@kac425 it seems that in the US everyone focuses on how “smart” someone is (and how they are doing in XX sport) and I do not think that matters too much. In my working career (much of it spent overseas) the more successful folks were typically the ones that were hard working, not necessarily the smartest ones (although clearly they were reasonably smart too, just not necessarily the smartest). In your examples, it seems that the kids you describe doing Calc BC as a freshmen were probably reasonably smart and certainly hard working and it all comes down to how you define “better”. Presumably if you are deciding which child is the “better” candidate it would be the Calc BC kid for many desirable jobs, colleges, etc.
I think the internet and ease of movement will change our children’s job requirements (and who they are actually competing with for jobs) due to ease of outsourcing, so I suspect much of the old formulas for success will change. Clearly kids and parents need to strike a balance between working hard and downtime.
This initiative by the school district is an attempt to bring some balance into the students’ lives. This will be a tall order since culture change in difficult. Medicine is recognizing the effect of the stress of medical, residency and practice on physicians. There is a physician in the US who commits suicide each day. Mindfulness and balance are tools that will serve our high-acheivng young adults well.
Leaving race and culture aside, in the last 10 years I have seen a significant increase in the number of students who want to be told what to do, who memorize and spit back, and who show more interest in the grade than the material. Such a mercenary approach to learning may result in high marks but not glowing LORs. In College, Grad School, and the Real World, curiosity, talent, and creativity, are valued over robotic recall and painting by numbers.
In your examples, it seems that the kids you describe doing Calc BC as a freshmen were probably reasonably smart and certainly hard working and it all comes down to how you define “better”. Presumably if you are deciding which child is the “better” candidate it would be the Calc BC kid for many desirable jobs, colleges, etc
we can absolutely agree to disagree.
I absolutely disagree that the calc kid is reasonably smarter, and I would probably even disagree that they were harder working. what they are is forced to do things that are probably not even developmentally appropriate due to familial or cultural pressures at the expense of being a kid. again, its not that I don’t believe that these genius, highly driven kids exist, its that no one will every convince me they organically exist on the levels that are purported in certain circles.
desirability is also subjective. for many, STEM based careers seem to be the pinnacle of success. imo, STEM will soon become the new law…“qualified” people will far outpace actual jobs that are desirable and they will find themselves pretty unhappy with large loans to pay and no real life skills to do anything other than the narrow focus for what they were trained. from my perspective, highly skilled and highly trained can backfire when they don’t translate into putting food on the table. a well rounded person with an education that an translate into a variety of career options can adapt and overcome, even if they aren’t the most desireable.
based on my small, real life microcosm of experience, it seems to me that this so called artificial desirability doesn’t always equate to happiness.
you know who is both happy and desirable in my world?
the plumber.
because there is exactly one guy around here who can fix a leak and he makes a pretty darn nice living. i’m guessing he doesn’t have an Ivy degree, but he seems to have some decent smarts and some good business sense. i’ll also bet he’s considered rich by CC standards and surely he’s a full pay kind of guy.
and yes, before I typed this I considered my audience.
Not sure how the district can fight the real problem - which is students taking courses privately in order to ace the high school course. Or kids going to cram schools, or Kumon, or extensive tutoring. If parents are paying for a shadow education, ending finals will make no difference. Which is also one reason why the argument that GPA should be the only thing that should count in college admissions rings hollow. A GPA can be gamed.
I think ending finals and mid-terms is a terrible idea. It is hard enough for kids to adjust to college level work. If they have never had to study for an end-of-semester test, that would be an even bigger adjustment.
Suburban NJ schools serve their students quite well for the most part. Yes, there is pressure, especially on kids aiming super high. But kids can avoid undue pressure and still go to good colleges. At our HS, even kids in the bottom half of our graduation class are getting into national universities ranked in the 70s on USNWR - not great but CC standards but not the local community college either. The elite schools are the ones that really feed this frenzy. If they did not only admit students that took BC calc in 10th grade and started their own foundation, then students would not feel obliged to do that.
The cultural issues are quite interesting. For the Class of 2015, WWP has kids going to MIT and Harvard, 7 going to Princeton but 151 going to Rutgers. There are clearly a lot of kids that play the game and many others that do not. Of course the listing does not provide the cultural identity of the students going to each college.
