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Desrtopa comments on Advice for a smart 8-year-old bored with school - Less Wrong Discussion
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This might be a viable option, but I'll point out that homeschooling a kid is a major long term time investment, and just because one is qualified to do it doesn't mean that one has enough time or mental energy for the task.
Definitely a time commitment. I suggest it on the theory that smarter students tend to educate themselves, and what the public school is doing is nearly a complete waste with a kid like this. So the homeschooler who achieves a better result than the public school in only a few hours of effort a week is way ahead of the game. The homeschooler may be aware that he could do so much more if he spent more time, but that way lies useless guilt. Put a small amount of work in as the schooler, and if that doesn't translate into enough effort on the part of the schooled so that the net outcome is ahead of what was going to happen in the gigantically mismatched public school, you can switch the kid back in.
If the kid has been reading, as reported in OP, since he was 1, then it is not a bad guess that he is a good candidate to teach himself other things a child is expected to learn. I am assuming he was not reading at 1 because of an intensive teaching effort, that he more or less picked it up on his own with minimal exposure from "teachers."
Eh, public school might not be that valuable for teaching a precocious kid academics, but it can be an important resource for learning social skills.
Also, while some kids might be well suited to be autodidacts, not all kids who have the intelligence for it have the self-directedness necessary to teach themselves the things which will be most useful to them, and so need someone to provide guidance and direction, if not actual instruction.
Pulling him out of school is a great way to help him learn social skills.
Did you know that at school, during 80% of the time, kids are punished if they socialize?
Meanwhile, in the world outside the walls, there are many great kids of different ages as well as adults with whom to socialize, with no fear of punishment.
On the other hand, the time they spend together in school helps kids meet and relate to each other. Most kids of an age where they'd be interested in socializing with him are in school, so freeing up the time he's in school doesn't free up 80% of that time block for socialization, because the great majority of people he'd be socializing with are otherwise occupied, and it's harder to get into the social groups of the kids who go to a school when you're removed from one of the in-groups central to their lives.
If James' kid were the only one, maybe. But I'll bet that there are plenty of kids and people of other ages who are not in school, including in western Massachusetts where he lives.
I'm puzzled why people think putting a bunch of unsocialized children in a pile will turn them into civilized adults.
Nobody else read Lord of the Flies?
Children learn social skills from those who have them, not by getting together and trying to reinvent civilization when they're 8 years old.
Lord of the Flies is fictional evidence.
Your general point stands, though.
It's a famous fictional archtype that should have reminded people to question that cohort institutionalization is a fabulous means of socialization.
I don't think I'm alone in seeing fiction as a means of understanding and remembering valid principles.
The impression I have of public schools (at least the good ones) is that younger children are pretty closely supervised, and that much of what elementary teachers do all day is say "No Johnny, that wasn't nice, apologize to Suzy", or "Suzy, you need to share the scissors with Tommy."
The children are practicing social skills with each other, but it's a structured environment with adult supervision, and with adults who are specifically trained and tasked to help improve the children's social skills and emotional maturity.
An elementary school classroom that feels like Lord of the Flies, socially, is a very badly run classroom.
Children learn social skills by practicing relating to their peers in a supervised setting. Adults don't relate to kids the way people are expected to learn to relate to other adults, and even for kids who're capable of putting into practice explicit instruction on how to behave in social situations, few adults if any are equipped to describe the real nuances of social interaction explicitly.
Lord of the Flies is a work of fiction, not a sociological experiment.
They have to learn the skills before they can practice them. They can learn them from their elders, not other equally ignorant children. Again, they shouldn't be in the position of having to reinvent civilization.
Further, practicing on other incompetents is a tough way to learn, because none of them are behaving appropriately in the first place. It's like learning to drive on a car that randomly swerves and brakes. That's largely why people hire dance instructors - a competent partner speeds the learning process even if they have no teaching to impart.
If an adult wanted to learn to relate to other adults, they would do poorly by attempting to learn from children. If a child wanted to learn to relate to other children, they would most likely learn things by relating to children which they would not learn by relating to adults. Children are behaving inappropriately by adult standards, but they're still learning skills about relating to their peers which will generalize to their experience relating to their peers as adults, which they are unlikely to learn without having peer relationships.
Is this supposed to be a euphemism for getting punched by bullies?
