Comment by lordnacho | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lordnacho | Hacker News Reader

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Long essay, but I agree with a lot of what's said.

I think a lot of quality time is wasted due to the rat race starting in early childhood.

I live in a bit of a bubble in the commuter belt around London (ie not the US), but I observe some of the same obsessions here as well. In particular, I started to notice that my kid's friends suddenly had a lot less time for playdates in the year or two leading up to the 11-plus exam, which is a selective school thing. There are similar exams for the private schools in the area. Of course what was happening was that their parents would hire a tutor to help them pass the tests.

The effect of this tutoring is on the whole negative. Obviously, it costs money. It also costs time that your kid would have to do other things. But also, it gives the kids the impression that school is super important, and they will be valued based on the outcome of this test. You end up with a few percent who get into the top selective schools, and everyone else is left with low expectations.

Inevitably, it also means that it becomes a game for rich parents. I went to the induction day at the fancy school, and guess what. The parents are a bunch of professionals, virtually nobody doing anything else, and most kids went to private primaries + got tutored. We must have left some poor but capable kids in the wrong school.

>it gives the kids the impression that school is super important

>We must have left some poor but capable kids in the wrong school.

Both of those things cannot be true at the same time. Either school is important, in which case both the parents pushing their children and the children pushing themselves are doing the right thing to improve their chances of later success, or it is NOT important, in which case it doesn't matter anyway which school the other children end up in.

> Both of those things cannot be true at the same time. Either school is important, in which case both the parents pushing their children and the children pushing themselves are doing the right thing to improve their chances of later success, or it is NOT important, in which case it doesn't matter anyway which school the other children end up in.

Trying to get a less academic kid into grammar school isn't going to help them. Maybe I can provide a bit of context.

The grammar school is highly academic. The kid is certainly above my level of attainment when I was his age. I went to a non-selective international school, ending with the IB.

The kids are tested, every week, in a variety of subjects. I don't think a week has gone by without some sort of test. It is a constant grind of math, multiple sciences, humanities, and three languages. Not every kid enjoys that kind of thing, or even benefits from the pressure.

If you manage to Fosbury Flop your kid into a school like this, you're actually doing them a disservice. They will hate being constantly pushed academically, and they will not find fellowship with the kind of kid who enjoys it.

At the same time, there will be poor kids who didn't know the tricks of the exam, and didn't get in, who would have been better off at the school.

Thank you for the clarification. Difficult to argue about this without the context, but even with it, there are so many unique and specific cases that it can essentially be brought down to the individual level.

Some children can be pushed way too hard, some can be pushed not enough and certainly some parents can take their own personal ambitions way too far, as it sounds like in the case you are describing.

Unfortunately, at the end of the day, I don't know of any system anywhere in the world that hasn't eventually devolved into a status chase, for better or worse.

Finland maybe? My understanding is they don’t have private schools.

exactly, please see the “The Tyranny of metrics” book. We are all subjected to the same system of management; kids in schools, parents at work.

Let me translate it in privileged language: when the poor are, like their name suggests, poor, they cannot afford the tutors and the time for pushing their capable kids through the good school. All while recognizing the shitiness of their situation.

So which argument are we actually discussing here? Because in the OPs post and in yours there are two different arguments that, for whatever reason, are bundled together and used as a motte and bailey.

Argument #1: Certain kids are privileged enough to be able to afford tutoring and get into good schools and this is unfair to the poor kids

Argument #2: Certain kids are being pushed UNNECESSARILY by their parents to participate in a rat race when their time would be better suited to doing something else

I think those are two sides of the same argument.

If certain kids are getting in because of tutoring rather than because of talent/ability, then they are the kids that are being pushed unnecessarily to participate when they'd be better off doing something else. Those kids take up the space of kids who are poor who could benefit from that kind of instruction.

It 100% makes sense for a parent to not want their own kid to be the "poor but capable kid" who stayed in "the wrong school".

Especially since the kid who was in "the wrong school" will be blamed for "being lazy" or "less capable" when they don't perform as well as equally capable and hardworking peers in the "right school".

To play devil's advocate, is a high stress, pressured, test obsessed selective school, populated by entitled kids with pushy parents, "the right school" for the poor-but-capable-kid..... ;). Will they make friends there and be happy and still want to read for pleasure and be curious about the world outside school? (OK , to be fair you might not want them to go school in a very rough area with drugs and other crime, either)

Then it is wrong school. But the other issue is that you are strongly drawing here on the stereotypes - that this school will be test obsesed, kids in it will be bad entitled kids and you cant make friends with them.

Kids in real world selective schools do form relationships, are curious, interact and like the world outside. Some selective schools are like you describe ... but others are not and kids in them are happy.

The type-A kids are friends with type-A kids, yes. Everyone else is ostracized. That's what gives rise to stories of "entitled, can't be friends with them".

Real life is not an either-or logic problem. School can both be important and not all-consumingly important.

Or, things are not as black and white and both are true in a sense. School is important, up to a certain point. I admit, this highly depends on the country and schooling system, and I have too little insight in how hiring works in the US. But in many cases that I am familiar with for the fast majority of people to have a pretty decent career you need a degree, not the most prestigious degree just the right type of degree where the sort of school you got it is less important.

School is important if you want to join the ranks of the 'elite'. It is not important to live a good life.

> Either school is important, in which case both the parents pushing their children and the children pushing themselves are doing the right thing to improve their chances of later success

There's a difference between considering something important versus an utmost priority. The parent's criticism refers to the latter, which is also typical in certain cultures (here, in the context of USA).

I've had direct experience with middle-class schools and indirect experience with an upper-class one, and the issues with the latter are very tangible. The most horrific cases involve parents of students who are not capable enough (in the given context) and will do everything in the book to ensure their children succeed, at the expense of both the children themselves and the whole system. Then, of course, if one considers study/career the one and only priority, emotional and relational needs are seen as a hindrance, creating successful but emotionally damaged adults.

Ultimately, this can be summarized with the Mexican fisherman story, I guess (which omits that the businessman is a cocaine addict, cheats on his wife, and has never spent time with his children /s).

> The parents are a bunch of professionals, virtually nobody doing anything else, and most kids went to private primaries + got tutored. We must have left some poor but capable kids in the wrong school.

The idea that the school you go to matters for your career seems unsupported by evidence (outside of consulting, law, medicine and investment banking). Most people don't go to ivy league schools (by definition). Looking around at senior leaders at most of the tech companies I have worked at, very few of them are Ivy leaguers. The Ivy League has a really great brand but the impact is overblown imho.

> outside of consulting, law, medicine and investment banking

The exact kinds of jobs that the parents are working and hate, but are scared of their kids not being able to get.

I think you are looking at the wrong metric here.

It’s not about “how many successful people out there didn’t go to the Ivy League”, it’s about “how likely is it that _my kid_ will be successful?”. And the Ivy League really has a major impact on the latter metric. (I mean successful in the classic boring way here - completely agree that this is a very debatable goal, but that’s not my point)

But that's my argument exactly. Even if kids with Ivy League degrees disproportionately have successful careers, lots of non-Ivy League kids also go on to have very successful careers. One possible explanation is that the Ivy Leagues are just really good at spotting talent early and not that they are actually responsible for building the talent. Going to an Ivy League school might be an indication that you are smart, hardworking and driven. However, if you were not already that way, the school is not going to transform you into someone who is.

Ivy League will not make you smart, no, it will make you successful with a very high probability. This is what is important to most parent, that’s what they pay for, this probability.

it is called winning the birth lottery

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