@Much2learn, now you’re getting to the issue. They don’t feel like winners. They feel inadequate and stressed and that nothing they do is ever good enough.
Note: My children do not attend this school but they know many who do from our neighborhood.
I believe it. My son met the criteria for honors math in 10th grade but the head of the department rejected him based on “other students who met the school’s criteria did poorly”. So we have our little emperors ruining our children’s lives.
In my best friend’s children’s school district, two senior administrators were taken away in handcuffs in the past five years.
@3girls3cats “@Much2learn, now you’re getting to the issue. They don’t feel like winners. They feel inadequate and stressed and that nothing they do is ever good enough.”
I see. This is not about the schools at all. It is about self image and perception, independent of reality.
At a school where the average ACT is 19, a student with a 24 ACT may think s/he is a really smart kid and is admitted to her/his dream school: Michigan State. At a school like the one you describe, a student with a 29 ACT may think that s/he is a complete failure when s/he is only admitted to their safety school: Michigan State.
The reality of ending up at Michigan State is the same for both students, the perception of that outcome is very different.
The real question is how to we get more students to understand that there are about 4,000 colleges in the United States and all of these students with the opportunity to attend a top 100 college should view themselves as a big winner.
I would think the sports analogy would be an athlete who makes it to the Olympics, but does not win a medal. That person may feel like a failure, but in my mind, they have achieved a huge amount.
not to worry , the call for diversity and political correctness is a two edge sword. The other edge is now coming into play in all districts. Slow moving but it is happening.
whoa, @something2add. Is that the new term that replaces textureless math grinds?
What is a swot?
Much2learn: “On thing that bothers me about this discussion is that it seems to be largely from the White perspective. Historically when certain minority groups were behind white students, in aggregate, the perspective seemed to be that those groups did not work hard enough academically. Now that another group is clobbering the White students academically, the perspective seems to be that working that hard is harmful.”
This bothers me as well. At both the high-score schools attended by my children, I’ve encountered parents who threatened to or have withdrawn their children in favor of a lower-score school for the express purpose of being the big fish in a smaller pond. One coworker said her daughter begged to be transferred out of the school “with the Asian grading curve” to a lower-scoring school where she could stand out and have a chance at being valedictorian.
This attitude is disturbing and hypocritical. Choosing a “white” district where you child can “win” is no different than choosing an “Asian” district so your child can get the most accelerated opportunities. In both cases, the parent is gaming the system.
Losing opportunities to wealthier peers is so common, we accept it because life isn’t fair. Why is losing opportunities to harder working peers is the worst thing ever to happen to public education?
I think there are a lot of different issues that are sort of related, but aren’t being separated out too well. One thing that @TheGFG has sort of brought up but people haven’t really talked about is the ability of people to take math courses appropriate for them. There is a lot of repetition in middle school, and according to this study from USC (http://rossier.usc.edu/repetition-does-not-add-up-for-math-students/), 70 to 80 percent of the time spent in math class in middle school is just a repeat of the previous year. Someone who doesn’t need that much repetition shouldn’t have a terribly hard time accelerating at what seems like an extreme rate, taking Calculus BC in 10th grade or earlier.
Not the original poster but I was curious if it was a typo for snot (thought it might not be as ‘w’ and ‘n’ are far apart on a keyboard), I checked the urban dictionary:
Swot; A person who values his education at least three times more than his social life and his teacher at least three times more than his friends, hypothetically.
It’s a pejorative and, given its example usage with the word ‘arse’, might be more common in Britain.
This discussion is fascinating. It puts a whole new spin on what a “good” school district is when looking at buying a house.
Pizzagirl, I agree with you 99% of the time, but not here. It’s too narrow to frame this as “Ivies or nothing.” In a hypercompetitive school district, admission to many schools is affected by this competition, not just the Ivies. Non-Ivies – like Wellesley and Northwestern, to name two that you are familiar with – are also looking for students with rigorous curriculums and clean transcripts. Getting low grades in AP classes because you can’t afford to take a summer class will affect your admission to many schools, not just HYP.
But the main point is the stress level on the students, irrespective of what college they plan to apply to.
A very small percent of the population are prodigies, and need to take advanced classes, like calculus in middle school. By definition, all kids cannot be geniuses. Moving along the bell curve, there will be a larger percentage of very bright kids who can take AP Calc as sophomores or juniors. But the vast majority of smart kids are perfectly fine and challenged by taking calculus as seniors.
The problem as I see it in these districts is that parents and students are pushing themselves to perform at a much higher level than their natural intelligence would dictate – that they want those very bright kids to be taking classes as if they are prodigies. It’s a flattening of the bell curve, and that’s not natural. Or healthy.
