<p>Hi all! Thanks for all your insights. I’m sorry I can’t reply to everyone…I didn’t expect to see so many posts when I logged in this evening. Anyway, it’s truly amazing how different schools can be with regards to AP classes throughout the country. And it’s refreshing to hear students who take APs for the sake of learning, instead of making sure they fulfill the laundry list of requirements for college admissions. </p>
<p>I agree the media plays a huge role on the pressure cooker feeling for our high school kids, teachers and administration to be the best. And when you are in a very competitive environment like my D’s school, it is so easy to get caught up in the “name” of the college. </p>
<p>So I had a good heart-to-heart talk with my D this morning and we both agreed that these college applications, SAT test scores and GPAs do not define her and that where ever she ends up going to college is just part of the journey, not the destination. She already has the fire and passion to learn inside her and that is the best skill she will need to succeed in any college. (I know it sounds mushy…but if you felt the tension in our house lately, the discussion was long over due!) I think the talk helped both of us. I admit…I may be one of those “helicopter” parents who hover too much over her kids. So I am going to “chillax” more. As for her, she seemed to be relieved and happily welcomed the idea of focusing more on her match schools then her reach schools… (phew!!)</p>
<p>She did say she doesn’t mind the workload and stress of AP classes. In fact she said she would rather be spending hours on those classes than these “stupid” college applications and essays! (no kidding, right?)</p>
<p>It has definitely been reassuring to hear I am not alone. Not to sound mushy, but this thread has been very helpful in putting everything in perspective for me. Thanks to all!</p>
<p>I still hate how her school puts so much emphasis on AP classes so it can be the number one in the state. I would love for our school principal to read this thread. Maybe he’ll lighten up…yea right, fat chance!
(So what’s with all the college football coaches teaching APUSH?? Our football coach taught it too in our school!!!)</p>
<p>I don’t know about the football coaches who teach APUSH, but I do recall reading that Belichuck (I’m sure I’ve misspelled the name), the NE Patriot’s Coach, is a graduate of Andover and Wesleyan. A good football coach is seldom stupid. If you can remember all those plays and strategize, you might enjoy reading about the American Revolution, too.</p>
<p>I’d rather have the football (and lacrosse) coach teaching trig and history than have the local yokel from the garage coaching football. Since football coaching is not a full time job at the high school level and the coaches need a “real job” as well – isn’t it better from the kids to have the coach teaching them in the classroom too?</p>
<p>The prep schools/boarding schools have it right! When the guy coaching the hockey team on Friday night was also teaching history on Friday morning – that’s a GOOD thing!</p>
<p>cnp55- isn’t THATthe truth! Thanks for reminding me. That is one of the huge benefits of prep school, in my opinion (besides the much more realistic attitude towards AP courses). My son’s wonderful coach was also his AP History teacher (PhD), Advisor and mentor. The dorm faculty also taught academic courses. It was VERY hard for a kid to fly under the radar.</p>
<p>At my girls prep school we had separate gym teachers, but I’ve come around to this way of thinking. As long as it means the sports are less professional rather than the academic experience. In our public high school the football coach oversees all the athletic programs so he doesn’t teach, but my sons’ best social studies teachers have also been coaches.</p>
<p>Ooops! I didn’t mean to put down coaches. My D’s APUSH teacher was just not the greatest in class and on the field…he shows very little respect for the students and athletes. I’m sure there are a lot of fabulous coaches who make class room learning fun and excitiing. Fortunately, most of my D’s other AP teachers are great and work very closely with the kids.</p>
<p>Speaking of teachers, I sat in my freshman D’s geometry class a couple of weeks a go. When my D2 told me her teacher is new and just graduated from Johns Hopkins, I was very excited to meet her. Much to my disappointment, she was very soft spoken, dry and taught above the freshmens/sophmore’s heads. Kids were passing around notes and not paying attention. So, I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt…she’s new and may take a while. I was just so surprised because Johns Hopkins boasts about their holistic approach to the admission process and how they look for dynamic students who are not only book smart but strong in character… </p>
<p>Oh well, I think I’m pretty much done trying to figure out what colleges are looking for. 5 more months and these college admissions will finally be over and we can move on with our lives…(it will be one child down and three more to go for me!!)</p>
<p>I also didn’t mean to put down coaches, and I’m sorry if I did. Both my kids learned a great deal – tangible and intangible things – from their various athletic coaches. It’s just that we had bad luck with some mediocre history/social science teachers - and two of whom happened to be coaches whose heart wasn’t in the classroom but instead out on the field. The AP teachers, on the other hand, were always accomplished and set more ambitious goals for their students. It’s one reason why D took AP courses when she could even though she sometimes grumbled about the extra work.</p>
<p>Personally, I can only speak for my kids’ school, but it’s the conventional wisdom among the college-bound kids that the worst teachers academically are the coaches. Now, I’m sure that there’s a big difference between public and prep/boarding school hiring. If I was paying $25,000 a year and up for secondary school education, I wouldn’t tolerate some of the pathetic excuses for teaching that I’ve witnessed (through kids and friends) by coach-teachers at our hs. </p>
<p>One said in a nonhonors history class, “Hey, guys, I know this stuff is boring but we gotta get through it…” Another, language teacher, passes out worksheet pages and retires to his desk computer to work on plays and rosters. Another, science, does the same. One girl who had to switch from a good science-is-my-passion science teacher to the wrestling coach-science teacher at semester break told me, “It’s like night and day. We read the textbook and do handouts…he doesn’t teach us anything.” This wasn’t a college prep class but I still can’t stand that public school administrations think it’s okay to compromise the academic education of many students so they can provide a sports coach to some students. I wouldn’t object if they taught PE only, but alas, they do not. Such priorities are askew, in my opinion. </p>
<pre><code>At our hs, a lot of students like the coach-teachers but that’s because they are often easy, undemanding, spend the class telling stories or jokes, show lots of movies sort of related to the subject matter. Other students, though, are fully aware that the teaching is inadequate and if they can they transfer out of those classrooms. Anyone can spend some time on the website, www.ratemyteachers.com and draw their own conclusions about the level of academic teaching that is delivered by coaches at a given school.
