PlaidX: halfway through primary school i said “alright, that’s enough of that”
PlaidX: and everyone was like “but you HAVE to go to school!”
PlaidX: and i was like make me and they said I GUESS YOU DON’T, THEN...
PlaidX: it was amazing how easy it was, in the end
kim: was it
kim: i remember having to do a lot of stupid correspondance school crap
kim: and then some alternative high school where you only had to go ten hours a week and it was self-paced
kim: until I finally just hit 17 and got my GED
PlaidX: the truth of the matter is, the educational system does not have a lot of leverage
PlaidX: the worst they can do to you is expel you, and that’s… not particularly threatening, if your goal is to not go to school
PlaidX: this will go on your permanent record young man!!!
kim: can’t the state put you in foster care if you aren’t getting an education, though?
PlaidX: i guess, in theory?
PlaidX: i’ve never heard of that actually happening
kim: i wish my mom wouuld have been less paranoid about that, it would’ve saved me a lot of trouble
PlaidX: you were what, 13 or so?
kim: well
kim: let’s see.. 12 when I refused to go to middle school any longer, then we tried enrollment in a private high school when I was 13
kim: and that lasted for… two months? three?
PlaidX: and your house wasn’t full of black mould or anything
kim: not that we knew of
PlaidX: i don’t really see CPS coming in and dragging you away for not doing your schoolwork
kim: the important thing is that my mom thought they would
kim: and I didn’t want anyone to think I was shirking away from schoolwork, anyway. I never had a problem with that
kim: just all the people that happened to be at the school
PlaidX: again though, what would your mom actually have done if you simply refused to do the schoolwork? thrown you out?
kim: hmm, I dunno
kim: maybe put me in a mental institution
PlaidX: to save you from being put in a foster home.
kim: no, because if I’d have refused to do any schoolwork, clearly my emotional disturbance was to the point where I could try to kill myself again
kim: I don’t know
kim: reasonably, nothing, but it would’ve strained our relationship to say the least
PlaidX: i’m not suggesting you have to be a dick about these things, just calmly explain why schoolwork is a load of rubbish and then when they try to get you to compromise, say no, and then they give up.
PlaidX: halfway through primary school i said “alright, that’s enough of that” PlaidX: and everyone was like “but you HAVE to go to school!” PlaidX: and i was like make me and they said I GUESS YOU DON’T, THEN…
I tried that, and they did, in fact, make me. They were bigger than me, and they were willing to literally pick me up and carry me to the school. Furthermore, I had to see psychiatrists and take antidepressant medication that, at the time, I didn’t want. (Incidentally, my father told me that a friend of his, who he referred to by name, once had to go to family court because his daughter was late to school every day for a long time, and he didn’t want the same thing happening to him.)
I’m having a lot better luck with “not getting a job” than “not going to school” though.
Well, I pretty much told them I planned on spending all day surfing the Internet and playing video games until they stopped supporting me. You seemed to have a better excuse.
You also probably weren’t shoved into special education after second grade. I spent third through seventh grade learning basically nothing from my actual schoolwork while the rest of my native school district caught up to me.
I’m always jealous when I hear about mathematical prodigies who are doing advanced work at young ages. I would have been one of them if I only I had someone who was willing to teach me math more complicated than arithmetic!
Well, I pretty much told them I planned on spending all day surfing the Internet and playing video games until they stopped supporting me. [Eliezer] seemed to have a better excuse.
It may sound like a better excuse to people in this community, but I assure you that to my parents both “excuses” would have sounded one and the same:
“It’s great that you want to work on ‘artificial intelligence’ or whatever when you grow up, but right now, young man, your schoolwork comes first. You’re not going to sit around on the computer all day while you’re living under our roof.” (etc.)
I’m always jealous when I hear about mathematical prodigies who are doing advanced work at young ages. I would have been one of them if I only I had someone who was willing to teach me math more complicated than arithmetic!
I second this jealousy! Though in my case, I had the access to higher math (at least enough to get started). What I didn’t have was anyone who cared about the rather remarkable fact that I was interested in it. I mean really, truly cared—to the point of taking some kind of action. Whenever I did something that showed what might be called exceptional ability, whether it was learning calculus or writing symphonies, the reaction of my parents and the school authorities was always “that’s great, but...”
(Incidentally, I don’t want to unfairly condemn my parents. They would have been just fine for 99% of the children they might have had, and it could have been much worse for me. But never underestimate the stupidity of the U.S. public school system.)
I’m always jealous when I hear about mathematical prodigies who are doing advanced work at young ages. I would have been one of them if I only I had someone who was willing to teach me math more complicated than arithmetic!
