Comment by light_hue_1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by light_hue_1 | Hacker News Reader

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Incredibly narrow minded advice for the privileged.

> Maybe you go to a school in a poor area, or with a lot of violence, or far too many students for the teachers to pay any individual attention to; or, relatedly, maybe you’re required to spend a lot of time caring for siblings or parents, working a low-skill job, or holding your family together or preserving your safety in some way.

Oh if only not being extremely privileged was so easy to undo. When you work a lot of jobs to keep your family together you don't have time for alternative highschool guides. That's why people talk about companies being founded in garages and not on the street in Chicago.

I've had students who never got a good night of sleep in their lives. Or students with abusive family.

People who don't come from privileged backgrounds also cannot see themselves doing a lot of the careers related to this guide.

> It might be easier to talk teachers into letting you off the busywork for their classes

It's exactly the opposite. The idea that something is busywork and you tell a teacher you're going to do something else instead is privilege. Those teachers they're massively overworked and underpaid. They don't have time for this nonsense.

> Your charm advantage gets increased a little bit in this situation; if you reach out to an adult doing some sort of interesting work.

Seeing the author's reaction to being contacted by a student who doesn't talk they way they do, might have a tattoo, might dress very differently, would be interesting. No. Being poor and I'm bad conditions is not charming.

Hi, author of the post here - thanks for chiming in! Was hoping to hear from someone who had worked in or gone to a school like this. This part of the essay was admittedly the most guesswork-heavy; I included it because that seemed better than the alternative of not mentioning economic disparities at all, or of telling kids at poor schools they're resigned to doom.

I'm guessing you're a teacher? If so, I'd be curious to hear more about your experience and thoughts on what strategies work best for teenagers in economically/socially/geographically disadvantaged situations. Do you follow the post-school life trajectories of any former students? Do any manage to achieve upward mobility (this could look like the "homeless to Harvard" human interest story you hear every year, but it could also look like someone who goes from a childhood of abuse or abject poverty to a relatively stable blue-collar job and is safer and happier as an adult than as a child)? What advice would you give to a fourteen-year-old student?

This isn't to say that there aren't massive obstacles in their way (especially for the ones who have to devote all their time to securing basic needs like food/shelter/sleep), or that their circumstances are their fault, or that systemic change wouldn't be a more powerful lever. What I'm wondering is, assuming you're a kid in this situation and you don't have a hand on the lever of institutional power, is there anything you can do beyond the standard "stay in school" advice to improve your circumstances, even if the improvement is just from "very bad" to "kind of bad"?

> People who don't come from privileged backgrounds also cannot see themselves doing a lot of the careers related to this guide.

What careers do the students you know typically aspire to? Or are they usually resigned to the prospect of an unfulfilling job?

I’m one of the kids that “made it” out of these situations and it took me until I was over 40 and making FAANG money to START thinking in terms other than “not being like my dad” or “ending up poor”.

> preserving your safety in some way

Even a comment as small as this is assuming a lot in poor areas. The only safety I had was in my own head or in my STEM classes because I could immerse myself in them enough to forget about life outside them.

Look up the problems associated with complex-ptsd, childhood neglect and parentification.

It was all about racing as hard as possible away from where I was, not about looking forward in any way. For most of my twenties my timeframe in planning was weeks or months if I felt confident.

I just got lucky I got hooked on computers and had a couple teachers that praised me for that and math.

In fact, I nearly dropped out in 9th grade to work at a Burger King so I had access to some kind of money. Instead I called CPS and moved in with my narcissistic mother who was at least financially stable. But it was a coin toss at the time.

My first job was in a factory and then in the Army, I didn’t have a plan or wants other than stable living situation and enough money for basic bills.

Thanks for writing this up - it's helpful background. Glad you seem to be doing better.

Sure, I wanted to be able to share a bit about how fundamentally differently life is for poor people or people with certain classes of problems growing up.

>What careers do the students you know typically aspire to

They usually aren't looking past whether they will be going to bed hungry that night or not. Seriously man, you come off like a scene from arrested development, like you just have never seen a poor kid in your life, or more importantly, haven't even tried to volunteer at an organization that attempts to help these kids.

Notwithstanding my asshole-ishness in my original comment, I actually appreciate you asking these questions. I don't have all the answers. I can gesture at some of them, which I will do later tomorrow (today? Hi, it's 2:00 am). I started to write out an answer and just got sad thinking about it, but I didn't want you to think I was just going to ignore you.

Appreciate this a lot! No rush.

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