Comment by MisterBastahrd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MisterBastahrd | Hacker News Reader

Education?

Try parenting.

The average parent nowadays is a sycophant for their children. They expect teachers to do ALL of the education work, they don't want their kids to have any homework, and they don't expect educators to discipline unruly kids who have been raised by their cell phones and tablets in a Lord of the Flies online social setting.

People who didn't get anything and everything they wanted from their parents when they were growing up have decided to try to be friends with their kids instead of teaching them how to behave in public or sit down with them to teach them how to freaking read. IQs are going down because Millennials and Zoomers are collectively irresponsible as parents and will attack educators instead of taking responsibility for their childrens' educational welfare. They treat teachers like garbage and their kids follow suit.

And what can they POSSIBLY point to? New Math? Gay people exist and you shouldn't treat them with hatred? LOL, please.

This is such an important point and one that pretty much everyone fails to understand.

I am in the process of writing a pretty long, detailed essay on this.

While, yes, institutional problems in public education do exist, so much of the "bad education" discourse is just plain bad parenting.

When was it ever common for most middle class parents to teach their kids gradeschool-level math and science? If anything parents are now compelled to spend more time tutoring their kids owing to the education system falling short of expectations.

Uh... always?

Child goes home, does homework, doesn't understand something. Child asks parent. Parent helps child understand.

Even more with reading, most parents flat out don't read to their kids anymore, and don't help them with their reading assignments. So you end up with a worst case scenario where kids can't fucking read and can't spell either because they communicate with each other through slang while texting online.

An education system where parents are disengaged is an education system doomed to failure. Teachers do not have enough time in the day to adequately fill the gaps.

> Uh... always?

Source?

Reality. Unless you have some sort of magical thinking where you actually believe that parents helping their children with homework and assignments is some sort of new expectation.

Notwithstanding that you're conflating "helping with homework" with teaching them from nearly the ground-up, there's no evidence that broadly middle-class parents have always helped kids with their homework.

My parent's generation was not well educated and did not help, nor do I know anyone else who's parents helped them. They often did not even graduate, so they could go work.

To be blunt, I never conflated a fucking thing. Kids bring homework home. They don't understand something. They ask a parent for help. The parent explains it to them, and at the very least, shows the child how to solve the problem the way that they learned it. It's why there's so much consternation about common core and "new math," because parents feel helpless when it comes to solving problems with their children since they aren't taught to solve these equations the same way that the parents were.

When it comes to reading in particular, this is normally done at home and there is a direct correlation between how much time a parent spends with their child teaching them to read and providing them with additional reading materials and how well they end up being able to read when they're an adult. And given that all students interface with study materials by reading, then it follows that a child with an involved parent regarding homework in general and reading in particular will have better academic outcomes.

We've got 60 years of popular culture that has actively ridiculed parents who DON'T help their kids with their studies.

I really don't give a shit about how well educated your parents were. If anything, your anecdote shores up the point you think you're degrading.

Anger and snark with nothing to say, and seem to ignore that my anecdote is just a counter to yet another anecdote, not evidence.

> To be blunt, I never conflated a fucking thing.

Look up the comment tree to the original question you responded to. Teaching kids gradeschool-level math/science is not the same thing as helping with homework.

> It's why there's so much consternation about common core and "new math,"

There's far more consternation about "discovery-based learning" curriculums and disruption in classrooms.

> We've got 60 years of popular culture that has actively ridiculed parents who DON'T help their kids with their studies.

This was also pulled out of thin air.

> Look up the comment tree to the original question you responded to. Teaching kids gradeschool-level math/science is not the same thing as helping with homework

Your reading comprehension is as poor as your communication skills. Teaching them things they don't know to shore up what they learned in class is EXACTLY what helping them with their homework is about.

Child: "I don't understand X."

Parent: "Well, let's go over your materials to help you understand what X is."

This is NORMAL. It is also TEACHING.

> There's far more consternation about "discovery-based learning" curriculums and disruption in classrooms.

I can tell you've never been a parent or spoken to parents.

> This was also pulled out of thin air

LOL.

I feel pretty sorry for the kids today what with the world they're going to inherit - if I had any, I'd probably just let them do whatever at this point.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com