I have southern, religious, Caucasian relatives who still believe in using a belt to hit their kids. I would not single out Asians and Hispanics on punishment.
Some time ago, as a culture, we decided that “you can hurt your kids as long as you don’t hurt mine” wouldn’t fly. We determined standards that had to be respected, regardless of culture. You can’t whip your child, for example. Corporal punishment is considered abuse. If a parent hurts a child, regardless of that parent’s skin color, religion, or income level, the state intervenes - although it sometimes seems quicker or slower depending on the income level.
The issue here is that a significant minority (plurality? majority?) of parents are pushing for the inappropriate curriculum.
The school environment is following parent pressure, and the parents come from a culture where it has been known as a parent-approved idea to hook kids to Ivs so that they could study longer in cram school and cut on sleep.
Such an environment is toxic to kids - when kindergartners develop ulcers from the stress their parents put on them or suicidal thoughts are three or four times higher than in usual teens, with actual suicides something everyone knows about, then it’s abusive behavior and it must be stopped for the children’s health. It’s exactly like that article I read where parents were so proud of a high school football player who played with a broken hand. They’re so into it they’ve lost perspective. (Obviously, not the same State). They don’t understand the harm they’re doing but the harm is no less real.
It’s not an academic issue - it’s a health issue (physical and mental health).
I’m all in favor for providing appropriate levels of instruction and challenge to all kids. But here, we’re talking inappropriate levels.
And the worst is that it’s pointless: that’s not how you get into those “prized” schools.
Such districts are known; adcoms aren’t fools and will try to figure out who is super-prepped. For some of these kids, who share a certain district and income level, test scores may not be a differentiator at all - just like row after row of Indian applicants with 800 Math2, 800 Physics, 800 Chemistry will lead to another criterion being the differentiator for CBSE applicants. It will not be “oh, that kid got 2260 and that one got 2380, let’s pick the one with 2380”. It’ll be “all these kids reached 2200+ so let’s discard test scores and look at other factors”.
Other things may become problematic because their parents race to the top is single-minded and doesn’t include non-competitive activities with a prize at the end. “What’s your favorite TV show?” may well trip these students in an interview. Or they may exhibit a resume filled with competitive activities - and no activities undertaken for the sake of being undertaken, no proof they engage in learning for its own sake or pick things for what they are, not for what they bring. The mindset distorts everything and hurts teenagers, because when you’re such an environment, you just absorb it even if you fight it.
There’s a difference between toxic and competitive. For instance, I know that New Trier is highly competitive but I’ve never heard kids routinely attempt suicide because of the pressure their parents put upon them. Nor have we heard of New Trier students making up ludicrous stories because nothing they did was ever sufficient for their parents. (If you need to, you can look up the number of Korean, Indian, and Chinese students living in the US who did such a thing.) There’s no such thing as a New Trier F.
The situation described in the article isn’t one of a competitive school. It’s one of emotional abuse due to a toxic environment where priorities have been distorted.
Emotional abuse is defined “when parents constantly criticize, threaten, or dismiss kids or teens until their self-esteem and feelings of self-worth are damaged”. Abuse has those effects:
"School-Age Children:
Psychological: Depression, anxiety, confusion, loss of self-esteem, anger, aggression, fear, guilt, withdrawal
Behavioral: Aggression, self-destructiveness, problems in school or they may exhibit perfectionist behavior; irrational fear of failure, may perceive punishment as love
Physical/psychosomatic: Headaches, stomach-aches, insomnia/sleep disturbances, bed-wetting, excessive clinging, separation anxiety.
Teens:
Poor academic performance or they may feel obliged to always get straight As
Parentification-they may feel responsible for siblings and/or the abused parent
Low self-esteem
Poor social skills
Drug and alcohol use/abuse
Running away from home
Suicidal behavior
Sports are really time consuming too, and not everyone has the ability to be a recruited athlete. And, well, my kids sleep at least 6 hours a night, usually more like 7 or 8. Beyond that, most studies show you are not performing well and I would also worry about mental health effects on my kids due solely to the lack of sleep. So you or hopefully your child pick what they want to spend time on out of a broad range of offerings (for kids lucky enough to be in schools with scores of AP courses, well-funded sports programs, music programs, volunteer work, etc … my guess is this is all a lot harder if you go to a middling or lower school without money or involved parents or if you have financial and family issues).