I’m sure we’d all be (all of Less Wrong, except I, who am not very smart—that’s some weird grammar by the way that I just used) mathematical prodigies—if we only had someone who was willing to teach us math, because Gods know why, we were too lazy to go to a public library, pick up the books and study ourselves!
One can waste a lot of time, especially at the start when most of the literature is inaccessible and one lacks common sense to at least look through standard curricula—this can be easily fixed with the right guidance. Plus, it’s not obvious that learning research science can be fun, something I had no idea about up to the last years of college (there was language barrier as well).
I’m always jealous when I hear about mathematical prodigies who are doing advanced work at young ages. I would have been one of them if I only I had someone who was willing to teach me math more complicated than arithmetic!
Do you do advanced math now? If not, why not, and why would it be different at a younger age?
I guess I was curious if you (1) had generalized knowledge about this skill… like in what sorts of situations will this work in and what situations will this fail in? Are excuses needed? If so when? Are tone, attitude and delivery important? Is there backlash from refusing? Most people seem to think this is a good way to get fired, if this is wrong why do they think this? etc.
Also (2) do you have a particularly insightful or entertaining anecdotes of you using this skill? What is biggest request you’ve refused? Are there refusals you regret making? etc.
Don’t sound argumentative or defensive. Sound calm but confident. Be ready to give reasons: “I’m trying to get the foobar module working. This module is a critical part of our next release. Meetings are not.”
Know before you start how far you’re willing to follow the chain. What if they report you to the manager, and he tells you you have to attend meetings or be fired? Probably the best response is to reply calmly, “I think we should be spending more time getting the next release ready and less time in meetings, but if the company’s priority is otherwise, so be it.”—then you concede without losing face, and knowing you made every reasonable attempt (and maybe it’s time to quietly start looking for a job someplace less bureaucratic) It probably won’t come to that, but you will do better if you’re prepared in case it does come to that.
Being perceived as getting above your station was more dangerous in the ancestral environment than it is today, so most people are more afraid of doing it than is optimal today. The other mistake is to do it in a surly or rebellious fashion. Do it when it’s important enough, do it in a calm and confident fashion, and do it from a position where you’re already prepared to follow the chain.
I suspect that clay’s suggestion does require a shadow of an excuse. “No, I can’t” is probably worlds better than “Nope.” Recall that illusions of excuses (“I need to”) were shown to help cutting in line at the xerox.
You could also broaden this to Assertiveness in general. Asking for what you want is an amazingly useful skill that I’m neither as good at or use as often as I should.
Flat out refusing to do things. You’d be amazed what you can get away with not doing.
Can you say more about this?
(Please resist the temptation to just refuse to answer for purposes of irony and self-reference).
PlaidX: halfway through primary school i said “alright, that’s enough of that”
PlaidX: and everyone was like “but you HAVE to go to school!”
PlaidX: and i was like make me and they said I GUESS YOU DON’T, THEN...
PlaidX: it was amazing how easy it was, in the end
kim: was it
kim: i remember having to do a lot of stupid correspondance school crap
kim: and then some alternative high school where you only had to go ten hours a week and it was self-paced
kim: until I finally just hit 17 and got my GED
PlaidX: the truth of the matter is, the educational system does not have a lot of leverage
PlaidX: the worst they can do to you is expel you, and that’s… not particularly threatening, if your goal is to not go to school
PlaidX: this will go on your permanent record young man!!!
kim: can’t the state put you in foster care if you aren’t getting an education, though?
PlaidX: i guess, in theory?
PlaidX: i’ve never heard of that actually happening
kim: i wish my mom wouuld have been less paranoid about that, it would’ve saved me a lot of trouble
PlaidX: you were what, 13 or so?
kim: well
kim: let’s see.. 12 when I refused to go to middle school any longer, then we tried enrollment in a private high school when I was 13
kim: and that lasted for… two months? three?
PlaidX: and your house wasn’t full of black mould or anything
kim: not that we knew of
PlaidX: i don’t really see CPS coming in and dragging you away for not doing your schoolwork
kim: the important thing is that my mom thought they would
kim: and I didn’t want anyone to think I was shirking away from schoolwork, anyway. I never had a problem with that
kim: just all the people that happened to be at the school
PlaidX: again though, what would your mom actually have done if you simply refused to do the schoolwork? thrown you out?
kim: hmm, I dunno
kim: maybe put me in a mental institution
PlaidX: to save you from being put in a foster home.
kim: no, because if I’d have refused to do any schoolwork, clearly my emotional disturbance was to the point where I could try to kill myself again
kim: I don’t know
kim: reasonably, nothing, but it would’ve strained our relationship to say the least
PlaidX: i’m not suggesting you have to be a dick about these things, just calmly explain why schoolwork is a load of rubbish and then when they try to get you to compromise, say no, and then they give up.