“In your examples, it seems that the kids you describe doing Calc BC as a freshmen were probably reasonably smart and certainly hard working and it all comes down to how you define “better”. Presumably if you are deciding which child is the “better” candidate it would be the Calc BC kid for many desirable jobs, colleges, etc”
Seriously?? Welcome to the real world. There is absolutely no reason to take calc BC as a freshman in hs. In the real world, no one cares and no one finds you “better” or “smarter.” Just pushed harder, that’s all.
That second link said that there are still cumulative exams, they basically moved them into the semesters and out of a special week at the end, so feedback could be provided. Seems reasonable to me.
I wonder if getting rid of rank helps schools like this? Our did it some ten years ago, though it recently brought it back for scholarship reasons, it is secret - there is no published rank and val/sal are told privately as seniors so they can use it for college scholarship reasons, but they do not speak at graduation and aren’t publicly recognized in any way.
" If they did not only admit students that took BC calc in 10th grade and started their own foundation, then students would not feel obliged to do that." This is a destructive myth that just feeds the frenzy. Harvard’s own statistics say that 7% or so of their students have taken math beyond BC calc in high school. So, you’re saying that the other 93% did nothing? And no one is enrolling in the pre-calc and calc classes at Harvard?
My daughter took BC as a sophomore. It was developmentally appropriate for her. There was no summer school, no tutoring, just a kid who loved math and didn’t need as much repetition as others.
Thanks OHMomof2: To me, that is not ending finals. Also would mean those tests would be occurring at times when kids still had everyday homework and long school days. At least in our district, for finals week there are only 2 periods a day and no other homework etc. It allows a 2-hour test, instead of 40 minutes.
Mathyone: I was using a bit of hyperbole and carrying though the BC Calc example used by other posters in this thread. Of course not every kid admitted to Harvard has taken BC calc before senior year (not every admit has even taken any Calc). Substitute 15 APs overcoming true hardship, starting a foundation, or other extraordinary achievement that CC claims are needed to obtain the coveted Ivy prize. Certainly not dissing those incredibly rare kids that need to take BC calc early in high school, but talking about those that feel compelled to do so to keep up with the rest of top 5%. And which makes the kids taking BC calc for the first time as seniors feel like losers - not to mention those in AB calc! Who, by the way, may not get into Harvard or MIT but are quite likely to do fine in life.
It certainly seems, however, that the elite schools expect students to take the most challenging curriculum offered by their HS (so if kids are taking BC calc as juniors serious contenders would be expected to be in those classes) and to have near-perfect grades. Not to mention excellent ECs and perhaps a national honor or two. What part do you think is a myth?
Eliminating midterms and finals won’t necessarily cause future problems. It depends on the student. The only cumulative exams my homeschooled son had before college were the yearly standardized tests I gave him, and he didn’t study for those. He just finished his first semester at our state university and had no trouble adjusting.
@mom2and, that’s exactly what happened at my kids’ school. They eliminated midterms and finals weeks, because they wanted to take back those weeks for instruction. (In the past, there would only be 2 test periods per day, and students didn’t attend school unless they were scheduled to take a test). Now, the teachers are still giving cumulative exams, but they are embedded in a normal school week, where students have regular homework and regular tests in other subjects, extracurriculars, etc. My kids find it more stressful than the alternative.
It’s a free country, so parents and students have every right to access cram schools and outside courses if they like. I don’t even mind that much if they use those courses to skip ahead of their “slacker peers.” But IMO what is most definitely not right in a public school setting is that the actual course curriculum is altered to accommodate the students who already covered a third to a half of the course material in the summer. For example, D (very bright, near perfect SAT’s, admitted to the most selective US university–all of which I say to establish she was no lazy American dummy) took her school’s honors advanced Chemistry I and earned a high A. According to the course description and prerequisites listed by the high school, she was more than adequately prepared for the next course in sequence: AP Chemistry. Except she wasn’t prepared, and before long she was failing the class. The teacher had skipped large chunks of introductory material that were needed to understand what was being taught first marking period. Why? It turned out almost everyone in the class (all Asians except D) had taken the “Organic Chemistry” summer course offered by the high school which served as a bridge class between honors chem and AP chem. Therefore, it unofficially became a prerequisite, though the school won’t ever tell you it is. Her teacher told me, “She is clearly very bright and hard-working, but she did not come in with enough background to succeed.”
It has been confirmed to me by an experienced tutor that our district has the most accelerated math and science classes in the area. So while our students score well enough on the exam, it seems our AP courses are more rigorous and cover more than what is necessary to score well on the exam.
