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Olymom,
It is much to your S's credit that he steps up and helps you with your difficult personal situation--in my view, much more to his credit than any SAT score.
But that having been said, we have very different perspectives on what it is we need to teach our children. You say "our great nation was founded by some very bright guys who were fed up with the "way things were"" and "he is less inclined to do is 50 math problems that are exactly the same, particularly when he grasped the concept in the first problem. I think he has a point. Alas, many teachers grade on compliance, not mastery." Well, the real world pays off on performance, not potential or abstract competence to your son's. And except for a few truly extraordinary people, that means doing whatever it takes, often including tasks that you see as boring, stupid, inane and pointless. That is the number one message that we need to send our children (not saying that I was particularly good at it)
Finally, a word about my S and athletics. I only included the reference because the next logical question after "your S is like mine" is "what happened to your S in the college admissions process?" and because of the athletics, S's situation was not comparable. But I will say this. S worked reasonably hard on his sport in high school and was rewarded for it, beginning to teach him the less that doing what it takes pays off. But he also realizes now that if he had worked even harder (including more boring drills) he would have had more opportunities. And he regrets that.
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