that can be modeled and conveyed to your children?
I’m a developmental psych guy, so if you want more detail it might be helpful to know roughly how old your kids are or if there’s a developmental stage you’re more or less concerned about. Anyway, maybe this gives you something to chew on.
[+] [-] milkey_mouse|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Xcelerate|1 year ago|reply
There's also an environmental component on how a "high achieving personality" manifests psychologically (i.e., whether in a healthy or unhealthy way) that is due to upbringing and expectations. Personally, I've always felt a significant amount of pressure to achieve certain goals, but this pressure has always been self-induced / intrinsically motivated. I've never felt pressure from others to "succeed", and my parents always placed a strong emphasis on the actual learning rather than playing the grades game. As a result, my personal vision of "material success" (as opposed to the much more important "moral success") is quite different than society's: I want to achieve financial independence as quickly as possible so I can spend 8-10 hours a day working on moonshot research projects that would never be funded by a company or lab due to the high likelihood that the research goes absolutely nowhere. The fact that I ended up working at a FANG company is merely an incidental byproduct of what I consider an efficient path to achieving my primary objective—it was never the objective itself. I would gladly take a job as a window cleaner if I thought it helped me reach my goal quicker (perhaps a horrifying notion to many students at high achieving schools...)
On the other hand, my wife has told me that her motivation is primarily extrinsic. When she was in high school, her parents would take her siblings out to restaurants to celebrate their academic achievements (both were valedictorians) and leave her at home. Despite being very intelligent, she remains extremely insecure about the subject—her mom used to call her "the pretty one" and her sister "the smart one". This seems to have permanently damaged her self-esteem, and she told me she is often scared to try new things in life due to an intense fear of failure. It's hard to fail at something you never attempt, right?
We currently live in an area where the schools aren't considered that good by conventional standards, but we do have the ability to move when our children are old enough to attend school. I think we're going to take a wait-and-see approach. It's also worth considering that schools have a strong influence on what children consider culturally normal or socially acceptable while growing up, so there are non-academic considerations that we have to weigh as well. I know of many students who committed suicide while attending high achieving schools in Palo Alto or Cupertino. But I also know of students who ended up in low paying and dead-end careers due to a desire to stay near their family in areas of the country where merely graduating is an achievement. It's a delicate balance that's hard to get right, but the decision of where to send children to school is probably one of the most important ones that parents can make.