I read the article. In my reading it implied the whole family were disabled, the parents housebound, and that for half of his life the kid was effectively permanently engaged in self-directed business-linked study outside of the house.
Was there any indication that this kid would have been happier or “better off” in any other situation?
It sounds like he thrived in the specific set of conditions that he was raised in. Would that be true if he had grown up middle class and went to a traditional public school and force-fed common core nonsense?
I mean, my daughter goes to public school, leading a mostly "cookie cutter" existence, and several of her peers who she interacts with there have memberships in a swimming pool of some sort or another.
Given that we wanted her to be able to swim with them, we paid a professional to give her swimming lessons.
She's now 11, but any time in the last ~5 years, tipping over in a canoe or kayak would not have been fatal for her (even without a life vest).
I imagine he'd be cookie like all the other cookies; as in cut by a cookie cutter that limits the majority of all the other minds cranked out of the formal K - 12 mill.
I know a number of teachers. All of them want to do the best job possible. Unfortunately, a good number of them are in systems that don't support them as well as they should. That said, I'd take it a step further and say the (USA) culture doesn't do enough to support the systems and the teachers.
What goes in, trickles down, and comes out the other end. With the power structure, teachers have some, but others have far more. That's where the accountability (read: blame) needs to go. Blaming the powerless is a fool's errand.
That is, for example, we can sign off billions to foreign countries, and at home our teachers are going out of pocket for supplies. Huh? I'm not suggesting that we don't help others. I am insisting that if we can do that, we can certainly do better for teachers, and other similar high-value (to the future) professions.
I did not mean to blame teachers themselves and also believe there are systemic and cultural challenges. Not just in the US but globally. This is not surprising given the way in which education and media are often politicized, the use of access to tertiary education as an effective class battleground, and the scale and scope of recent technology impact on our culture.
We agree. I simply wanted to add some context / depth, because as you mentioned, the media is so good at over-simplification. And that too often skews the ability to have a full informed conversation.
I can’t imagine any other situation where a parent would essentially dedicate their life to support their child’s development.