Comment by peterangular | Hacker News Reader

Comment by peterangular | Hacker News Reader

If we don't want a social credit system for ourselves, why would we implement one for our children? Here's why this terrifies me:

I was a sensitive kid getting bullied at one point and had a horrid 2nd grade teacher. Reflecting on her behavior as an adult, it was apparent that I was just a problem for her in her last year before retirement (there was a "Miss So-and-so is retiring" party we had to have as a class for her at the end of the year).

The bullying was bad enough that she would just remove me from the class and have me work alone in the library because I'm certain that it was easier than the alternative. This happened probably 30+ times until one day I broke down and started to cry because it was just a rough day, and I just felt very alone.

Librarians noticed, teacher notified, yelled at by the teacher privately for "being a disturbance", I then told my parents, Dad got insanely angry at the situation (rightfully so), and we met with the principal. I remember sitting outside of the office listening to my father destroy the guy verbally. I cried then too.

After the fact I didn't have to go to the library alone anymore, but she literally wouldn't respond verbally to me at times. I remember not being called on when I had the answer, being the only kid with a hand up. She just ignored me unless she absolutely HAD to respond (IMO abusive behavior towards a child). My grades went down and I was pulled from the gifted programs never to get back in. All of this happened within one school year.

I am horrified of what a teacher like that would have done to me with this tool.

One of my only memories from kindergarten was of the social control system the teacher had. There were three faces, a smiling green, straight faced yellow, and frowning red, arranged like a stoplight. Every child had a clothespin with their name on it. Behaving well? The pin with your name clasped the green light, etc.

One day my teacher was trying to punish a troublesome student, who I only recall because of this incident. She meant to move his pin to red, but accidentally grabbed mine and moved it instead. I, instantly, burst into tears because I had nothing wrong, and still recollect my feelings of outrage decades later.

I can only imagine trying to work through social credit bureaucracy as a child to correct mistakes, or understand outcomes.

Wow reading this just brought a kindergarten memory for me.

We had laminated apples on the wall, and if we were bad we got a worm sticker stuck on it for a week, we called it getting a "wormy apple".

One day I was listening to an audio book with headphones and didn't hear the teacher call us back, so all at once she snatched the headphones off me, asked me why I don't listen, and gave me a wormy apple. I remember it to this day, I felt so wronged because I was doing an "approved activity" and felt I was punished for it. Seeing the worm on my apple made me cry and I never listened to audio books in that classroom again.

So I don't know if making that sort of stuff electronic will be better or worse but I know I didn't like systems like that at all.

I wonder how many people have unkind memories of their kindergarten teacher?

Mine had us color a bunny rabbit. I grabbed a crayon (purple) and colored it. I think I had seen a rabbit on Sesame Street of that color, and the 8 crayon pack doesn't allow for subtlety. She grabbed it from me, threw it in the garbage, and told me to color another one because that isn't a "proper color" for a rabbit. I slid the paper back and said something to the effect it's already colored because bunnies are white. Spent the rest of the hour sitting in a chair in the corner staring at the wall. Dad was "concerned" when he picked me up, and laughing in the truck. I was just very angry.

I can only imagine what a points system would have done to me in school. I'd of probably been done in 1st grade because of that stupid volcano.

> Reflecting on her behavior as an adult, it was apparent that I was just a problem for her

Really, that's the issue with school in a nut-shell. Just like I want to walk into work Monday morning and have a routine day, so do teachers and administrators.

This technological issue just appears to be another symptom of a sick system, one that favors ease of life for administrators and teachers, that and hitting test metrics than for a good, quality education for children.

We've seen it before, zero-tolerance. Church it up, "it's about holding everyone to the same standard," avoiding bias, etc. Well, it's bullshit. The reality is everyone teacher and administrator exercises some degree of prosecutorial discretion, completely invalidating any claim of their lack of tolerance, but on that occasion they throw the book at you they just say "Zero-Tolerance" and that's that.

We build and buy systems that favor ease of use, but not good outcomes and there is simply no accountability for good outcome.

I’m so sorry, that was terrible.

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