No, and I think that would take a very uncharitable reading of my comment.
"Being punched by bullies" was one of the more common social interactions I had during my three years of middle school.
My suggestion, if that ever becomes the problem, would be to have the victim carry a concealed tape recorder and get the entire (verbal) portion on tape, including as much of a narration of the events as possible ("Why are you blocking me from going down this hallway?"). Armed with that recording, the guardian needs to confront the school officials and demand that effective measures be taken, or the media will become involved.
In my experience, the school administration either ignored stronger evidence or took actions which were ineffective; I never actually involved criminal court, although I should have, but I expect that they will decline to prosecute as well. The media, however, would love something like such a recording, combined with a "think of the children" banner. Threatening the administration with such a fate should be enough motivation to make them stop looking like they are looking for a solution and start looking for a solution; in addition, they might accept reasonable suggestions.
Again, I don't think that's what's happening in the OP, but I think it's important enough that anybody who has that kind of problem find it wherever they search; the low probability that my target audience is ever going to see this particular post is accounted for.
I'd urge people to think very, very carefully before going to the media in this sort of situation.
The media's agenda is not yours: it's to create as much interest as possible. Sure, you might get a media outlet interested in publicising wrongdoing: that might make a good story. But other outlets (or even the same one later when the initial interest has faded) will be interested in 'monstering' the complainers: that might make a good story, too. The school administration and their friends will be highly motivated to help in this endeavour. If you make a sufficiently large splash, every detail of your and the child's life will be raked over for something that can be distorted to appear scandalous or wrong.
Almost nobody likes whistleblowers, and they (almost?) never prosper afterwards, regardless of the merits of their case. (I think this is a big problem for society, but hard to resolve.)
If the school administration is so committed to not seeing the problem, I'd expect that it'll be more in the child's interests to take them out of that school than it is to go to the media.
The hope is that the threat alone will suffice. We now enter decision theory territory when we ask if the threat becomes less credible if the follow-through is not performed.
In the abstract, general, idealized case where the threat fails, I would consider switching schools (to actually solve the problem) AND leaking the story to the media (partially out of spite, partially to provide an impetus for change benefiting others, and partially to maintain the credibility of one's threats). In any actualized scenario, my advice might differ.
One has to be careful not to let this devolve into a "we had to destroy this village to save it" scenario. It is possible to win the battle and lose the war, that is, completely screw up the kid's social life for the rest of his time in this school.
It's hard to give generic recommendations, it all depends on particular circumstances. Obviously there is a balance to be struck between helicopter parenting and "as long as he's not in a hospital it's all fine". In some cases it's better to let the kid handle it himself, in some cases it's better to go to the administration, in some cases it's better to switch schools.
My intention isn't to create a typical social interaction where none currently exists. My intention is to prevent non-aggressors from feeling like the only course of action is to become an aggressor, and the general-case solution to that problem requires an appeal to the social systems set in place for that purpose.
How about teaching the kid to handle it himself, as in "okay let's analyze this situation together and come up with some creative solutions"? That would be my first choice; get the kid to practice something like rejection theory for standing up to bullies or something like that, or practice martial arts, or invite "potential allies" out to Disneyland or I dunno, my kid isn't getting bullied yet (that I know of).
Provided the kid can.
The "traditional" way of stopping bullying is quite painful. It essentially involves treating the bully as a Skinnerian rat and hurting him every time he attacks you. You pay a high price in pain yourself, but if, basically, every time the bully hassles you he gets kicked in the balls, pretty soon he'll stop hassling you even if each time he "prevailed" and beat you up.
Other usual ways are to use social skills (which are usually lacking) and/or bulk up / learn effective fighting.
Of course that all presupposes physical aggression and boys.
Girls tend to go for passive-aggressive emotional attacks which can be harder to deal with.
Boys will do the passive-aggressive thing if they think they can't take you physically. I had that experience growing up; I was too big to beat up but too socially inept to handle other forms of bullying. School was hell.
Eh, it can be quite painful, but you just need to reach the point where bullying someone else is less of a hassle.
