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Comment by sky2224 | Hacker News Reader

Which I'm assuming is in a university setting, yes? In which case, I would also assume that at least a majority of the students in your class actually want to be in school somewhat.

Apply this to middle/high school students and you're going to get a lot of students being annoyed since they're being challenged, are feeling stupid, and don't know how to deal with that feeling of being stupid; especially given that many of them don't see the point in attending school since they feel like it isn't helping them.

There will be some that will engage, but those aren't the students we're concerned about here.

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> Which I'm assuming is in a university setting, yes?

No. Title I urban school in the state’s third largest city.

> There will be some that engage….

First, if I were being nitpicky, i’d say that this assumes that it’s the student’s responsibility to take the initiative to engage with content. Rather, that’s just what the job of a high school teacher is… to lead them to a point, often sneakily, where they are engaging.

All that said, people are rather overlooking the “bad news” paragraph I included. Getting kids to at least respond to you as an individual teacher on an individual level is easy. But it’s often actively sabotaged by the systems and processes that govern day-to-day crap that happens in a public school. Sad.

> There will be some that will engage, but those aren't the students we're concerned about here.

Any school teacher can tell you: a single kid that refuses to engage easily holds back an entire class. The only way to get really well educated kids is to separate kids that engage. But do that, and the parents won't stop screaming at you ...

I think it depends on what you mean by “engage.” Hell, I was morbidly shy in high school, so I would virtually never talk, but I was engaged with the material. It’s not a one-size-fits-all proposition. With class sizes being what they are, the best I can usually do is kind of figure out 2-3 groups of students based on types and intensities of engagement and manage from there.

Class sizes in private schools are a little less than half of what they are in public schools on average. That includes "private" schools (like a catholic school).

As a parent now, I must say I don't understand what you want parents to do. I want the best for my 3 daughters ... and public school isn't the best (and private school, while far from free, is certainly not as expensive as I keep reading. Tuition per year is in the thousands (close to 10000$), but not 50000. And if I chose the catholic school, which btw is a school with actually a better reputation than their current private school, it would be less than 2000$ (plus a third kid doesn't pay at all). One kid has a sponsorship in the private school, and doesn't pay.

When we went to check out the public school, the teacher didn't know where France was, and the 6th year math teacher didn't know what differentiation was. There were no advanced classes or study sessions outside of regular hours (they might refer you to a program that was organized by the state university ... a 45 minute drive away). There were some sport clubs, but nothing compared to either the private school or the catholic school we checked out (there the private school was far superior, you can even go horseback riding, but the catholic school still had 10 sports available, and another 10 activities)

It's close to 2000$ per month to have 3 kids in private school ... and me and my wife pay that because, well, in my opinion there's no alternative.

Yes, if you want to give your kids, a solid, college-bound education, you are more likely to find it in private schools than your local neighborhood public school. However, there are some really great public schools, it just depends on where you are and what the composition of the community is. My parents live in a town where you can’t turn your head sideways without bumping into an engineer of some kind. Very diverse place. Median household income in the district is like $80,000+. Best public schools in the state.

I don’t blame parents for making individual decisions for their own children. I blame us as a wider society for our willingness to throw kids away who have themselves done nothing but have them misfortune of being born into shitty situations.

I feel that society is blatantly choosing against education. I don't see that ending well, not just because the kids will suffer. They'll also become aggressive MAGA nutcases, or something equally horrible. But it is a case of "put up the money or shut up", which means for education to do better something else needs to lose budget, so this is a nonstarter.

A disruptive kid can hold back an entire class ... but disengaged student wont. Nor introverted shy student.

Disengaged can hold a class back, it spreads. But nowhere near as much as a disruptive kid. Or in the case of my worst class, 5 disruptive kids.

> Which I'm assuming is in a university setting, yes? In which case, I would also assume that at least a majority of the students in your class actually want to be in school somewhat.

In the US, it is maybe not completely wrong that a majority of college students want to be in school, but it is definitely wrong that a majority of the students in a given typical teacher's typical course want to be in that class (possibly unless it is a major-only course).

This is true, however, when you have students that want to be in school, I think they're more likely to put the effort necessary in since they can clearly see what the end goal is.

Wrong. Their profile clearly states high school teacher. Why assume?

Because I don't check every user's profile before responding.

I made an assumption based on class size. The person I was replying too stated 180-200 students. So the assumption was that they were meaning a lecture hall of 180-200 students, which is typical for a college course. That is not typical for a high school course, in which case, I'm going to go out on a limb again and say that it's 180-200 students over 5-6 ~30 student periods.

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