Roadside education

[Brunhidden]

current slightly hilarious controversial news topic

mother makes her idiot son hold a sign saying he has a 1.22 GPA



now, most people instantly leap at the mother saying shes horrible and is the problem. but hold on- the story is that she has tried a variety of ways to get her son to improve his grades, but has realized the problem is that her son does not give a mouses mule about his grades and basically just shows up to school for the purpose of being a smart-ass in history class.

i actually support this, and believe public humiliation should be a motivator again. not too long ago a judge forced a thief to stand in front of the store he stole from with a sign saying he shoplifted. so many people feel that their wrongdoings are private and nobody's business, and thus feel they can be an ass without consequence.

what say you, good people?
is this appropriate parental behavior?
would it be possible to give a dog a backpack and have it score higher then 1.22?
is there a better way to cohere someone to give a poo about their own future?

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

His mother needs to put a broom handle across the top of the poster to keep it flat.

[VAE]

Indeed.
With regards to app. parental behaviour... well, she feeds him, so she sort of gets to decide... besides, not like anything besides a certain over-inflated ego got harmed in the process...

[joshofspam]

Got to put effort into your education.

No doubt about that.

[Sofox]

This'll pretty much guarantee he'll hate school and education for the rest of his life. He'll look upon it as only a way of being humiliated.

[VAE]

This'll pretty much guarantee he'll hate school and education for the rest of his life. He'll look upon it as only a way of being humiliated.

Except he isn't being humiliated for attending school , but rather for a failure to perform.
Shaming people out of unacceptable behaviour and similar collective pressure techniques work in between people since we exist and work in groups.
Especially since from the citation it seems that this particular guy doesn't do anything and think he's specially cool for that.

[Sofox]

Shaming people out of unacceptable behaviour

But they're not trying to shame him out of a behaviour, they're trying to shame him INTO a behaviour.

I'm actually surprised how many here are endorsing this tactic.

This tactic of roadside humiliation is dubious at best. When have you ever known someone to be humiliated for not doing well in something, and that leading them to do better in it? At most, the guy is going to do the bare minimum to avoid this fate in the future and nothing more. In the process he's going to be further resentful to his parents (meaning he'll resist them even more), pissed off at school in general and if he ever has kids he's likely to regularly try humiliation as a learning motivatior on them because that's the parental tactic he's familar with.

To bring up a counterpoint, here's a recent article about a parent asking how to motivate their child in school. I don't fully agree with all the answers, but even the idea of using the parent-child relationship positively rather then turning it into an us-versus-them warefare has at least some merit behind it.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2011/0308/1224291571421.html

[Brunhidden]

actually the humiliation isn't to make him do better- its to make him realize his lack of caring is unacceptable, thus forcing him to care about his grades, which will then make him do better

[VAE]

Shaming people out of unacceptable behaviour

But they're not trying to shame him out of a behaviour, they're trying to shame him INTO a behaviour.

I'm actually surprised how many here are endorsing this tactic.

This tactic of roadside humiliation is dubious at best. When have you ever known someone to be humiliated for not doing well in something, and that leading them to do better in it? At most, the guy is going to do the bare minimum to avoid this fate in the future and nothing more. In the process he's going to be further resentful to his parents (meaning he'll resist them even more), pissed off at school in general and if he ever has kids he's likely to regularly try humiliation as a learning motivatior on them because that's the parental tactic he's familar with.

To bring up a counterpoint, here's a recent article about a parent asking how to motivate their child in school. I don't fully agree with all the answers, but even the idea of using the parent-child relationship positively rather then turning it into an us-versus-them warefare has at least some merit behind it.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2011/0308/1224291571421.html

Once again, no.
You are essentially just saying positive reinforcement and negative one are different, which is true but of no consequence.

Firstly, shaming does work on people who not "do something badly" but who don't bother at all. It even works on small kids to teach them to flush the toilet or whatever.
Secondly as the thing has stated , only thing the guy does is be a smartass at school, no doubt getting plenty reinforcement from his peers (except for actually doing well, i tended to do that on some lessons too).
Making them stop admiring him by for example this (and the whole "if you won't learn you'll be stupid which is shameful" approach)  is a workable tactic.
You are right in that he probably won't do more than the minimum, but a) Now he's not even doing that and b) the way schools are set, hopefully, is that the minimum passable is good enough. In other words it's gonna be an improvement.
It probably won't make him stellar but if she wanted a genius she should have cared about his education far sooner.

As for parents... they need to have authority, which is also built up by being potent, which they have just demonstrated, otherwise he won't give a damn.  Even in the article  you linked, a lot of the advice boiled down to threatening (taking away luxury stuff for not doing homework for example)

[Brunhidden]

It probably won't make him stellar but if she wanted a genius she should have cared about his education far sooner.

a child does not learn because the parents think its important, the child learns because the child thinks its important. its the classic 'you can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink', 'you can put a kid in class but you cant make him think'.

this is not a breakdown of a parents authority over her child, this a breakdown of society in which this child would normally have no consequences for his choice to be proud that he is stupid. its like inner city kids who are proud they are 'hood rats', and accuse any classmate who actually gives a damn about their education and future as 'acting white'.

its our culture, people should be ashamed of sloth and ignorance but some people actually extol those as virtues. that has got to change, and people like this kid should hold themselves accountable for their own future

[VAE]

It probably won't make him stellar but if she wanted a genius she should have cared about his education far sooner.

a child does not learn because the parents think its important, the child learns because the child thinks its important. its the classic 'you can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink', 'you can put a kid in class but you cant make him think'.

