
Skills Kids Should Learn - spreadlove
http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?sid=194
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einhverfr
I thought that was a good article. Indeed, I think some areas like tolerance
should go much further. The idea of celebrating differences, especially those
which are shocking of fear-inducing is essential but most people (of any
political ideology btw) completely lack this.

I teach my children to be willing to sit down and each roasted guinea pigs in
Ecuador, sea cucumbers in Indonesia, to understand and be tolerant of
different belief systems, and to explore and try to find value in
understanding different people.

All too often cultures collide and the result is political activism to correct
the "misguided ways" of the strange and alien others. It's something which
must be deeply resisted.

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ttt_
Well, one skill I thing is quite essential to anyone anywhere at anytime is
socialization, something you won't learn easily being homeschooled.

Kids need to be out and see lots of different people and characters before
their adulthood, otherwise they're gonna have an schewed view of others.

Why not try to teach them all this different skills and values while they go
through traditional venues of growing up instead of alienating them from the
rest of the world around them?

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_delirium
I used to think that (and was not homeschooled myself), but as far as I can
tell, the research doesn't actually show much difference in socialization
between otherwise comparably situated homeschooled and non-homeschooled kids.
There seem to be some aggregate differences mostly because of the different
distributions of religiosity: a lot of homeschooled kids are homeschooled for
religious reasons. But if you compare middle-class-secular homeschooled kids
to middle-class-secular public-school-goers, they seem broadly similar.

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GuiA
Good article. I feared "programming" would be one of the items, but I'm glad
it wasn't.

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bnegreve
Well I don't know, words like "solving problems", "acquiring new skills", and
"training" sound inadequate to talk about children education.

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drostie
Perhaps. But on the other hand, when I see children sitting in nice orderly
rows quietly to watch some adult scratching chalk against a blackboard -- I
really can't help it. It's like there's a knot in my heart and an odd feeling
of, "what a waste."

I don't have children, but I have seen my nephew and niece grow up. I can at
some level appreciate that our hard-working lifestyles demand that we pool our
babysitter service in this way -- and that while we're pooling those reserves
we might as well have some noble motives like teaching them the patterns that
are important in life -- reading, calculating, political rights they do and
don't have. I am also at some level afraid of them inheriting some artificial
culture of unquestioning authoritarian worship: sit in place, do not question,
obey, obey, or else you're in trouble. That's a crucial but underestimated
part of the problem of whininess: it's not just that your parents give you
everything you ask for which makes you whiny, but it's the fact that you've
lived atop this social order, and have been taught that it's proper to be
bossy at the top: that that's the way you get what you want when you're an
adult in front of a class of children.

When I see these rank-and-file kids and part of my subconscious inadvertently
blurts out, "what a shame," I don't know what's better. One great thing I've
heard from people who have been to third world countries is, "it was so
beautiful, I saw kids assemble a ball out of grasses, and _just play_."
Acquiring new skills, solving problems -- these are just sophisticated
abstractions atop "you have to learn how to play." Give them a wood shop, make
sure they know how to control the machines so that they don't injure
themselves, then give them a goal and problem they've never solved before.
Something like that.

Surely there has to be some hybrid here, if we want every child to be able to
do mental arithmetic and speak a second language and so forth. But surely
there is also something heroic missing from the public schools as they now
stand.

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chad_oliver
I'd like to add: self-control. This is a skill that everyone needs to improve,
regardless of how much you already have.

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anxiousape
These are also skills most adults should learn as well.

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mkn
I can see why people get all fuzzy and romantic about their children and their
children's future, but these people are just going to end up crippling their
children for lack of realistic ideas about real skills to learn.

Let's set aside questioning the notion of whether or not there even can be one
universal set of skills that guarantee success merely through some conformance
to a Platonic Ideal of Humanity for a second, and begin to construct a
somewhat harsher, but more realistic, list.