And, I don’t think too many people get into Stanford without some good effort … in academics, in ECs, in sports, in everything they do. It’s not a 2nd tier state school where you have the choice to just stroll in and enroll. And if your school isn’t packed with people doing a ton of advanced work, there are other schools that are, and lots of well-qualified people who … aren’t getting into Stanford …
For engineering, taking CalcAB and BC in college is very helpful in keeping on schedule with a good GPA in a selective program, as is Physics C and Chem AP, both lab classes so they take up a lot of time. I think the liberal arts APs are good at minimizing all the non-STEM classes, which can also take up a lot of time. If you are extra smart, or your high school does a great job of teaching say Calculus without the 3 year-pre-AB-BC progression and the tests … sure, you don’t need it. But … freshman class issues already set the stage for that 4.5 year average graduation date for engineers … or maybe it’s too stressful … or maybe getting a B or C in Calc II just makes say fluid dynamics that much harder.
Your GPA may not shoot up like a rocket, because many people start skipping all the easier freshman classes and start taking intermediate econ or Calc III as freshman.
So no, you don’t need 12, you might need 0 … but these classes are also supposed to enrich kid’s experiences in HS and provide some intro to college level classes and provide college credit or placement. And … why aren’t they useful in selecting which 5 or 10% of students that are applying to tippy top schools or competing for merit scholarships … actually get in ? We are instead going to fill all our top schools with recruited athletes who also do well in school (but not quite as well as others).
There are actually 12 good AP tests (11 classes, econ=2exams) … if you have a good social studies department … math department … etc.
Should everyone take study hall ?
And depression and suicide are by no means concentrated in say tiger parent kids … just as prevalent in the well rounded typical kid. Dealing with stress and dealing with being not perfect … those are things we hope we can teach our kids by example and by hugs … and maybe the OK to get a B- or play JV or just go running for fun or go play tennis with friends. Driven kids can basically be workaholics … but their parents can talk them down and balance their lives as well … and I think there would still be a good university in their future.
But would you push for AP Calc and Physics C to be taken in the 8th or 9th grade?
That’s what I call “inappropriate”.
Except for a handful of highly gifted kids, those two classes should not be taken so early.
I agree we should teach our kids how to handle stress by example and by hugs. But parents have to understand balance in order to teach it. At some point someone needs to step in when the environment becomes toxic and harms kids.
BTW, Stanford doesn’t require students to be superhuman. They even explicitely state “it’s not a game of who has the most Ap’s wins.” Some APs are necessary. ALL AP’s? Not. APs in middle school? No.
Having grown up in a wealthy NJ town with a good high school, part of the reason some rich kids are troubled is that their parents are obsessed with their demanding careers and that they have the money to buy a lot of things they shouldn’t. I don’t recall the troubled youth being in my AP classes, and trust me they were competitive and vigorous. i do know some troubled youth that got into a lot of trouble … from very rich backgrounds.
I could see competitive athletes having similarly stressed lives and possibly even suicidal thoughts.
The only solution is to be there for your kids (and other kids who you meet in say scouts or sports or other activities) and if that is not enough to seek professional mental health care (suicide prevention is real, if timely and professionally done rather than buck up soldier or this too shall pass).
Google translate is a cool tool and for someone without skills in say German, it does actually show some structural differences between the languages as well as reveal the difficulty in mapping say gut to good or delicious or whatever.
It’s a free tool … and you can use it in everyday life to translate say a web review of a coat or translate some Japanese tourist info into English. It’s even useful to someone who is completely fluent in both languages (through 300 level classes).