this is not a breakdown of a parents authority over her child, this a breakdown of society in which this child would normally have no consequences for his choice to be proud that he is stupid. its like inner city kids who are proud they are 'hood rats', and accuse any classmate who actually gives a damn about their education and future as 'acting white'.

its our culture, people should be ashamed of sloth and ignorance but some people actually extol those as virtues. that has got to change, and people like this kid should hold themselves accountable for their own future

I agree with you in part... though a lot of the thing comes from the parents instilling such traits in the child when he's younger - in that time they have more control over him than society.
It might be that my perspectives are a bit skewed -though it went worse, my country isn't as bad in this respect quite yet (cultural endorsement of stupidity i mean).
Though, to be honest a fair share also goes to the schools - a lot of education is decoupled from real life and fails to motivate children to study subjects they have absolutely no use for... the saddest example is perhaps maths - eg. I have had the displeasure to read a rant by some student  wondering why are imaginary numbers taught in high school... even the teacher had no idea which then made the kids 'really excited'
I remember, the examples we had in textbooks back when i was a kid (mostly remnants  from the socialist era) Pretty much every "word example" had to do with industry and approximation of real usage of the thing taught (at a most basic level like summing egg counts from various chicken cages, just to show you an idea) I mean, low level stuff isn't fun but you can emphasise how useful it is.. it definitely worked on me i'd say.
Then there are subjects which are straight out useless to most kids... (moar specialisation, that's what's needed)  and this carries off in some places , up to college (US ones have majors AND minors for some reason)  though it's lower down the most harm is done.
To cut a long story short, if the only use of what you are teaching is to pass the exams, no wonder kids will do the bare minimum to get by - given what they know, it's actually sensible.



As for extolling the sloth and ignorance as virtues... you are absolutely spot on... "celebrities" who haven't honestly worked a day in their lives are celebrated where people who go to work everyday and make sure such have something to chew even should be.
The worst thing is that it doesn't need to be that way and in many places it isn't ...
Ah well, i could rant a lot more on this topic but i don't wanna bore y'all

[Brunhidden]

use of what they teach in school being taught in the school varries widely- some teachers do very well showing you how complex math can be useful.

lets take math. -I for example, while imaginary, is used constantly by electricians for some reason. trigonometry was taught to me as a skill that would keep me from losing fingers when i worked on a CNC mill. many teachers, however, just tell you to do the work regardless of its use. you know a good teacher when they honestly admit 'okay, this this and that are useful, but this next thing you will only use if you become a math teacher for the sole purpose of teaching it to future math teachers'.... yeah, i had a teacher say that.

history on the other hand should be offered as a fun class, exploring the little details of amazement in our past instead of forcing children to memorize the dates that boring shit happened. you could have a class about president Theodore Roosevelt, boring enough to peel the paint off of a car door about what bills he put into play and his role in establishing national parks. yawn. but what history teacher says he knew multiple forms of martial arts? that he was shot in the chest prior to a speech, and then gave the speech while bleeding profusely before seeking medical help? history is full of amazing things, but the history teachers ignore most of the stuff that would actually catch your attention or even be important. actually now that i think about it most 'history' classes are being replaced by 'world cultures' classes, which are even more entertaining as you learn wacky things about people around the world to make them seem less weird and foreign.

science... dude, you have to try to make a science class boring nowadays

the only real bomb is english classes. this probably isn't a universal, but its a crying shame that some of these classes exist solely to expose you to literature in a way that makes you hate it with a passion or to over analyze how you speak and write to the point you second guess if you are even speaking the right language. one english class i was in had the whole class read 'lord of the flies', a passable book that is simply not very captivating to someone who is 14. but they forced us to analyze the stupidest aspects of how it was written, the social impacts of statements within, metaphors the author would have laughed at you for assuming were there. sure the pigs head on a stick probably meant something, but the kids getting bowel problems because thier diet is entirely fruit? well on a desert island where the only food is fruit i guess that's probably going to happen regardless of whether or not it represents anything. epic fail. if i recall a portion of the class had a small book burning after the exam. another example of how english classes screw things up is that the other week the wife and i had about a twenty minute discussion about when one of us used the phrase 'next tuesday' on a sunday, and we realized that if english classes in gradeschool and highschool never touched on this important piece of the language yet probably spent weeks trying to explain what a preposition is and why there is even a word to describe that kind of work.



yeah, rant, it just irritates me that while learning can be fun, fulfilling, and useful so many institutions screw it up to the point it actually teaches people to fear learning





oh, and on the topic of celebrities- try and count how many rap stars entire career is based off of the concept of 'im dumb as a brick, beat women relentlessly, probably shot a few people despite those pesky "law" things, and abuse enough controlled substances to drop a bull elephant, but because of this i am stupid wealthy and popular despite all logic'

im just glad that the average rap star has a career that only lasts a few CD releases, and by that time has already 'invested' his entire fortune on crystal filled hot tubs and hummer limos. in comparison look at rock stars- aerosmith (who based their entire music empire on things like talent and writing ) has fourteen albums, did twenty four tours, and have been playing for about fifty years now despite numerous drug induced stupors. in contrast to 2pac (the other most common candidate for biggest rapper was eminem, but lets not go there) produced six albums, had legal fines up the wazoo, did precisely zero tours (ya know, where about 95% of a rockstars income comes from), went to prison, and died at somewhere less then ten years into his career. this is the high point of the history of rap, to which people look up to. oh yes, he was one of the rappers that was actually talented, and based his works on violence and inner city issues of those with low income in a way many thought glorified the lifestyle when he probably meant to say just how crappy it was...


i would say that piece of our wonderful culture is at least on par with anything paris hilton and friends has ever done, and probably ever will do



.....ye gods, now 'paris hilton and friends' is stuck in my mind as a possible tv show