</code></pre>
<p>this underscores my belief that it is the teacher that matters not the course
From my daughters teachers in high school- to listening to her sister talk about the profs she had in college and hearing others talk about their kids reports after thanksgiving break, from * their* colleges, a class may sound great- but it is up to the instructor- what actually is taught.( anybody want to hear inside scoop about Bard/cornell/Syracuse? ;)- it was a long soccer game last night & in the snow- and they had to have a shoot out! brrrr)</p>
<p>My high school daughter does have a coach/teacher- however- it fully makes sense to me. He is an asst track coach- and teaches health. I have spoken to him several times ( he is also her coach) and I think he is really addressing some good topics with relevant assignments that engage the students. True- perhaps because my D is in 11th gd and takes it seriously, and the class enrolls students from 9th to 12th, that she is getting more out of it than some, but you could say that about many classes.</p>
<p>So that at least is one class I am very happy about-Her Spanish 3( the same teacher also taught AP Spanish) class on the other hand, was taught for about a month by a native speaker, but for reasons unknown to me, she then quit and the class is now being taught by a sub- since our district pool hires after the other districts, the pickings are slim, but it wont be till after the 1st of the year, that the district will allow the school to hire from outside.
Ridiculous.</p>
<p>( And this is from arguably the best public high school in the district- with a very strong principal who is quite adept at getting what he needs from district- but he doesn’t walk on water)</p>
Outrageous. Reminds me of the 3rd grade math teacher my son had who told me “I hate math.” She revealed this to demonstrate how tuned-in she was to the difficulties the kids were having in her class.</p>
<p>Ain’t tenure grand?</p>
<p>At d’s Catholic h.s., several coaches also teach. I should rephrase that – several teachers also coach. She’s had a few & they are excellent. In fact, the health teacher is the varsity basketball coach & she reminded the parents at open house to warn our girls that she had minored in English & would be extremely pickly with term papers.</p>
<p>First of all, my D’s public high school is very diverse, racially, economically, etc. It’s not considered a great high school, but for high achieving students, there is a lot of opportunity to get an AP class. D never felt pushed to take APs, but she relished the opportunity to take them. She’s a senior now, and she’s taking 4 APs, and she did quite poorly in one and not so great in another. She’s already taken 5 AP classes and gotten 3s or 4s on all the tests. If a child drops an AP course because they are doing poorly, do you think that reflects badly on them when the college admissions officer is looking over their application?</p>
<p>we get it all public school teachers are bad, private school teachers are good. Say it long enough and someone will believe you, just not everyone. </p>
<p>This just makes it all the better to enjoy the pounding my poor public school kids put on the private catholic school where everything is so much better. It was fun to watch the acedemic competition and my poor public school kids double up the scores on science, literature, math, current events, history, art, classics and chemistry/physics… in multischool competitions. Yea, privates are always better. Kids are always much smarter, teachers are always much better… yea sure. </p>
<p>Isn’t tenure wonderful? Yes, often times it is. It allows truly great teachers at those lowly public schools to concentrate on the classroom, not on administrators and their quirks of the momment. </p>
<p>I keep telling ya, to leave jersey if it’s that bad. We’re not even a top dollar public school district and it sounds better than there and would probably save you tuition money.</p>
<p>Hmmm…why does Opie single out my post even though it wasn’t the first telling of excellent teacher/coaches at private schools? </p>
<p>You defend the indefensible, Opie. You alredy told me that the “I hate math” comment was no big deal on another thread. Is the “I know this stuff is boring” just peachy with you, too?</p>
<p>SS: “Ain’t tenure grand?” LOL. Yeah, it is when the teachers are fabulous and my son has had many in his public hs — all of them at the honors and AP level. It ain’t so grand when they’re terrible. Note to Opie: I was trying to be careful to say that I was referring only to my public hs and that these incidents happened in the nonhonors-type courses since the coaches don’t teach honors or AP level at our school. (So they aren’t teaching the classes with a lot of the kids that tend to engage in academic competitions.) Sorry to take the thread off topic, though.</p>
<p>Irish: In general, it’s not a plus to drop from an AP to nonAP, but IMO she should do what’s best for her anyway and let the college app chips fall where they may. She will no doubt be able to find a college she will enjoy attending and a year from now, all this grade pressure and angst will seem overblown. Does your school have two levels of AP Calculus and is she in the hardest one, that is Calculus BC rather than AB? If so, then it might be a good idea to move to the less intense version.</p>