The rejection therapy and the Disneyland solution might still work here. Though in that case I'd look for advice from girls; I'll get to that if I have a daughter AND she gets bullied; no hurry :)
This sounds like a possible viable way of dealing with bullying, but in general, I think that if the children bring the bullying to their parents' attention, and the parents are willing to intercede and make a serious effort on the kids' behalf, bullying is usually solvable. It's when adults insist that kids "need to learn to work these matters out among themselves" that troubles become intractable, and since I became an adult myself, I have on a few occasions had to remind adults that the way it works in the grown up world is that we have authorities we call on to intervene in conflicts because we don't expect victims to be able to resolve matters amicably with their victimizers.
Also, one important step is that the parents must believe the child's report of bullying. As opposed to e.g. thinking "this is an exaggerated version of something that is probably harmless". (This was a mistake my parents were making all the time.)
I don't think this is an optimal or especially good way of dealing with bullies unless the bullying is so serious that it is a threat to the child's safety. It encourages a habit of appealing to the authorities whenever things are suboptimal, instead of developing interpersonal skills to deal with the problem without an authority. It teaches the child to depend on authorities to save them when things aren't going his/her way.
In my school at least, being a "snitch" had serious social consequences. They were despised, and often bullied more, and more furtively. Someone who can stand up to a bully, on the other, was seen as brave, as a leader.
Also, there are certainly authorities who sometimes offer help in the adult world (as Desrtopa notes) but often an appeal to an authority is difficult or impossible. What do you do if a coworker verbally bullies you? Or an in-law gets nasty? A friend of friend?
You know, this environment is probably as close to the Hobbesian state of nature as it gets in modern first world countries. The solution to that has traditionally been for society to create a government to hold over itself, a leviathan able to be applied to. Thus, violence is curbed, by the threat of intervention by the overseeing power.
As in the world, so in this microsim.
Is this a desirable state? As someone who leans more towards the libertarian side of things, I think the answer is no. But despite that, there are two very valid points. The first is that like it or not, this is how the world is. You can try to set up an alternate system of governance, but if you play in a certain society, you play by their rules. Or overthrow them and institute your own rules, but that is a task of much greater scope.
Second, there has to be some rules. Life in the state of nature is nasty, brutish, and short, after all. In the "state of middle school", it's not short, but it's pretty nasty and brutish. This problem has to be overcome somehow, and the established way to do it is by government, that is to say in this case by authority figures. Have you got a better way? Many libertarians over the years have tried to hammer out alternatives, but as of now it's still an open problem.
If you add that middle school lasts for three or four years, and after that most people are no longer in middle school, I think 'short' applies.
I wish that there was a well-documented way to apply the ideals of libertarianism in a manner that had effective results; I don't see such a option.
Not to one's subjective experience. Oh no.
Blackmailing authorities by a smart plot that involves having a evidence that you can take to the media isn't "being dependent on the authorities".
It's the HPMOR way ;)
I am curious: what kind of intepersonal skills (which don't include using authorities) would you use to deal with a person who is three times as strong as you (and most of people around you), enjoys hurting you (physically), and makes it obvious to others that only you will be hurt (unless someone tries to defend you, in which case they will also be hurt, but it will be a one-time event for them)?
Depending on your answer, my second question would be: If such a situation happened to you tomorrow (and then every day) and you couldn't avoid it, would you prefer to use only the interpersonal skill, or would you (also) use a threat of authority?
But why would you be singled out this way, and not some other small kid? The explanation probably involves interpersonal skills at some point (I would expect likelihood of being bullied to be more correlated with being weird and friendless and "a pushover" than it is with being weak).
Also, even a small kid should be able to bite really hard, or come up with something foul-smelling that sticks in the hair or something like that - but I don't think either one of those are what is usually meant by "interpersonal skills" :)
Would it be too unrealistic scenario to imagine that I am a best student in the classroom, and the bully is the second best, but he used to be the best one in his previous school, he cannot emotionally accept not being first and when he cannot deal with competition in a fair way, he uses his physical strength as a backup option?
People can also hate you for being good at something, not just for being weak.
Yes, I used this kind of solution, and it worked. It just took me too much time to overcome the taboo about hurting other people (even in self-defense).
Learning to win fights despite a physical development disadvantage is exactly the wrong interpersonal skill to teach.
Okay, why I think this is a bad idea:
1) It teaches the child that power is in the hands of bad guys and authorities.
2) It is a strategy that is dependent on having a genuine authority that is sympathetic to one's cause (which may not always be true).
