<p>“Very, very hard work is what lots of kids would crave, if given the opportunity. (I’ve heard great things about the place, too. Botstein puts great emphasis on finding kids who are willing to do the work, but who are not necessarily intellectually gifted - which is who the magnets, Stuy etc., are meant to serve. The idea is to prove the relevance of the model to a much larger group of youth.)”</p>
<p>I think that is only partly true. The criteria used to determine who gets in the door to take the test in the first place are pretty tough. Some may or may not be “gifted,” but you are talking about the top-tier of NYC students, the exact same population of kids who apply to Stuy (daughter made it there, too), but in my opinion, the curriculum is much more exciting and wide-ranging at Bard. I do think that many kids would love to do that amount of work, but sadly, not most. I think Bard got it exactly right that there are some kids (“gifted” or not) who can do college work and will thrive in a creative and different environment. What I also like about Bard High School is that there isn’t an ideological bent to the school (we have a “small,” Gates-funded high school in my area that just goes way too far in promoting its worldview and is not at all diverse or inclusive). But Bard is all about being excited to learn and see just how far those kids can go. They are, however, having a major problem attracting qualified boys. The ratio tipped to 70/30 last year and is a cause for concern at the school. I don’t know what their plans are to rectify it.</p>
<p>Mini, if it’s not too presumptuous, may I ask how the Italy trip was?</p>
<p>This may be a problem that cannot be solved. If there is a science-y magnet program available, the boys will flock to it, leaving the less science-oriented programs mostly female.</p>
<p>My kids’ school district in Maryland has two district-wide elite high school programs: a science/math/computer science program and a selective International Baccalaureate program. The science/math program is 2/3 guys; the IB program is 2/3 girls. It has been that way for many years. The only way to eliminate the problem, as far as I can see, would be to house both programs in the same building, but that doesn’t meet the school system’s needs for other reasons.</p>
<p>We have two boys, and my husband often says that if he had a daughter he’d never let her date, drive with boys, etc. :rolleyes:!!!</p>
<p>However, I am often surprised to see how many parents let their daughters dress like the waitresses at Hooters as early as middle school. When I see a young girl with Juicy across the backside of her too short too tight shorts (with the band rolled down for extra affect), I wonder where in the world the parents are in this picture. </p>
<p>Even the high school girls’ volleyball team uniform is just as provocative. My son’s senior male friends are always inviting him to the girls’ games. School spirit? No, they call the girls’ volleyball shorts, underwear over underwear. The boys team seems to play just fine in normal sized shorts.</p>
<p>I haven’t seen any of the sexually explicit dancing, yet. My son’s high school did have a problem with some kids doing pseudo lap dancing at the prom, but it wasn’t endorsed by an onstage production. The kids caught participating were asked to leave the prom.</p>
My girls just had their winter formal in December, and they said that the sort of “grinding” dancing/pseudo lap dancing was goin’ on all over the place. I <em>really</em> don’t understand our administration or the parents here. One of my D’s told me that this one girl just went up behind a poor, little innocent freshman boy and started MAJORLY grinding on him. He wasn’t even dancing with her. He actually RAN!!! :eek: Poor kid…<em>sigh</em></p>
<p>Marian, that was an excellent observation. I hadn’t thought things through enough to consider that, but I suspect you’re exactly right. Coincidentally, with all her admissions and scholarships, daughter ended up in the IB program in our local high school and is positively thriving. The program is predominantly female, too.</p>
<p>Mini. I agree, they mature earlier physically, but many are less intellectually and socially mature, especially the boys. Parents also seam to allow kids alot more freedom, with respect to curfew, dating ect. Just because they look like they’re 18, doesn’t mean they can handle the freedoms alloted an eighteen year old.</p>
<p>Isn’t that the direction we are following anyway? Have such poor high schools that the first 2-3 years of college become a glorified exercise in remedial courses, and graduating students with degrees that are barely above what a HS should be, only to see the GRADUATE schools turn into our real colleges? </p>
<p>In many countries a High School diploma offers its holders a decent chance for employment, a college degree a decent path to high middle class, and a master’s or doctoral degree a sure path to a very good life. </p>
<p>What do we have here? A country that rejects early vocational and technical schools and WANTS to send everyone to college. The result is a massive and generalized dumbing down of the entire system, except for a very small percentage of schools that maintain a worldwide recognition. Our system works well for the elite, but not that well for most everyone.</p>
<p>Oh, let’s make sure there is PLENTY of money of non-academic programs such as cheerleading. Betcha that that is another area where the US is the undisputed world champion!</p>
<p>“Mini. I agree, they mature earlier physically, but many are less intellectually and socially mature, especially the boys.”</p>