<p>But jazzy, don’t you agree that ALL kids deserve qualified, motivated teachers? Those fabulous teachers had nothing to worry about in terms of job security. Like every other professional, they created their own job security with their high caliber work efforts.</p>
<p>“But jazzy, don’t you agree that ALL kids deserve qualified, motivated teachers? Those fabulous teachers had nothing to worry about in terms of job security. Like every other professional, they created their own job security with their high caliber work efforts.”</p>
<p>Everybody deserves qualified (fill in the blank) for (fill in the blank). </p>
<p>The problem I have with your comments SS, is you throw everybody under the bus. That is why I goof on you so much. I will not attack the profession that is full of wonderful, thoughtful, quality educators because a handfull aren’t up to snuff. Not every teacher my kids had was our vision of perfect, but sometimes our “vision” isn’t necessarily the right one to begin with. </p>
<p>I criticise you because you need to know not everyone is in lockstep with your opinons. Yes, you have a few, but most people overall are happy with the majority of the teachers their kids come across. </p>
<p>I think if we revisited your previous teacher bashing post alot of folks could see where you are really coming from. Maybe a few would agree, I think a few more would go eeewww. </p>
<p>And YES even FAB TEACHERS have something to worry about. I’ve interacted with around 7 superintendents, 10-12 principals, another dozen school board members over the years and I have to say not everyone of them is dealing from a full deck. I would hate for these people to have free reign over teachers good or bad. </p>
<p>Even with the current situation you’ve described alot of good exceptional quality teachers and administrators were driven from their jobs by people of questionable mental qualifications for reasons the “voices” gave them. YES, those folks found jobs quickly in other districts, but how did that help the kids in our district? Some educators who really like this community and really are exceptional teachers want to stay here and teach and those protections from unfair treatment help this community by making it a bit harder to dump somebody without cause.</p>
<p>You rail against teachers and their union…yet neither of these groups HIRE themselves. Maybe if education is so bad in Jersey, you should consider going after who HIRES poor choices. Then maybe you wouldn’t have so many. Good hires rarely have these problems you cite. Maybe you should jump on the people who do the hiring?</p>
<p>SS:
Yes, I do, which is why it upset me when my neighbor’s daughter described how much she missed her great science teacher due to a schedule change. (I told her parents to go to administration and complain and get her switched back but they were too reticent to do that.) </p>
<p>In fact, I have said before — and I think it was on a thread about public v. private schools — that when people have asked me whether their younger children should go to our town’s local hs or elsewhere, my advice to them has been that it’s a good school (with pockets of excellence) if your kids are in the honors and AP level classes, but if not, the quality of the teaching is very uneven. Interestingly, the way it works here is that the honors or AP teachers will also teach at least one nonhonors class, but some of the teachers teaching nonhonors (notably coaches) do not have any honors or AP sections. What I tell friends whose kids are coming up behind mine is that if their students are nonhonors, try to finagle them into the classrooms of the teachers who also do honors and AP. At our school, they are the best.<br>
I don’t want to take this into a public-private debate since I have to log off now, but I think it’s fair to say that it mostly depends on the teacher. With the good ones, students get a solid-to-excellent education. With the bad ones, not.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I understand the problem with a teacher occasionally acknowledging that a particular topic/lesson is not exactly keep you on the edge of your seat stuff as long as it is not a regular occurence/statement on their part.</p>
<p>There are topics in my AP course that are not thrill a minute but are important for the kids to understand either because it appears on the exam frequently or because it is crucial to understanding another idea or concept to come at a later date.</p>
<p>This is a little off topic, but it should be apparent that there are two pretty distinct worlds, the select private schools (small classes; some Ph.D.s for teachers and a lot of feed back and support, and the public schools which with rare exception are spotty.</p>
<p>We live in a pretty affluent community and sent first two sons to public school
where they survived. The third,is in a private school,that sounds just like that of HImom. Teachers with advanced degrees are attracted by free tuition for their children and other perks. There is a large endowment. Let’s face it we live in several Americas, the private, the cc parent public, and everyplace else. It took me too many years to realize that what I interpreted as elitism, was not just elitism but also better education and much greater interest and support. The poor students in private school turn out like George Bush. The poor students in public school do not graduate.</p>