3) It is unlikely to directly teach the bully a better way to behave, and is likely to get him/her in a lot of trouble that might affect the rest of the bully's life, especially if his/her identity is revealed (especially ethically problematic with a young child).
4) A person, especially a child, might misunderstand a situation. The "bully" might be reacting to something offensive or hurtful that the child did. If someone goes to authorities before attempting to resolve the problem quietly, s/he risks getting the "bully" unjustly punished, and not learning about his/her own inappropriate behavior. This one is especially important, IMO.
5) If the bully is a bullying a lot of people, gathering those people together and having them unite against a bully may simultaneously allow many people to feel like they and their community has power outside what an authority grants them (this seems like a more HPMOR-type of solution to me).
6) Once something reaches the mass media, you lose all control over the outcome. Your school administrator or dean or principal might be replaced (which may or may not be a bad thing). The bully could be sent to juvie or removed from his/her family or whatever.
7) You don't know the full context behind the event. Maybe the bully just suffered a traumatic or tragic event. Maybe s/he has a mental disorder. Sure, then s/he needs help, and the authority should help him/her get it, but that approach seems lacking in the compassion due to the child in the midst of a tragedy.
8) You shame the bully and force him/her into a corner. The bully now loses face, especially if s/he backs down. With an especially impulsive person with little regard for his/her future, this could provoke some sort of desperate, especially violent response.
My suspicion is that libertarian practices would be (especially) bad amongst young children, who have lower impulse control and experience with self-organization.
In response to Villam_Bur, your extremely specific hypothetical in response to my comment reminds me of this. In response to that exact situation, I would attempt to use interpersonal skills, to get the support of my peers, examine my own behavior, ask for advice from others that I trusted, and try to understand the bully's actions and figure out whether it was worth the effort and potential consequences of getting him/her to stop (seriously try all these strategies, not just give some perfunctory mental equivalent of a passing glance at trying). Then I would try physical force. If all of the above were unsatisfactory, I would have no qualms about bringing it to a trusted authority figure with good judgement.
So, do you advocate Ender's solution?
Thankfully, bullying has not been a problem for him.
My model says that "being punched by bullies" is much less likely to be a problem faced by smart/nerdy kids going to public school in and around Northampton, MA than it is in most other parts of the United States.
I say this as someone who didn't go to elementary or middle school in America but who is pretty familiar with the demographics of the Northampton area (I went to college/lived in nearby Amherst for four years).
ETA: On further consideration, this comment is a little pointless and non-responsive to the interesting issues raised in the parent comment. I'm retracting it.
Ok, frankly the most charitable reading I can make of your comment is that you have no idea what typical social iterations in public schools are like.
I went to public school, I tutor kids from a selection of of public schools, all of my best friends were nerds in public school, and besides which, I read that article before I even started to participate on Less Wrong. If that's the most charitable reading you can take, I think you're either not making an effort, or you have an emotional investment in this issue which you're unable to separate yourself from.
Sometimes it's a euphemism for getting bullied (a good bit of bullying is emotional rather than physical attacks), sometimes it isn't.
In any case, homeschooling parents frequently make efforts for their kids to have a social life, and this can work very well.
It strikes me that very little has been said about the costs to the parents of homeschooling.
Even if homeschoolers only spend a few hours a week teaching their children (and that assumes the children are motivated enough to teach themselves the rest), they still have to make sure someone is in the house with the children all the time, which requires either career sacrifices (unless they can work from home), or probably more money than private school would cost (childminders are very expensive).
Also, I'm not convinced that even the average gifted child would be motivated enough to learn everything they need by themselves. I expect that the total time a homeschooler would end up spending would be substantially more than a few hours per week, which would again require major career sacrifices.
Finally, it can be very draining for a lot of parents to be around their children all the time. Often parents find having jobs outside the home to be a welcome break from childcare.
Indeed. But the primary reason I haven't mentioned the costs when recommending homeschooling is because the costs are nearer to James_Miller than the benefits. If he's going to overestimate the costs or benefits of homeschooling, it's more likely that he'll overestimate the costs- and so it makes sense to focus on the the benefits.
It also works as a door-in-the-face: well, if you aren't willing to devote full-time employment to your child's education, then surely private school is a bargain?