I tried that, and they did, in fact, make me. They were bigger than me, and they were willing to literally pick me up and carry me to the school. Furthermore, I had to see psychiatrists and take antidepressant medication that, at the time, I didn’t want. (Incidentally, my father told me that a friend of his, who he referred to by name, once had to go to family court because his daughter was late to school every day for a long time, and he didn’t want the same thing happening to him.)
I’m having a lot better luck with “not getting a job” than “not going to school” though.
Worked for me after 8th grade, THANK Belldandy and Cthulhu.
Not really sure how it worked—if my parents ever had to deal with any legal attention or truant officers, I didn’t hear about it.
Well, I pretty much told them I planned on spending all day surfing the Internet and playing video games until they stopped supporting me. You seemed to have a better excuse.
You also probably weren’t shoved into special education after second grade. I spent third through seventh grade learning basically nothing from my actual schoolwork while the rest of my native school district caught up to me.
I’m always jealous when I hear about mathematical prodigies who are doing advanced work at young ages. I would have been one of them if I only I had someone who was willing to teach me math more complicated than arithmetic!
It may sound like a better excuse to people in this community, but I assure you that to my parents both “excuses” would have sounded one and the same:
“It’s great that you want to work on ‘artificial intelligence’ or whatever when you grow up, but right now, young man, your schoolwork comes first. You’re not going to sit around on the computer all day while you’re living under our roof.” (etc.)
I second this jealousy! Though in my case, I had the access to higher math (at least enough to get started). What I didn’t have was anyone who cared about the rather remarkable fact that I was interested in it. I mean really, truly cared—to the point of taking some kind of action. Whenever I did something that showed what might be called exceptional ability, whether it was learning calculus or writing symphonies, the reaction of my parents and the school authorities was always “that’s great, but...”
(Incidentally, I don’t want to unfairly condemn my parents. They would have been just fine for 99% of the children they might have had, and it could have been much worse for me. But never underestimate the stupidity of the U.S. public school system.)
To use the internet term… I know that feel.
I’m sure we’d all be (all of Less Wrong, except I, who am not very smart—that’s some weird grammar by the way that I just used) mathematical prodigies—if we only had someone who was willing to teach us math, because Gods know why, we were too lazy to go to a public library, pick up the books and study ourselves!
One can waste a lot of time, especially at the start when most of the literature is inaccessible and one lacks common sense to at least look through standard curricula—this can be easily fixed with the right guidance. Plus, it’s not obvious that learning research science can be fun, something I had no idea about up to the last years of college (there was language barrier as well).
At the time, I didn’t know my public library had such textbooks. :(
Do you do advanced math now? If not, why not, and why would it be different at a younger age?
Well, I haven’t done much advanced math recently, but I did do quite a bit in college. (“Advanced” math seems to start with calculus...)
Along these lines?
“Jack, there’s a team meeting at noon today and you need to be there.” “Nope”
I guess I was curious if you (1) had generalized knowledge about this skill… like in what sorts of situations will this work in and what situations will this fail in? Are excuses needed? If so when? Are tone, attitude and delivery important? Is there backlash from refusing? Most people seem to think this is a good way to get fired, if this is wrong why do they think this? etc.
Also (2) do you have a particularly insightful or entertaining anecdotes of you using this skill? What is biggest request you’ve refused? Are there refusals you regret making? etc.
Don’t sound argumentative or defensive. Sound calm but confident. Be ready to give reasons: “I’m trying to get the foobar module working. This module is a critical part of our next release. Meetings are not.”
Know before you start how far you’re willing to follow the chain. What if they report you to the manager, and he tells you you have to attend meetings or be fired? Probably the best response is to reply calmly, “I think we should be spending more time getting the next release ready and less time in meetings, but if the company’s priority is otherwise, so be it.”—then you concede without losing face, and knowing you made every reasonable attempt (and maybe it’s time to quietly start looking for a job someplace less bureaucratic) It probably won’t come to that, but you will do better if you’re prepared in case it does come to that.
Being perceived as getting above your station was more dangerous in the ancestral environment than it is today, so most people are more afraid of doing it than is optimal today. The other mistake is to do it in a surly or rebellious fashion. Do it when it’s important enough, do it in a calm and confident fashion, and do it from a position where you’re already prepared to follow the chain.
I suspect that clay’s suggestion does require a shadow of an excuse. “No, I can’t” is probably worlds better than “Nope.” Recall that illusions of excuses (“I need to”) were shown to help cutting in line at the xerox.
Pertinent link: http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html
You could also broaden this to Assertiveness in general. Asking for what you want is an amazingly useful skill that I’m neither as good at or use as often as I should.
Recommended reading: Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville.