> what is the difference between coaching football or basketball and teaching history or English?
1. A sports coach can force a player out of the games or out of the team if that player doesn't attend the practices. Teachers have no such power: students can't be forced to practice the material out of school, and they can't be removed from class for not practicing.
1. Standardized testing reflects, at best, decently the purpose and aims of general education.
A competitive game of fotball, on the other hand, reflects perfectly the purpose and aims of football training. Simply said, the purpose of sports is to train a player to win the game. The purpose of general education is not to write a test successfully. Rather -- it shouldn't be the purpose of general education.
The purpose of education is to disseminate knowledge and critical thinking skills. That purpose needs to be measured in a correct fashion.
Think how silly it would be, instead of a competitive game of football, that each team was given a set of drills to perform, on their own, on an empty field, to prove their worth in football. It'd be absurd. It doesn't fit the purpose of their training.
The purpose of education shouldn't be to pass some tests.
A more constructive conversation, I believe, would be to find places, distinct disconnects if you will, where the method used to measure progress and achievement in education does not reflect the purpose and aims of education.
> The underlying issue is that people are afraid to try and explore.
> Skilled computer users, on the other hand, don't let a failing model bother them. They just try something else.
I don't agree with you.
The fear of new ideas and places is a human quality, not a consequence or a property of a particular group of people.
I, for example, feel very comfortable learning a new programming language. I feel excited and content when I'm picking up some new language or library -- I can easily hunt through pages and pages of information that does not help me without being deterred in my goal. To phrase it objectively -- it's an environment that's completely foreign and largely without immediate payoff, yet I feel comfortable within it.
In stark contrast to that, I've listened to the same ~20 songs for the last 4 months. I know there are plenty of great songs out there, but I'm happy with what I'm listening to right now. I don't want to explore and find new or neat music -- I'm perfectly happy with what I've got. I know there are countless "unknown unknowns" -- wonderful gems of music just waiting to be discovered -- but I don't want to hunt after them. When I feel comfortable with these 3-4 albums, I'll go look for something else.
I don't think advanced computer users are in any way immune to feeling, at least, uneasy or uncomfortable when exploring a particular set of new ideas or places. It's just a question of what type of things they're comfortable exploring.
I happen to be pretty comfortable with programming, but I am hesitant and uneasy when exploring new music. Why? I don't know. I've come to accept myself as I am. :)
Text editor preference seems to be as personal (and perhaps, perverse) as religion or sexual preference.
Last Monday I got the chance to ask (even though I'd read it before) James Gosling (the Father of Java, wrote first Emacs-y editor for Unix) if he still uses emacs, at least sometimes. The answer was: No. He uses NetBeans. Seems he writes no more lisp, having worked through his lifetime's quota of parentheses while working on his Ph.D [sic].
Notice how, more than once, the man refuses a well paying job because it is difficult to do, but also does so with the understanding that enduring that hardship would lift him out of poverty.
Notice how, instead of honorable thriftiness and hard work, the man relies on taking advantage of the system and other peoples' hard work.
It's not romantic to acknowledge this, but it is the truth. I'm hard pressed to find some thing which I can learn from this man.
On the two semi-reliable, specific sources of income that were mentioned, can recycling and giving blood:
> But since most of the collecting was done after midnight and is arduous, I tired of the relationship and severed it. If I ever care to return to scavenging, I am assured an extra $1248 a year-my 40 percent share of the gross.
> ...began selling two pints of my plasma a week-the limit-for $6 a pint. This source could add $624 to my annual income. But I found the 90-minute sessions, luring which time I was affixed to a needle, utterly boring, and I stopped.
(Never mind that he would have had to stop giving blood for other reasons.)
In at least those two instances, he says quit the job because it was hard work or boring. (If you're going to point out that these aren't "real" jobs, then neither is running a startup.) The author also mentioned that there were other ways he could supplement his income, but deigned not to.
He comes to the conclusion, at the end of the 3rd paragraph from the end, that he could "still pass... into the sort of life I once took for granted, when all the institutions of upper middle-class life in the suburbs meant something", but that it was futile, just a wait for death; unsatisfactory. The sham that punk rock holds up: drive to work to pay for the nice car; so you can drive the nice car to work; to pay for the nice car. More eloquently coached perhaps, but I get the same sort of ennui from it as in the last paragraph - he admits to wanting to live it, without wanting to work for it.
Yes, I'm going to make the controversial claim that donating blood and scavenging for cans in the dark are not real jobs.
It's more than a bit callous to suggest a senior citizen is not doing his part for society because he's decided to live off the benefits afforded to him by paying into taxes his whole life, instead of wallowing in the trash and selling his own bodily fluids.
If you're going to point out that these aren't "real" jobs, then neither is running a startup.
Previously, I thought the guy who suggested seeding the southern border of the US with landmines to keep the scourge of underpriced gardeners and line cooks out of the country had made the stupidest statement ever on Hacker News, but this is a close rival. Hopefully none of the more impressionable readers of this forum take this to heart and decide to apply for YC funding with their sperm donation startup idea. I'd hate to be the one screening the application videos.
Keep in mind that this article is from the 70's, his yearly budget is $1765.
$1248 from cans, or $624 from plasma is a bigger deal if you look at them as a percentage of his budget. maxawaytoolong asked for examples of any job, which is what I gave.
For me, having one's needs met kind of equates to not being poor. (I am aware that the official definition of being poor is just some percentage of the average income - that is not a very interesting category imo).
It seems rather to me looking at marginal improvements or as you call it would pose a better explanation. If you know that if you work really hard, you can afford a house and a nice car, it might motivate you to work hard. If all that working harder gives you is money for an extra bottle of beer, the motivation is not quite that great.
The jobs mentioned in the article are not really set up to changing anything fundamental about the guys situation. You can't get rich by donating blood.
Also there seem to be other problems he had, like depression, that prevented him from seeking a better paying job (also his age, of course).
How old are you? After a certain age you begin to notice that working actually tends to take a toll. So you think twice about trading your health for money.
If by "poor", you mean people who's needs aren't met, we just don't have very many of them in the US. The author of this article certainly was not poor by that definition.
As for aging, that was an issue in the past, particularly when most work was manual labor. Luckily, the present and future are much better - projections suggest most old people will be capable of working well past 65. Here is the hot paper:
Perhaps the 60-year old poor veterans have their miserly needs met, but from what I understand, I don't think it's because the marginal rewards to earning that's holding back the US's poor.
How long were you homeless? How long did you go unemployed with neither savings nor education, being turned away for even the lowest things, like shelf-stacking in supermarkets? It's hard to judge another man without walking a mile in his shoes.
One of the most valuable things youth have is option value: you don't know how much they'll amount to, how good they'll end up being. It gets other people to take chances on them. Come 60, you have a lot less of that; you're a known quantity.
How long did you go unemployed...being turned away for even the lowest things, like shelf-stacking in supermarkets? It's hard to judge another man without walking a mile in his shoes.
It's not that hard, thanks to the power of statistics. For four of every five poor people, the answer is less than 26 weeks. Of the poor who spent at least 27 weeks/year searching for work, the answer is also less than 27 weeks.
More than 9 in 10 of the poor who actually searched for a job for at least 27 weeks found one - just over half of worked full time, one quarter voluntarily part time, and one quarter involuntarily part time [1].
[1] The precise numbers are in this report: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2008.pdf
I cite 2008 because the 2009 report isn't yet released, and 2010 isn't over.
[edit: Hi downmodders. Sorry for injecting facts into this discussion.]
I don't think you can derive the conclusion from that that if only the other ones had searched longer, they would also have found jobs. (Haven't read the report, just your comment).
They might have had good reasons for assuming they would not get a job, for example. Or maybe the searched 40 weeks in vain in the previous year and didn't have it in them anymore.
Of the 20% or so in the labor force, less than 10% don't find a job. 10% of 20% is 2%. So of the poor people not in the labor force in 2008, only about 2% could possibly have been poor and unemployed in 2007.
There may be an additional source term of people who were unemployed but not poor in year N-1. But since the number of people in poverty remains roughly stable over time, this source must also be balanced by a sink of people who were poor in year N-1 but not poor in year N. I.e., for every person who becomes unemployed and enters poverty, there must be another person who leaves poverty (the exact balance varies a bit from year to year). Numbers on this are somewhat harder to come by (most surveys don't track the movement of individuals throughout categories).
(Again, rough numbers, these fluctuate a bit from year to year. )
Furthermore, if you search for work too long and don't find it (I believe 12 months?) The BLS classifies you as a 'discouraged worker' and removes you from the labor force. (You become 'marginally attached')
This has the effect of juicing the BLS statistics over time by reducing the unemployment by definition. (i.e. if you've been unemployed long enough, you're no longer considered a part of the labor force, regardless of what efforts you may be making to find a job.)
It would have taken you about 20 seconds with google to discover this is false.
"Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work."
""Discouraged workers" are a subset of the marginally attached. Discouraged workers report they are not currently looking for work..."
Sorry, been a while since I looked @ all these definitions and I was typing from memory.
A discouraged worker is one who has looked for work at some point in the last 12 months, but is no longer looking because they believe there is no work to be found. (and are often correct in aggregate)
Where the BLS further skews the statistics is that discouraged workers who have been discouraged longer than 12 months just drop from the labor force completely, they are a hidden statistic. (I believe this definition was changed under the Clinton Administration)
The poor have their needs met. Once you reach that level, why spend precious leisure time just to become marginally wealthier?
