Anonymous wrote:The war started when I was in 7th grade. We had no distance learning since there was no internet in my country in the early 90s. We tried for a while to meet with teachers occasionally in pods in people's homes, but that stopped because it became too dangerous for us to move around. There was also no electricity or running water in the city almost the entire time.

Fast forward to today, I have a degree from an American University (3.9 GPA), have a stable job, a family.

I'm posting this not to lecture anyone or shame anyone, but to hopefully comfort some of you who are panicking about kids not going back to school in person this fall.

Feel free to ask me whatever you want.

This is exactly why the problems with DL are being overstated and pale to insignificance in the face of a life-threatening pandemic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for this post, OP. I work in a part of the world where education was massively disrupted for much of the 90s, and it's a mixed bag in terms of the "lost generation." Those with resources tended to emerge in an okay position, but the educational and social impact of that period can't be ignored.

However, that was almost a decade of disruption. We are talking about a year or two, with distance learning, and the impact will be much less.

Exactly!!!

My dad missed a year plus of school when he was younger due to a disease outbreak, which I think is more similar to what is going on here. He grew up in Asia, and this happened when he was in second/third grade. He doesn't even remember what disease it was because he was pretty young -- likely nothing newsworthy outside of the local area. But it was a semi-rural area with not a lot of resources, so maybe they could have sent the kids further away for school, but nobody had money to do that. He remembers mostly playing with his brothers and sisters (not other kids due to fear of outbreak), and not doing much in the way of schoolwork. So he was not the kind of kid who sat and read and taught himself.

He just casually mentioned this to me as we were discussing COVID. I never knew before. This year plus had no effect on him long-term. He is a very accomplished person, with a US graduate degree, who had a successful career in the US and raised two successful kids.

I think about this when I start worrying about my own kids now. And I'm happy to see this thread from OP showing that kids can be resilient in even more dire circumstances.

Anonymous wrote:That is a tough childhood OP. Glad you are doing well now and it didn’t impact your overall education.

Whenever I start to feel whiny I catch myself and remind myself that character comes not by choice but through adversity. Throughout history children have been forced to grow up too fast due to outside circumstances. My kids during this pandemic still have 2 working parents, a big home in a safe place, lots of toys and books, friends to play with outside and a school to go back to eventually.

Absolutely! Perspective is everything.

That is a tough childhood OP. Glad you are doing well now and it didn’t impact your overall education.

Whenever I start to feel whiny I catch myself and remind myself that character comes not by choice but through adversity. Throughout history children have been forced to grow up too fast due to outside circumstances. My kids during this pandemic still have 2 working parents, a big home in a safe place, lots of toys and books, friends to play with outside and a school to go back to eventually.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The difference is OP read a lot and was allowed to gather with friends. Today's kids are on screens all day, just passively consuming nonsense. It's killing their minds.

You don’t think my mind was being killed by having to leave everything I knew behind (clothes, memories, friends) and then live for 4 years with no electricity, water, very little food? All while being constantly bombarded and shot at?

What’s stopping your kids from reading?

+ 1 million !!!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you an exception? What happened to your classmates?

I don't think I'm the exception at all. Among those of us who had the drive and the ambition to go to college, we did. The rest of my generation who didn't want to go to college are doing other things now. But I do not think that any of us who wanted to continue our education was not able to due to missed time. What happens at home is extremely important too. Have your kids read A LOT. Talk about all sorts of subjects. Develop curiosity within them.

That seems highly narrow minded.

So people with dyslexic kids should say... read A LOT?

So a small percentage of people you know actually got an education.

-1. This is a perfect example of someone's perspective being the most important thing. Someone will immediately think of "oh, but my kid is dyslexic, so reading won't work". PERFECT example. My goodness, with the extent of technology available today, just listen to the books. Or some other solution. Kids in war zones HAD to come up with solutions, I think we can too. It's ALL in the perspective and drive to learn or succeed. That's why so many kids fail even with all of the schooling, technology, and money that goes into our education system.



Signed...friend of a dyslexic that has his PhD in Astrophysics

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you think that getting a base education from K-6th grade was key to your being able to pick it back up when the war was over? I’m curious how elementary kids (say a first grader when the war broke out) fared? What are your thoughts on DL this year? And thanks for this. I listened to a podcast a few years ago from another kid that lived in war torn Bosnia. He is now an Ivey league professor. I can’t remember the podcast though.

Yes, I think the education I got prior to the war was excellent. I have cousins who were infants when the war started and they both went to college outside of Bosnia (though they are back working in Bosnia now). I think younger kids had a tougher time because the country was in shambles when the war was over.

Also, I think you were refering to Emir Kamenica. If anyone is interested in his story, you can listen to it on This American Life.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/504/how-i-got-into-college

He also talks about reading incessantly and stealing a library book before immigrating to the US. He then translated an essay from the book (basically plagiarized it) and got his teacher's attention. She helped him transfer from a not great public school in Atlanta to a top notch private school which led him to continue to Harvard and ultimately put him on a track for a Nobel (hopefully). There is a twist in the story and it's really fascinating if you are interested in listening to it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for posting, OP, and putting things in perspective. I’m sorry for what you and your family went through. My SIL (husbands brothers wife) is Bosniak and was a child during the war. her family managed to leave Bosnia for Croatia and then left Croatia for the US so they were not in Bosnia during the war but she grew up as a refugee and I think has a lot of trauma from that (though she never talks about it.) I often feel ashamed of any times I’ve complained about aspects of my life that have been difficult because I realize it’s nothing compared to what she (or countless others around the world) went through.

I don't normally talk about it either. I don't want to sound like I'm lecturing people and comparing hardships. This was meant to be a post to comfort people and let them know that it is possible to come out successful after much harder hardship than we are experiencing now.

I never minimize anyone's pain. We all go through struggles in life and it's pointless to compare the pain we might be feeling.

You sound like a wonderful, grounded person. I wish I knew more people like you in real life. I've always told my kids that "perspective is everything". And that is what I think you have proven by the life you have lived. Hopefully your AMA will help some people change their perspective about missing a year of in person schooling, or how hard it is to live in the United States.

Anonymous wrote:Do you think that getting a base education from K-6th grade was key to your being able to pick it back up when the war was over? I’m curious how elementary kids (say a first grader when the war broke out) fared? What are your thoughts on DL this year? And thanks for this. I listened to a podcast a few years ago from another kid that lived in war torn Bosnia. He is now an Ivey league professor. I can’t remember the podcast though.

Yes, I think the education I got prior to the war was excellent. I have cousins who were infants when the war started and they both went to college outside of Bosnia (though they are back working in Bosnia now). I think younger kids had a tougher time because the country was in shambles when the war was over.