<p>One of my kids, a junior, got the flu and missed all last week of school plus yesterday. He still didn’t feel well when he left this morning. I e-mailed the teachers last week so I could pick up some handouts he’d missed and they suggested getting other kids’ class notes [I don’t know about any of you, but no one ever borrowed my class notes more than once] and one mentioned he’d meet with him. My s tried to catch up some over the weekend and last night but he’s at the point he’s so behind that he can no longer do his ap chem and math homework. I called the academic dean at his private school [where kids go on to HYPS] for a list of tutors and they had none! I then called a local college and got a list of tutors in about one minute flat.<br>
I guess I don’t understand why the school/teachers wouldn’t have some class notes already made up or why there isn’t some sort of system in place to catch up on missed work. [Or is this not a realistic expectation?]
As I’m sure many of you would understand, I don’t quite see how a TEENAGE BOY can catch up with that much work without some degree of proactive help from the school itself. I want to e-mail the teachers and suggest that they find a time to meet with him because I’m afraid he won’t suggest that himself but I feel like I’m being overly intrusive into the school process. [He’s almost 18! What am I doing emailing the teachers?] I also worry that they don’t quite understand how badly he still feels. Another problem is that he is on a rather intense school sports team and he’s got to go to those practices after school every day and that makes catching up more problematic, too. No, the real problem is that he skims through his homework in the first place - doubling or tripling the normal amount on top of being so worn down is not realistic. I see only problems ahead!
I set up a tutoring session with a local college chem major for this weekend but I’m worried that my s is going to flunk a quiz or two this week before we can even get to the tutor! I’m not even sure that my s, who’s never had a tutor and can polarize somewhat on issues, will agree to meet with a tutor.
I guess the statistics on getting into college on cc are making me so tense that I worry that a slight drop in grade point caused by what seem to be inevitable poor quiz/test/homework grades for a couple weeks will doom him to an entirely different college tier! Honestly, things were so much more relaxed when I was growing up. I miss those days.</p>
<p>He’ll be fine. He’s a big kid, and I’m sure he can handle this pretty much on his own. I understand your concern, but kids miss school all the time, and he’ll eventually catch back up. Have him go talk to his teachers and see what he needs to do to get back on track. A bad quiz or two aren’t going to sink him, and I suspect his teachers will probably be willing to cut him some slack since he’s been out for a while. Unless he’s a poor math student anyway, or has some serious difficulties catching up, I"m not even sure why a tutor would be neccessary. I think some extra help either before or after school from his math/chem teacher (or even just some help from a friend) will be fine to get him back where he belongs. </p>
<p>Remember, no one’s going to be emailing his professors for him in college- now is the time for him to learn what to do when he’s been sick and falls behind.</p>
<p>Hope he feels better soon :).</p>
<p>Thank you Elizabeth! It was nice to hear from someone his age. I’ve settled down from my worrying and will just let him decide whether to cancel the tutor this weekend.</p>
<p>I completely disagree. Go for the tutor, and go quick. This third-quarter stuff, esp in math and chem, can be crucial for the next steps, and he can easily get behinder and behinder… And some teachers won’t cut any slack.</p>
<p>(A friend’s son missed two weeks of his junior year of college and ending up failing to graduate–didn’t complete two of his courses and his scholarship money ran out, and parents wouldn’t/couldn’t afford an extra semester. Illness can be devastating, esp. if it’s serious enough to miss a week or two of school, because the student often doesn’t recover as fast as they need to if they’re to keep up.)</p>
<p>A tutor for a week and a half?</p>
<p>I guess his parent would know best, but I think that’s a little bit overboard. I doubt Heidi’s son is in any danger of failing to graduate- highschool teachers are very used to kids being sick, and I’d be shocked if they’re not willing to help. Of course he’ll need to go back and learn what he’s missed, but most kids can learn most material with the help of the teacher and friends if they were doing well in the subject before their illness. </p>
<p>If he wants a tutor, by all means have him go. But I know that it’s not what I (or any of my friends, for that matter) would want. The sport definitely doesn’t help timewise, but if his teachers are decent they should be willing to help him catch up.</p>
<p>I missed a week right before midterms- I spoke to my teachers myself, went in early in the morning before one day I missed to pass in a paper and pick up a take-home test, and when I went back I spoke to teachers myself. My friends caught me up on almost everything I missed, and my teachers filled in any gaps. I’m sure your son’s friends won’t mind lending him notes.</p>
<p>No one borrowed your notes more than once? I can understand not repeatedly giving notes to slackers, but to a sick friend? </p>
<p>If he can’t catch up through self study then maybe he doesn’t understand the concepts. It’s hard to believe that at a private school the teachers would be unwilling to give him some one-on-one. Tell your son to ask, you shouldn’t do it if he’s almost 18. He needs to learn to be proactive before college.</p>
<p>I’m going to take the happy medium approach. My S’s competitive PHS seems to have the same laissez-faire approach wrt helping kids catch up, etc. Very different from middle school and intentionally so. They want the kids to start now with being responsible themselves for solving these issues.</p>
<p>I tend to agree with Elizabeth that some teachers will cut him slack (that often happens at S’s school - allowing him to take a quiz/test a little later) and I would fully expect that various teachers will meet with him outside of class so he knows what to focus on to catch up and gets any help he needs for material he just can’t grasp without classroom discussion.</p>
<p>As to tutors, I wouldn’t have thought it necessary, but you know your S. Don’t obsess about it, though.</p>
<p>
There’s got to be more to that story and I, for one, wouldn’t accept it at face value as a parallel to your S’s situation.</p>
<p>Good luck. Keep us posted. It is v. hard to keep perspective in, as you say,these oh-so-non-relaxed days.</p>
<p>Heidi:
The school may not have a list of tutors b/c teachers are expected to help a sick student catch up. Yours cannot possibly be the first to have caught flu!<br>
What I would suggest is for your S to ask the teacher for the materials that were covered in class and for a list of problems. Your son will likely be able to catch up by reading the textbook on his own, with some help from either the teacher if s/he is willing to spend some time with your S or the tutor if s/he is not. Negotiate a deal with the teacher so that your S makes up a certain number of problems per day rather than the whole lot at once. It may be possible to cut down on the number of problems that need to be made up, depending on how much practice your S usually needs in order to master the materials. Sometimes, teachers assign a lot of problems that are rather redundant to ensure that students acquire fluency.
