joetrumpet

I don't quite understand what he has to gain from going, nor why your language shows you have moved past it more than he has. If he wasn't friends with anyone in high school, what's the difference between going there and going to some other event and meeting people? Some of them might be nice, and so might some other people he could meet--people nearby that he might actually stay in contact with. It just sounds like a waste of money to me. I don't think he's holding onto anything: I think his point is 25 years after being abused people who didn't apologize are pretending nothing happened, and asking him to spend a decent amount of time and money on reminiscing. What's the point?

My parents are cleaners, but I'm not sure how much knowing me helps my peers at Princeton talk to them. It definitely helps, but the extent is hazy enough and more importantly my situation rare enough that I understand his point. Moreover, many people don't have any idea the backgrounds their friends come from: they can simply assume their friends are in a similar situation, since this assumption is right in a vast majority of cases.

It's very interesting to see a study with negative effects of multilingualism. I experience this a lot and never even considered it could partially be caused by knowing multiple languages. I'm extremely curious to see how much the effect increases as number of languages does (as far as I'm aware this is fairly common for Europeans)--hopefully it's a diminishing effect!

Those small grocery stores aren't the same as a supermarket, and the supermarkets listed aren't really in Trenton. For some reason some of them are listed as such, but if you look at the map they're a bit off elsewhere. We don't consider that part of Trenton--one of those is in Hamilton, for example. Trenton's last supermarket closed back awhile ago and it's an obstruction to food access often-mentioned by non-profits in the area.

I'm not sure about rent. In states south from NJ those rents are high for suburban areas, for housing in much worse shape (chipping lead paint, etc). You're right in terms of staying within New Jersey--those are low in a state with very expensive housing (and everything else), but considering both health and the pay people get in the poor areas receive I'm not sure if it's a fair comparison. In my own experience, the suburban poor do seem to be better off than the urban poor (and I think it all trumps rural poverty)--and I love cities, so I really wish that weren't the case.

My response would have been essentially the same as msluyter's. Strong education systems, I believe, can provide the examples you mention are needed for a child, the examples that inspire the positive attitudes and strong work ethic. I was lucky enough to grow up with incredible parents who knew exactly what to do, so it's no surprise I'm doing much better than they did. For the kids who aren't as fortunate (and I am of course not blaming the parents, how could they know?), your peers and your school life are a dominant influence in life.

Some examples that may inspire some hope: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/opinion/08brooks.html (or for a more reputable but lengthier description of the same program, http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/hcz%204... )

http://uei.uchicago.edu/

The poor city I'm adjacent to, Trenton, has no supermarket. People simply have to shop at the convenience stores, which are more expensive anywhere. I'm not aware of anything you mentioned inside the city--just in the suburbs surrounding it. Housing is not super cheap: 800-1200 a month rent is typical for a far-from-glamorous home, maybe 700 if you're willing to live in the high-crime areas. Most people with kids would do anything to stay out of those parts. That doesn't leave a lot for food, utilities, child care, transportation, and misc. costs.

I'm not really sure what city you're considering. It's far from the reality I've seen.

Or how little high school calculus people have taken. At my high school not even precalculus was a requirement. Of a graduating class of around 300, I'd say 30-45 students had taken a calculus course.

I agree that acceleration would be a much clearer term.

Do you have examples that follow this model and perform higher? I believe East Asian countries, and Finland at the least in Europe, are very rigid and have success. I'm curious to see the opposite approach too.

Something I find simply disgusting is when I see teacher's unions claiming they represent the needs of students. I believe this lie is part of what gives them so much unfounded clout. They represent the desires of teachers: the needs of students are secondary and subordinate to that, if even a consideration. The worse the teachers, the more corrupted the union becomes to defend them.

What I hope people come to realize, especially with articles such as this one in the news, is this: not only do the desires of teachers rarely align with the needs of students, they quite often stand in direct opposition. Teacher's unions are self-seeking entities that are to always be examined with a cautious eye.

The problem is this makes degrees more and more worthless and causes "degree inflation" where positions that previously required a bachellor's degree (and still require bachelor's knowledge) now require a master's degree. This is time consuming and a waste of money for those of us who take it seriously.

Plus, much of education is funded by the government (public to a large extent, but also the research grants and whatnot to the privates can't be dismissed), and I simply don't want to pay for people to waste away 4 years in a glamorized high school. I'm all for scholarships and funding for students and schools that take it seriously, but not this junk.

Integration itself is quite a bit of problem solving itself, and much more fundamentally understandable.

I'd rather students understand the fundamentals of that integration than have a computer apply an algorithm they don't understand. You can construct problems plenty complicated enough in intro calculus courses for students without resorting to functions they can't integrate with the methods they learn.

It came about for evolutionary purposes, I'm sure, and the magnitude of their influence is quite debatable, and varies greatly from person to person. But do you believe status is not a factor in the eyes of most girls (this is, of course, simply a generalization)?

I'm sure you have friends who you would consider incredibly nice, but very shy, guys who never could get a girlfriend, and plenty of jerky, but confident, guys who you wonder why girls would date. Confident guys, even when not nice, just seem to win out over really nice, but not at all confident, guys. Guys with both win out over both. Whether or not it's a bad thing is your call.

(I'm not arguing guys are above their primitive desires: not by any means, it's just not the focus of this discussion.)

I never understood why students took out the loans for the private schools. Public schools are much more affordable if you aren't on scholarship and have great career prospects.

It's even worse when there are some teachers telling students in high school to completely disregard debt and go to the "best" school they can to get an education that will last forever. Honestly, what's that education worth if you struggle for years (decades?) afterwards trying to pay back for it?

While I'm glad to see us expanding our rail lines, why is there an east-west link? I can't see rail surpassing air travel in this case in terms of price, and time is clearly not in rail's favor for long trips (like it is for short trips, which helps the high prices of rail slide by).

He didn't mean antonym, which is why he mentioned at the end girls could then find both a nice and strong guy. In other words, it's less likely for nice guys to have the trait, but not impossible: they don't have it because they didn't attempt it since they simply listened to girls who didn't know (or weren't willing to admit) what they wanted.

In my experience, girls do want first and foremost an alpha male, and being a nice guy on top of that makes it even better. It's just not a necessity so the jerks can succeed without that quality, whereas the nice guys can't succeed without "dominance."