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Research has shown that, while people in their 20s often leave rural communities, a higher percentage of young adults in their 30s choose rural communities, Schmitt-Wilson said. Still, most of the research on migration of young adults to rural communities focuses on "returners," or those choosing to move home to the community they were raised in, she added.
[...] The researchers found that while study participants were candid about challenges associated with life in rural areas of Montana—such as a lack of amenities and geographic and social isolation—they also highlighted a number of benefits.
"Those benefits included the quality of life they experience in their rural communities, including family-centered environments, low cost of living, unconditional support provided by community members, intergenerational friendships, increased sociability and unique opportunities for personal and professional growth available for young adults in rural communities," Schmitt-Wilson said.
If urban centers are in lockdown and their amenities are gone, would young people still choose city life or would places like rural Montana do?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 28 2020, @09:08PM (13 children)
For us, it was the rugrats' schools that proved to be the killer location deciderator.
I thought: how bad could it be? Hell, I can just teach math & physics in the local High School and that will make up for what the boonies are lacking. In reality, the boonies' schools lack a whole lot more than High School math & physics.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by DECbot on Thursday May 28 2020, @10:16PM (1 child)
One thing to consider, a school with a class size of 3000 does not offer the same experiences as a school of 250. Want to be student council officer, computer club member, varsity swimming, track, and cross country? That's easier to do at the smaller campus, but on the larger campus there's more competition for the same number of spots.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 29 2020, @12:32AM
In Florida, even the schools in the Boonies still have graduating classes of 200+ (4 year high school populations of 1200+, yes... that many do drop out.) They just tend to have one high school for the whole county instead of several.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Friday May 29 2020, @09:43AM (4 children)
If they'll let you. Odds are good that you'd be rejected for being overqualified or some similar excuse.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 29 2020, @11:22AM (2 children)
Around here, if you volunteer to teach at the bottom of the pay scale, they'll usually let anybody with minimal qualifications or better do it. In the mid-boonies my mom actually got premium pay for teaching Physics because they couldn't get anybody else to do it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 29 2020, @03:31PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 29 2020, @05:58PM
Oh, it's worse than that... Alachua county Florida: got disabilities? Yessiree... we'll serve you right here through the back gate, on the dirt traffic circle with no rain shelter. Folks will take your kids right from your car straight into the portable farm where your kids will spend their whole day. Please do show up late, and come to pick up early. Doin' their best to live like it's 1955, can't kick the coloreds around so much anymore so they get their yucks kicking the cripples, and especially the retards. Oh, but I forgot, in the cripple room of the colored school (yeah, the schools are still divided 94.9 / 5.1 because 95/5 is the test point where the feds would come in and demand more integration) yeah, that room: the in-room bathroom had a problem that vented sewer gas into the classroom - now most folks who look in there would think it's the kids 'cause so many of 'em are in diapers anyway, but, nope... that's the plumbing that hasn't been right for the last 10 years.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @02:37PM
Not Christian enough to teach science in a rural town.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 29 2020, @01:22PM (5 children)
When you have [football | basketball | wrestling], what else do you need?
In all seriousness, education has changed because of this thing, too. My kids haven't been to a physical school in months. They've been learning with Khan Academy. It's extremely effective. So you don't have to live where there's a good school to get a good education, if you homeschool.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 29 2020, @02:15PM (4 children)
Education is a great deal more than Readin, Ritin and Rithmetic. If the majority of schoolchildren shift to 100% home schooling, we're looking at a cultural revolution in 5-10 years, and I don't think it will be - on balance - for the good. School is where you learn how to deal with all the other assholes that live in the world, learn how much of an asshole you are yourself, and decide how much of an asshole you will continue to be in your adult life. Without that melting pot experience: cliques, bullies, bathroom muggings, drug deals, defiance of authority, punishment, evasion of punishment, etc. the children will grow up sheltered, ignorant and clash with each other as adults instead.
The two-horse town I was considering living in had a real problem getting staff for food services. Waitresses at the best restaurant on main street didn't know how to pronounce croissant, but with some OJT they could tell you it was "a sort of funny biscuit looking thing." Chillis had to delay opening for nearly 4 months before they could adequately train staff to cook and serve at minimum franchise acceptable levels. They were, on the other hand, host to one of the biggest rodeos in the state.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @08:10PM (1 child)
Learning to interact with a broad section of society is a useful skill, but one of the things you learn from that is that certain classes of people are best COMPLETELY AVOIDED.
How many years of mixing with thugs or low-goal people do you think is appropriate to learn the lesson? Most people would say that, on balance, your child is better off spending more time around people who have their s*** together and have morals. That's the example you want for them. Not bad examples. You don't want to normalize failure behavior.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday May 30 2020, @03:31AM
More than one, after about three I managed to shed my private school ignorance.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 29 2020, @10:10PM (1 child)
I don't know what your experience of public school was, but mine was not interested in bringing out the best in the students but rather bludgeoning them into a very small box. that was out west. having served on the schoolboard in brooklyn for years, I can say with authority that they are even worse than that.
If we have a chance to teach our kids the wonder of creativity and STEM and becoming self-directed, we should jump at it. we can't let public school teachers stunt our children anymore.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday May 30 2020, @03:35AM
Home schooling has been an option for decades... we've taken that option off and on when public was worse than nothing, but... home is no substitute for peer learning. I can see how the midwest would be pretty hopeless in the public school department, but schoolboards are one of those nearly accessible political forums where, if you've got a stay at home mom (or dad) with a bit of excess time/energy, you really can start to make a difference. If you've got three or four good people with the time and energy to get elected to the schoolboard - well positioned around a county, you can actually take over and start to make major improvements.
🌻🌻 [google.com]