The bell curve is a poor analogy. A bell curve distribution would be applicable to the whole population of college students. However, a high achieving high school, particularly a magnet high school, is a very small subset of a larger population and one should not expect a typical bell curve distribution from it. At least that is the reason why Harvard and Yale insist of giving so many A’s.
SWOT is a recent acronym for a kind of analysis involving identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in a system. Maybe the poster is describing calculating mercenary types?
“Swot” is a Britishism for someone who studies a lot.
WWP is known for having classes for ECs. For example, they continually win Science Olympiads at the MS and HS level. How can other districts compete with that, and how can kids who aren’t super dedicated to one thing compete with those who have the space to do so - because of dropping other ECs or electives?
The reality is that kids with money will always win, because for example in sports kids can get personal training or join club teams, and for music they can join outside organizations, and for science they can have mom and dad pay for summer science programs at universities. The middle class kids can’t afford the time or money for those things, and schools make them pick.
I don’t understand what having classes for ECs means @rhandco ? Do you mean they dedicate a class period for Science Olympiad? Don’t most schools dedicate class time for sports, debate, band and choir? How is Science Olympiad different? It is a competitive team.
I have a son at a HS further south in NJ- the HS thinks its on par w these central and northern NJ great schools like WWP, but it is not … prob bc of the Asian “tiger parents” at the northern NJ schools that keep those academics up -we wish we had parents like that to elevate academics!! (Our parents only show up for/push sports) He knows many of those kids from All State Band/ Orchestra and loves them and their intellectual capacity. Those kids are challenged at school. We have been eating our hearts out down here in SJ for 4 years, bc my son has been incredibly bored, and never challenged in HS. (He is going to an ivy league for college so I’m hoping that will change soon). He is NOT some super smart genetically gifted deviant, he just loves learning. But our HS never offered him anything to remotely challenge his intellect (bc they are too worried about stressing out the “sports kids”). So my son had to take community college courses in the summer which were jokingly easy too…
To be honest, Ap courses for many students are not difficult. IDK, My son has 13 AP’s, 6 this year and barely any homework maybe 45mins a night… what’s up w/ that? I think many are over exaggerating how hard AP classes are. In his Ap language and comp class they wrote 3 papers all year. How time consuming/stressful is it to write 3 papers??? The teacher didn’t even teach about footnotes…??. IMO, Ap classes aren’t what many think they are w/ regards to difficulty. Ap Chem is something you either get or don’t, but if you do, its not remotely difficult… My son had a 100 in AP Calc AB and he is NO “math prodigy” believe me… A school isn’t doing its job when a student gets a 100 in AP Calc… I think the problem is more too many different “level” kids taking AP’s …therefore stressing out kids that shouldn’t be in there in the first place…
Our school got rid of class rank this year due to “stress”. My son was #1 and never felt remotely any academic “stress”… we laugh at that notion…( TBH.)… thats bc our school is a SPORTS school. If the HS places more value on sports than academics you get a dumbed down academic environment. I have had to search out $$ academic offerings to try to challenge my son… it is my dream to see my son feel stimulated and challenged., But it didn’t happen at his HS- as no kids care about academics … he wishes he had compatriots that enjoy competing academically but that never remotely materialized…
My son is an All State musician and knows many of the other WWP All State musicians… they are talented kids! But they are talented BC they work and “train” hard (as does my son). Musicians in his HS don’t care about music bc we r a “sports school” (even though our sports teams are average at best). … so I hope everyone here advocating for a less academic and musical environment would instead advocate for school choice… so their kids could come down here and “academically interested” kids could go top a school that strived academically…BC for some students that care, these schools are a joke!
No, I don’t think it’s so common to devote instructional time to most ECs. At our school, kids are generally expected to pursue these things outside of school hours. We don’t have a class for science Olympiad (and it’s tough to get these kids together for a meeting). We don’t have special classes for our sports teams and our athletes are all required to take PE. We don’t even have a debate team–no coach available. We have drama classes, but that is different from the EC of being in the school plays–which rehearse after school and do compete. Our EC’s are very strong but they are also very time-consuming and they are generally done on the kids’ own time. The only exception I can think of is the music program, though even this has required meetings outside of school time. When I read about kids having entire classes devoted to “science research” or “whatever olympiad” it’s no wonder that they can do well.
Interesting. We have block scheduling and the highest level of music and sports are double blocked. (We don’t have Science Olympiad.) We have 8 periods so it is common for juniors and seniors to have 2 blocks filled with sports/band/whatever and 5-6 AP/Honors. We don’t have study halls either. I am pretty sure that is common throughout our region.
Research periods and national science competitions are not really on the radar at our school from what I can tell. I have never heard of high schoolers doing research until CC.
Athletes practice after school, all ECs take place after school. We only offer music (band, orchestra, choir) during the school day and for credit (plus mandatory performances in the evening or weekend).
“super smart genetically gifted deviant.”
Was that intended to sound mean and nasty?