I don’t see any academic dishonesty in taking the same class twice, as a matter of fact, lots of CCers recommend that you take Calc AB and even Calc BC and then repeat Calc 1 in college … or similar things. Can I read a book twice before writing an essay ? Do I ever review basic info related to my field at work, or do I have to go it alone ?
Again, sports take up hours per day plus weekends plus summer training, summer camps. if a family instead chooses summer school or tutors, how is that my business ?
It appears that the CFG’s school district is actually funding AP classes with student fees … so Cardinal should be happy. Personally, I think it should be free since say sports are funded … although there are now fees for parent tickets to games as well as concerts.
I also have noticed … some people could take the class 10x and never get it, some just need a slower pace or some background material or a review of algebra before pre-calc … or to be fair to immigrant students whose parents don’t have fantastic language skills, maybe some tutoring there too.
Rutgers is and has always been a rigorous engineering program so success at Rutgers is a pretty high bar. Is it bad that AP students can succeed there, or good that non-AP students can’t or what exactly is the issue ? My guess is that a lot of higher ranked engineering students have students who are lower level academically than at Rutgers.
AP in key STEM classes like calc, physics, chem can make your freshman engineering year much easier … because it is a review of material you have seen before … or you can skip a few classes and make your whole experience easier (less classes) or richer (more electives) or more difficult (more 300/400 level classes). Again, is it my job to limit the success of these kids by making them sit in study halls or a poorly taught on-grade level class ?
We actually need brilliant minds, and 2nd generation talent seems like a good place to start at.
MYOS - there are just as many parents who sadly “constantly criticize, threaten, or dismiss kids or teens until their self-esteem and feelings of self-worth are damaged” because they are not star athletes or aren’t pretty enough to be home coming queen like mom or because they are not macho or girly enough or because they are overweight or let’s just admit it - their parents are just mean dysfunctional people who like to bully their children.
Mental health issues are a serious problem. One thing that stuck out to me on Atlantic article is the idea that because Cameron was functioning, that there was nothing wrong with him … and everyone missed an opportunity to help him. Sleep deprivation is a torture technique due to it’s terrible effects on mind and body and also a clear symptom of depression.
Parents, siblings, friends need to be alert to possible mental health issues in youth and willing to call in professional help when needed. Adolescence is difficult and this is the key group for suicides.
You are a sadist if you push your kid to take 12 AP classes if that is not their thing and if they do not have exceptional skills and drive and study habits. You might be crazy if you have your kids take AP classes in 8th grade. On the other hand, our school district takes the top 1% of math students and provides them district level tutoring from PhDs and some kids thrive. I doubt any of them are your “tiger parent” victims, but yes they are all 2nd generation kids of PhD parents … often both parents highly educated.
^ That’s why I compared this situation with the district where a kid was praised for playing football with a broken hand. Depriving kids from sleep, hurting them, for whatever reason (appearance, grades, physical prowess) should not be okay, regardless of the parents’ income level, education level, etc.
We have prelabs too, in science classes, though they’re for a homework grade, not for a chance to do the lab (everyone does the lab unless they’re not properly dressed like in sandals or something). Everyone knows the lab dates in advance and has the handouts, etc., and our prelabs are always open-notes/book and often done in pairs, so really we’ve not had any complaints that I know of.
I’m not sure what to make of the postponement due to a poor prelab, except to say that it doesn’t sound “lazy” to me, as a teacher, to come and set up the lab again, on unpaid after-school time, to do it with a few more kids who didn’t pass the prelab the first time. I don’t actually know any of my colleagues, or any of my three kids’ teachers throughout school, whom I would ever have characterized as “lazy” and I certainly don’t think that of my own work.
I was not the one who used that descriptor. The policy came from higher up than the teacher.
ok well that makes more sense that it wasn’t up to the teacher.
Can the district require after school time to repeat labs?
If they have to pay someone extra to supervise the labs are they really saving any money?