Also, ask your S to go easy on the sports as he is still recovering from the flu.</p>
<p>I think everyone else already gave good advice - so I won’t add much. Just wanted to send my wishes for a speedy recovery and quick catch-up. I know what it’s like, I missed 3 weeks of school and was in the hospital for 5 days last May (during both AP weeks!) It might make for rough couple weeks, but remember to start back slowly - your immune system may still be recovering and you don’t want to end up getting sick again.</p>
<p>Zagat, lol, no one borrowed my notes more than once because they were so bad! They were always welcome to have them.</p>
<p>Jenskate, I can’t believe you were sick during AP week! I agree with you and Marite that my s needs to take it easy to let himself recover, but their team has their first game this weekend, so the timing couldn’t be worse. </p>
<p>Marite, I like the suggestion of negotiating fewer problems! </p>
<p>Elizabeth, you sound very on top of things - I’ll bet you’re a great student! It will be interesting after so much worrying to see how my s managed to handle things today. </p>
<p>jmmom, thanks, and I will post an update. [It’s like having a blog! :-)] </p>
<p>And Dmd, the spiral of not understanding was exactly what I was worried about.</p>
<p>Sports team starting after a week and half of missed school, ouch. Try to keep your son focused and on topic, but don’t overwork him to the point where he wakes up with bags that go from under his eyes to the end of his nose and is too overworked to remember anything. Once again good luck with his “recovery” and keep us posted!</p>
<p>I bet he handled things quite well :).</p>
<p>Keep us posted.</p>
<p>I will point out, at the risk of sounding alarmist, that missing a week right before midterms is very different than missing a week during an intense learning period. Right before midterms, most teachers are not introducing new concepts; they are reviewing the ones they taught earlier in the quarter. If a student misses a lab or two with new ideas, then misses the lectures building on those ideas, nothing after those new ideas will make sense. Course rhythms are very important here. You’ll know better than I how your son’s courses are structured, but many teachers start a new unit at the beginning of each quarter, for four big units a year. (Some teachers have six units a year.) If a student misses the start of the unit, it can be very difficult to catch up.</p>
<p>My alarm bells went off because you said your son is so behind he can’t do his homework, BTW. Not a good sign.</p>
<p>I think you’re a little too worried, dmd77.</p>
<p>Of course he can’t do his homework right now, he missed a week and a half. Occasionally I can’t even do my homework when I’ve been in class :)! It doesn’t mean he’s doomed for the rest of the year.</p>
<p>I never said he was doomed. I said I thought getting a tutor to get him caught up as fast as possible was a great idea.</p>
<p>I’ve had several students (over the years) who had to take incompletes months later as a result of flu season illnesses–and at least one of them never did make up the course and didn’t get credit.</p>
<p>Blog report: My s skipped sports practice [good idea!] to play poker with his friends. [No comment!] He said that he was meeting with both his math and chem teachers this week and that they had started a new, unrelated subj. in chem and so he didn’t feel overwhelmed. Much to my astonishment, he really liked the tutor idea to fully catch up this weekend in chemistry.<br>
He sure did look tired when he left for school this morning - even his normal three cups of coffee didn’t help! [Is expresso stronger? Maybe it’s time for an expresso machine… ]</p>
<p>Espresso just puts the same amount of caffeine in a smaller amount of water, which makes the hit easier to take. You can buy penguin mints that have caffeine added. I keep them in the car—</p>
<p>Here is my concern…what was he doing for a week and a half…was he so sick he was comatose…I am not being flip, but unless he was delirious and weak, there was somework he could have been doing. So if he was able to sit up, watch tv, read books, then he was well enough to do some work during the day. I can understand not sending a sick kid to school</p>
<p>And if it was my S and he skipped practice (fine) to play poker (not so fine) and I was paying a fortune for a tutor, i would be really irritated</p>