Ah, OK. Yeah, I don’t get the parental involvement at all. My parents had zero involvement in the day-to-day. And with the **possible ** exception of subjects related to their professional fields, they couldn’t have helped even if they wanted to.
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Full disclosure: I did ask my dad for help in a few tough engineering courses (he was one of my professors). He was an excellent teacher and I actually didn’t need help in his courses - his goal was to give us all the information we needed during class to do the homework, and he did. And of course, he had office hours and would help other students, but I would call him up any time of day or night. Huh, I guess I should be a little more humble…
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Based on my personal observations of one large public high school (A) I’m currently teaching, one private school I used to teach, and another large public high school (B) my two kids graduated from, the trend is that more and more academically advanced students NEED their parents’ involvements beyond driving them to places. The very tippy top ones don’t seem to have such need, but the runner-ups likely do. My guess is that the parents are expecting too much from their kids, and they know it, so they feel obligated to provide more help. I don’t agree with this approach; however, I’m in no place to judge.
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Some parents fully stay out of it, some are very involved, most are in between those two… It’s a personal call for every family. My parents helped me less than I try to help my kids. Nothing is/was wrong with either scenario… One of my kids works as a tutor. She says that some parents are way more involved than others. She also noticed that kids of more involved parents tend to be better prepared academically!
Once my kids got past Alg2Trig, other than social sciences or literature, I was basically useless to my kids. Physics, Chem, forget about it.
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There could be a million reasons why the teacher wanted to reuse old tests - some could be their own fault (laziness, burnt out, etc.), some could be the fault of the school/district (no resources, not enough time, no prep pay, etc.), but there doesn’t seem to be any part where the students should be blamed for doing so? Like it’s some kind of nefarious plot to cheat?
It is so common to study from past tests and questions that would they even know it’s against the rules? I know some schools/teachers collect exams just because there are kids who miss that test (out sick, vacation, etc.) who will still have to take it after they get back. In those cases, the graded exams don’t get released back to the students until after everyone is done taking the test. This is normal and very common. However, to assume that they are under lock and key year over year with different students because they literally use the same exact test over and over… well, that seems like it’s an institution issue, not a student issue. I mean if you had an older sibling that took that test, you have all the answers for the younger one. How utterly absurd.
I totally agree with you and really struggle with the fact that S27’s school lets them see their tests for about 5 minutes before having to turn them back in. They are never allowed to take tests home. It drives me bananas.
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A test should not be a hoop to jump through. It should be a way to test whatever the teacher deems is most important to learn. Change the test in some way. That’s part of the job.
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Parents should be involved in their kids’ lives. But procuring tests for them? Really? You see that as positive involvement?
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They are not stealing tests from school at night from the teacher’s desk, right? They must be getting them from their kids who got them from their teachers. All they do is keep them for practice which can help their kids better prepare for future exams. Again, if teacher reuses them, they should not be distributed. But most likely the exams change from year to year and previous tests can greatly help with studying. Similar to SAT. Previous versions are released and used for prepare.
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