One of my points to the supervisor is that one thing contributing to student stress is an antagonistic, shame and blame atmosphere. Teachers have totally abandoned the idea that they should come along side struggling students and try to help them. You didn’t pass the quiz? We gotcha! Now you will sit out for the whole class, thereby making it glaringly obvious to all your peers that you have failed. And for 90 minutes (or 180 in D’s case, since she failed 2), you wear a symbolic dunce cap on your head. Worse, this will put you even farther behind than you already are because now you will have to wait several days to make the labs up. Then you will now have 2 late lab reports to do on top of next week’s lab reports and studying for next week’s upcoming unit exam. There are no slacker kids in these AP classes. Not to say an AP kid can never be lazy, but by and large these are the smart and motivated kids. Yet many are struggling. A lot are being tutored privately. We can’t afford that, but D is in a group tutoring led by a senior who did well in the class. All those kids in her group are really trying hard. If they fail a quiz, it is most certainly not because they aren’t studying.
I write this update because this morning at breakfast D expressed a sense of hopelessness about biology and ever catching up. This is the psychologically damaging thing about these high pressure environments. It’s not that the work is hard, it’s the shame of failing. After all, the school itself is saying we have no tolerance for mistakes. If we think you are likely to make a mistake on the lab, we aren’t going to let you do it.
It sounds like a course one level lower than AP might be a good choice instead.
Actually, I was going to post that you should investigate whether your daughter could take AP Biology via Florida Virtual Public School. (It costs $800 for the full course, $400 for the second semester only). Students are prepared for the AP exam and they receive a transcript. They offer lots of AP and honors classes (students can be “full time” students through it, but if you don’t live in FL it costs money).
You may even pay the senior a little to spend 1 hour with her each week so that she doesn’t do this alone (or offer something else, homebaked cookies or something). Perhaps she wouldn’t be the only one interested in the alternative and you could have an AP mini-homeschool at home.
As far as colleges go, there is NO DIFFERENCE whatsoever.
Do you think your daughter could simply enroll in an online school and homeschool herself? Does your district allow homeschoolers to participate in school activities? If not, how do they view dual enrollment - is it free and if so can she dual enroll 100% at the local community college as well as participate in activities there?
Note that dual enrollment at community college = AP as far as college admissions go. It sounds like you wouldn’t lose anything… as long as the district, which willingly paid for these Princeton classes, also pays for CC classes…
Also note that your daughter would STILL be competitive for admissions if she simply took Honors Bio, as long as she got an A.
But in my opinion, taking an online AP Bio class would show her she CAN succeed in biology. Win-win.
The point you are missing is that regular and extensive tutoring is now a necessity to succeed at this school. I am not saying every top student needs it for every single subject, but every top student needs it in general-- whether it be summers, Saturdays, or during the school year or all three. Heck, many parents even get their kids tutored to help with the summer homework in order to spare them from starting the year with a poor grade. The science supervisor herself (PhD from India) reported that ALL the top kids in her district who are her S’ friends are being “extensively tutored,” including her own son. Maybe my D needs tutoring now because she didn’t get pre-tutored in the summer!
She can’t drop the class now, in January.
Just counted. There are 22 Kumon Centers within 10 miles of my house. And Kumon is rather low level tutoring, to be honest. The tutoring centers behind the ethnic markets, for example, are the REAL serious ones people go to.
Was your D recommended for the AP class by her last year’s teacher? Would that person be a good resource?
Frankly, D will attend her biology tutoring sessions and do the extra worksheets and test prep assigned by him, and DH will try to help her if possible, though he is more of chem person. There really is no time for more. Last year’s teacher teaches one of the other AP Bio sections, and has sent her own students to be tutored by the same young man, as they are in the group with D.
Thanks for the advice, though I am not writing for personal advice so much as to enable people to understand the situation here by sharing our experiences. January of junior year D1 was failing AP Chem, and we made it through.
The existence of this parallel educational system masks when kids are struggling with the material, and allows teachers to not address any problems because the tutors will do that for them. It allows teachers to skip background and basic information, and thus go beyond the scope of the AP curriculum. So for kids whose parents can afford the outside help, there is hope and a solution. For poorer kids, the road is rough.