Austin: of course some kids will not have trouble with finals in college even if they didn’t have them in high school. Many others, however, will need to figure out the appropriate way to study for such tests. Not sure how one homeschooled kid’s experience is relevant to the vast majority of kids in actual high school. And yes, I am sure there are high schools that don’t give finals where every single graduate aces every one of their finals first semester in college, but I doubt that is the norm.
If you feel like a loser because there are people out there that are smarter than you, then that’s something that you should work on yourself. The solution shouldn’t be to hold everyone back so that you can feel better about yourself.
At our HS, there was a similar movement to de-emphasize academic achievement that thankfully got squashed. It was interesting to note that the parents who had the most vocal criticism of the current system had kids that attended the local community college, and were in the lower quarter of academic achievement. Their big complaint was that the school put the most emphasis on the college bound kids, and they wanted more emphasis on the kids that were not planning/capable of attending selective schools.
I think the stress level is higher on the top quarter of academic achievement.
Students should be allowed to take classes to satisfy the learning thirst.
But students should not be pushed to go beyond their ability.
Desire to learn is more important than grades. Therefore AP classes should not have higher weights.
Colleges don’t give higher grade weights on honors classes.
@Pizzagirl the reference to a kid taking BC calc as a freshman was a response to a previous thread who used it as an example. Clearly most kids should not consider it but there are more than a handful that do it and I think you are incorrect to say no one cares. These kids typically do quite well. Unfortunately there are some that are pushed and/or try to do it to not be left behind and those kids have serious problems associated with it but there are others that are ready and simply like the subject matter.
@ kac425 I am not sure to what extent we actually disagree? My comment was that the BC calc kid was reasonably smart, not reasonably smarter than the Alg I kid, who knows who is smarter. Additionally, I think some of those BC Calc kids you initially mentioned probably are pushed but I am certain there are others that are ready for the material and like the challenge and are not being pushed.
I have an uncle that did very well as a plumber, fine work if that is what you want to do. There are numerous ways to make money and at least as many different ways we can all define success, it is an individual preference.
It seems to me the issue is that there are kids that feel forced to also try and do what the “high-achievers” are doing and I feel bad for those kids but I do not think the opportunities should be limited to everyone since there are kids that take the higher level courses and do just fine and are ready for more. Many of these kids also are able to play sports with friends and are happy.
I do not think schools should try to limit what they are able to achieve. These kids will find ways to excel in any case. From what I have read, many other countries are ahead of us in math and science. The US needs kids who can compete at the highest levels.
"It certainly seems, however, that the elite schools expect students to take the most challenging curriculum offered by their HS (so if kids are taking BC calc as juniors serious contenders would be expected to be in those classes) and to have near-perfect grades. Not to mention excellent ECs and perhaps a national honor or two. What part do you think is a myth? "
What I think is a myth is that you have to do all of this.
With respect to the BC: Our school has maybe 1-10 kids taking BC as juniors every year, on occasion earlier. Looking back the past few years, I know of 7 kids who were admitted to at least one of HYPS. 5 of them were STEMy and of those, one did not take BC as a junior. 2 of them were artsy, and neither of them took BC as a junior. Yes, if you are going to present yourself as the best STEM student of your school (which is about what it takes from our public school to get in to these schools) you would be well advised to do this, but for those students it really was not a big deal. They get there by various paths, some took a single summer school course, some doubled up on math classes as underclassmen, and some simply learned the material on their own because they like reading math books in their spare time. Few of the students who were admitted to other top schools (other Ivys, UChicago, Duke, etc.) were enrolled in BC as juniors. So no, it’s not mandatory.
Near perfect grades–yes, this would be a requirement. But our school is highly grade inflated. You can’t even get in the top 10% without near perfect grades. Do you really think tippy top schools should be accepting students from our school who couldn’t make the top 45 in the class?
Excellent EC’s, well we have tons of kids with excellent ECs. I don’t know what you consider excellent. The ECs these kids had required a lot of time, effort, and perhaps some money during the high school years, but they were not the sort of thing that if you didn’t start in kindergarten or even middle school and be groomed for years by your parents and an army of tutors, you were out of luck. (Except perhaps for one of the artsy kids–I don’t know that kid’s background; probably had private arts lessons). A high school freshman looking at these kids as other freshmen would not have felt they could never catch up with or accomplish the same as these kids because something was lacking in their preparation. I don’t think my daughter’s ECs were particularly extraordinary and she did well enough. Her academic record was a little stronger than most of the others though. So, I’d say you need to have most of it, yes, but all is not required.