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Comment by metacyclic | Hacker News Reader

I went to high school in Belmont MA in the early 90's. For extra credit in our drafting class, we could volunteer to help build a playground at one of the elementary schools. The adults that were also "participating"? Prisoners. Nobody told us, and when I offered my pocket knife to one of the adults, he laughed and said "I don't think you want to give me that!" I learned weeks later that they were inmates.

Nice job, teacher.

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Generally speaking you never want to make enemies who are richer than you are and for teachers in rich school districts that is all the parents. Some parents will not like it if their kids come home talking about how they worked with prisoners. Considering that wealthy suburbs have basically the highest density of "can I speak to a manager" types there's no way that can end well for the teacher(s).

Your teacher was right in deciding that keeping their mouth shut had the best risk:reward. Blame here lies on parents for getting bent out of shape over dumb "my kid isn't old enough for that information" type stuff too often. Sucks but that's the society we live in.

Considering the demographics most of HN is apart of I don't expect this to be well received here but the reality is that teachers are "disposable" to a school district on an individual level and the people who last in wealthy suburbs (ie. "good" schol districts) tend to be the ones that do not create any controversy among the customers.

Edit: I used to work developing software for education. I am very aware of the workplace dynamics that govern how these people do their jobs (gotta understand that in order to actually build products that they can use).

Edit2: Ask any teacher. Rich suburb jobs are coveted because they pay well but the customers are very demanding.

> Ask any teacher. Rich suburb jobs are coveted because they pay well but the customers are very demanding.

In my mid-sized midwestern city, the notoriously-bad inner city schools pay the best, by far. The pay's not why most teachers prefer to work in the better suburban schools.

Not sure if it’s still the case but in Metro Atlanta some inner city districts would pay off student loans if they worked for 5 years or something.

That's common practice everywhere.

That doesn't square with my understanding but my knowledge is totally limited to New England and some of New York. Here the rich suburbs are where you go when you just want to teach the subject and only the subject in exchange for your check (which can get quite big if you put in many years).

Anecdotal data point: The "upscale but not quite Belmont/Lexington/etc" town in MA in which my parents live had a little bit of drama over the number of teachers (some of whom had been teaching there 30+yr) who were drawing salaries on par with software developers in the Boston area. Having been educated in that town years earlier that squares with my expectations. Sure the teachers taught but the overwhelming majority were older and just looking to teach what they needed to to cash checks until retirement.

Lack of heartbreaking stories and hopeless cases is one reason. Everybody likes to feel like their job makes a difference, and in some places it just feels like nothing you could possibly do will ever matter, because the meat grinder never stops making the same old sausages.

Also, the suburban schools likely have more opportunities for extra pay, such as by coaching an athletic team or being faculty sponsor for a student club.

Yea and in the south it is not like that at all.

They're not blaming the teacher for keeping their mouth shut, they're blaming the teacher (or administrator) responsible for putting kids and convicts together on a work project.

I read it as blaming the teacher for not explaining the situation, especially regarding weapons. There's nothing to suggest that the prisoners and the teens would have any trouble getting along.

Maybe some parents don't want their children getting along well with prisoners.

I probably wouldn't mind it, but I would certainly want to be asked first.

> when I offered my pocket knife to one of the adults, he laughed and said "I don't think you want to give me that!"

What did they use for tools then? Pocket knives are rather low on the scale of damage one could do with what's in the average toolbox. A chisel or a hammer would be more of a problem. Or were they concerned with them smuggling the stuff back into the prison?

Yes, it's more difficult to conceal a hammer in your rectum.

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