1) Shutting up and getting to work--Yes, your mommy thinks you are special,
and you think your kids are special, but nobody else does. Whether you're in
service of a crappy manager inside some sucky megacorporation or trying to pry
cash out of fickle customers, the only thing your gatekeepers care about is
what you can do. So, do it. Turn off Facebook. Turn your phone off. Write your
damned code or design your damned bridge and deliver it. Or push your resume
around. Just turn off the distractions and make yourself go.

2) Conform--Again, Snowflake, you're one among a million lower-case-s
snowflakes. Get over it. Go along to get along. If your so stuck on yourself
that you can't dress down like a slobby developer when working with slobby
devs, or put on banking attire if you code at a bank, then you're going to
make people uncomfortable and make things worse for yourself. Go ahead, feel
smugly superior about it as you do it, but do it. I'm sure they are all
mindless automatons, but you can do it out of a conscious choice. Just
remember, they can kill you, but they can't eat you. Snowflake.

3) Perform while depressed or discouraged--You're not a hothouse flower. You
are an employee. Or an entrepreneur. You're a name to you and your friends,
but your a number to somebody who's between you and a promotion. Or your next
paycheck. You're not always going to be happy, and you're still going to have
to meet your obligations, still going to have to provide value to someone or
make progress to a goal that provides value to someone. Take a pill or drink a
beer or cry on a shoulder, but don't stop performing until you can afford it.

4) Recognize bullshit--And recognize that it's everywhere. That's not a moral
judgment. It's just the way it is. It's easy to spot in the obvious places,
like advertisements, but not so easy in others, like when someone is blogging
about the wonderful things they're going to instill in their children that the
Bad Old Education System just won't for some reason. Everyone wants to blow
smoke up your ass. Especially your parents. Especially parents who want to
view themselves as enlightened friend-peer-guides to their crotch spawn.
You're special, but not more special than Daddy's ego. Not really.

5) Watch out--Look out for number one. I don't mean to not play on a team.
Just recognize that it's play, that it's a thing you do for certain reasons.
Everyone else on the team is in the same situation, whether they realize it or
not. Are your skills a threat to someone else on the team? Watch them. Be
careful around them. Be a little paranoid while maintaining some perspective.
It is not at all uncommon for someone of either gender to trump up a
harassment claim to neutralize a rival. (Among many other stupid and
counterproductive things.) Don't be paranoid, but be aware and smart.

That's a start. You get those things down, and "Problem solving",
"Compassion", and "Tackling projects" will seem like the stress-free child's
play that they are.

Good luck out there. You're gonna need it.

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InclinedPlane
Wow. This is such heinous and poisonous advice I actually considered flagging
this post.

Learning how to focus and building a high quality work ethic is important, but
your advice is horrid. Following it is likely to lead a person to becoming a
burnt out husk of a human being by the time they are 40, if not sooner.

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mkn
Actually, it turns out that it's neither heinous nor poisonous. You seem to be
having an allergic reaction to the contrast between advice about how the
actual world functions and how actual productive people function in it, and
the flowery advice given in the article.

Basically, each of the 5 points I listed comes down to, "Momma said there'd be
days like this, days like this Momma said!"

I guess, at this point, I'd be curious about what, in particular you found
"heinous", "poisonous", "horrid", or likely to lead to one becoming a "burnt
out husk of a human being" before the remarkably specific age of 40. However,
I suspect that you'll find you've imported a bit of your own baggage into your
explication.

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_delirium
I found your post to be a bit unproductive (despite legitimate content)
because it was so deeply ridden with spite and disdain; too much focus on
name-calling! Without the smug superiority complex and palpable hatred for a
certain group of people you clearly consider beneath you, it would've been a
bit easier to engage with.

Even a bit of humility about whether your personal vantage point and opinions
are accurate pictures of the entire "real world" would help...

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noisedom
I enjoyed how on every paragraph you switched between the genders of the
subject. Nice touch.

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pooriaazimi
Yeah, that caught my attention more than the actual article (which was a great
one)!

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kappaknight
The most important thing you can do for your children is to prepare them to
leave.

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sycren
I think the title should be changed to: Skills 'Everyone' should learn.

Of course if you are taught this as a child then everyone will know in the
future but many generations at this moment in time still do not accept all
these points..