So that when you are too feeble to care for yourself, you can afford care that doesn't involve turning you into a blob by overfeeding you or conveniently killing you off with a negligently spread staph infection after years of soul destroying institutional care by the embittered and underpaid. Becoming marginally wealthier than poor wouldn't do this, but I suspect this is the real goal of most 9to5for40 life plans in the US.
Pretty much all of this is predicated on him being a senior citizen i.e. retired, he just made choices with his savings over the course of his live. It is a fair assumption that he paid far more in taxes than he consumed in poverty at the end of his life.
I don't think being poor and availing oneself of charity is immoral, no. I also suspect that this guy has paid a fair share of taxes in his better years; I doubt he's actually a parasite on net.
So you are saying he has a moral obligation to not make use of the charity offered that he spent his entire life paying into?
Most people would argue everyone else has a moral obligation to not let our veterans starve to death after they paid taxes their whole lives, especially when you consider how little his existence actually costs us.
1. Is programming the right job for you?
If you feel uncomfortable or dismissive of this line of thinking, consider a quote by Jefferson: "Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." If programming is the profession that truly satisfies you and complements your abilities and personality, then it should withstand critical probing. Is this something you're doing because it's comfortable and you've never looked elsewhere? Are you truly competent?
2. Build something.
Something simple and tangible.
Get an $10 point & shoot camera, go into the woods and take 20 pictures of wild flowers. Print the pictures and make a physical album. Do as many of these small, creation-oriented, achievable "distraction projects" as you can.
In my experience, they provide a great boost of self-confidence, and this allows me to think about personal problems with perspective and calm. This allows me to introspect in a healthy fashion. Heavy weight lifting and long walks seem to provide the same boost to my thought process.
Your second point has always been really helpful for me. Since. I spend all day basically living in my own head and moving bits around to create intangible products. I find that it helps to do some activity with more tangible results, to avoid burnout.
My current activity is cooking. I make the time most nights to make a real dinner from scratch. I've gotten in to bread baking too. The part that I think is most beneficial is both that it produces something that you can actually touch (and taste) and I can finish preparing a meal in an hour or two, so I don't have to wait for months to see the outcome of he thing I am creating. Plus it doesn't hurt to have a solid healthy meal everyday.
Before I came here, I did my own brief (and likely inaccurate) calculations:
Distance to Gliese 581 g: 21 light years
Speed of Helios 2 (fastest manmade object in space) = ~ 241350 km/h
Time for Helos 2 to reach Gliese 581g ~= 93 907 years
I couldn't help but think of Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot". 93 thousand years is an awful long time.
I'm glad I'm wrong.
> Every time I try to learn programming, it feels painfully slow compared to other things I've picked up.
It's probably slow because you're not having fun with it. You're probably not having fun with it because you're not solving a compelling goal.
Ask yourself whether you're learning "just to learn it" or are you trying to solve a problem and this particular language/api/compiler/implementation will help you achieve that goal.
I might be presumptuous here (and I apologize if I'm wrong) but the times I've found myself stuck "learning" have been when I was just going through the lessons for the heck of it, without a real goal in mind, without something to accomplish.
It was no fun when I REALLY learned how to program, it was pure panic. I was half way through a CS degree and got a summer job, and I just had get it done no matter what so I beat my head against the problems and solved them. After that, all the theory that I'd been learning started to make sense, and now I have a more nuanced approach to coding, and a successful career.
Just trying to say, learning is not always fun. Get a job doing something you don't know how to do. Maybe that will motivate you. :)
1. A sports coach can force a player out of the games or out of the team if that player doesn't attend the practices. Teachers have no such power: students can't be forced to practice the material out of school, and they can't be removed from class for not practicing.
1. Standardized testing reflects, at best, decently the purpose and aims of general education. A competitive game of fotball, on the other hand, reflects perfectly the purpose and aims of football training. Simply said, the purpose of sports is to train a player to win the game. The purpose of general education is not to write a test successfully. Rather -- it shouldn't be the purpose of general education.
The purpose of education is to disseminate knowledge and critical thinking skills. That purpose needs to be measured in a correct fashion.
Think how silly it would be, instead of a competitive game of football, that each team was given a set of drills to perform, on their own, on an empty field, to prove their worth in football. It'd be absurd. It doesn't fit the purpose of their training. The purpose of education shouldn't be to pass some tests.
A more constructive conversation, I believe, would be to find places, distinct disconnects if you will, where the method used to measure progress and achievement in education does not reflect the purpose and aims of education.