<p>Yes, but whose fault is that? During WWII, when dads and older brothers went off to war, 15-year-olds ran farms, businesses, stores, did all accounting, coped with rationing, and generally played major roles in keeping families functioning well. They had all the freedom that responsibility could provide. (and when the older siblings came back from the War, they had to compete with the younger ones for jobs, and brides, and were less equipped than their younger siblings. Hence, the modern invention of “teenagers”, a term first coined in 1941, and which only gained popularity in the late 1940s.)</p>
<p>“Isn’t that the direction we are following anyway? Have such poor high schools that the first 2-3 years of college become a glorified exercise in remedial courses, and graduating students with degrees that are barely above what a HS should be, only to see the GRADUATE schools turn into our real colleges?”</p>
<p>Do you really have such a low opinion of CMC?</p>
<p>“What do we have here? A country that rejects early vocational and technical schools and WANTS to send everyone to college.”</p>
<p>Actually, what the country “wants” is to keep them out of the workforce, and keep them consuming.</p>
<p>“Due to the athletics involved, a case certainly can be made that cheerleading is a sport. However, if it’s a sport, it deserves to be treated as a sport instead of as a decorative activity for “real” sports, which happen to be sports with male athletes.”</p>
<p>Amen. I enjoy watching cheer competitions on ESPN. The cheerleaders are the main event there. But there’s still a ridiculous emphasis on appearance that is obvious at every level and makes clear that cheerleading is part of the oversexualization you discuss. Why do all the athletes, including grade schoolers on the all-star squads, have to be heavily and identically made up? Why the impractical hairstyles (often featuring fake curls) and girlish hair ribbons? I understand that skirts are traditional, but why the midriff-baring tops? A soccer team wouldn’t wear wigs, heavy makeup, or skimpy tops during competition, so I don’t understand why cheerleaders must.</p>
<p>Marketed to, yes certainly, hereshoping, but not when we were children. I often think of my young self back in about 1962, sitting around in the summer reading library books, riding my bike to the library for more, playing outside with friends. I wasn’t increasing any company’s earnings! I wasn’t buying sports shoes or equipment or playing on a team (no sports for girls), I wasn’t purchasing books, and I wasn’t spending much time in front of TV advertisements (not until late afternoon and I Love Lucy, that is, and I remember the ads being more about toilet paper and detergents than anything I really longed for). It’s the current generation of teens that has been so vastly exploited by marketers, and that is part of the problem we discuss.</p>
<p>Pampered or fawned over? Not in my middle class 1950s-60s childhood. Most of us grew up without a great deal of discretionary family income. Families were bigger and we had to share with siblings. Nobody ever thought of trying to boost our self-esteem in those days (a little boost would have helped me. . .the self-esteem movement didn’t flourish to the point of going overboard until decades later). </p>
<p>Yes, we did become self-absorbed, no doubt about that, I think during our late teens and into adulthood, but that fits into my equation: we baby boomers do what is easiest for us: it’s always easier, at least in the short term, to be lenient with our children.</p>
<p>Yes, SuNa, and alot of our generation also want to be PALS with our kids, instead of parents. There are a group of Dads in our town who are so excited that their boys are 13, old enough to do fun things with like drinking,etc. Its kind of like, “I’m not REALLY a paunchy middle-aged guy!” No, you’re a FUN-DAD! Its sad, and hard for those of us who try to keep our teens on the straight and narrow, so to speak.</p>
<p>“Amen. I enjoy watching cheer competitions on ESPN. The cheerleaders are the main event there. But there’s still a ridiculous emphasis on appearance that is obvious at every level and makes clear that cheerleading is part of the oversexualization you discuss. Why do all the athletes, including grade schoolers on the all-star squads, have to be heavily and identically made up? Why the impractical hairstyles (often featuring fake curls) and girlish hair ribbons? I understand that skirts are traditional, but why the midriff-baring tops? A soccer team wouldn’t wear wigs, heavy makeup, or skimpy tops during competition, so I don’t understand why cheerleaders must.”</p>
<p>Three words-Women’s Beach Volleyball. I link some pix but I’d get expelled.</p>
<p>As someone who attends McKinney North HS, I would advise the world at large to interpret the information the media reports with a rather large grain of salt. </p>
<ol>
<li>There is no ‘Fab Five.’ It’s merely a term coined by the attorney collectively referring to the individuals involved in the incident. I mean, honestly, what self-respecting teenage clique would refer to themselves as the ‘Fab Five?’<br></li>
<li>This incident was initially about the favoritism not the cheerleaders themselves. This entire incident has been blown out of proportion. Rather ironically, I wrote an editorial article in the school newspaper discussing this very subject. </li>
<li>Don’t let the news cloud your judgement of MNHS as a whole - MNHS is not a den of vice. We have more than a handful of intelligent and, overall, ‘good’ students. </li>
</ol>
<p>[To preempt any claims that I’m merely trying to salvage MNHS’s besmirched reputation out of pride: I’m not. I just moved here. Frankly, I’m not the biggest fan of the school, so I’m the person you’d least expect to defend MNHS exclusively out of pride. I do not consider it my personal devoir to exonerate those involved. I’m doing it hopefully to prevent the further proliferation of gross misinformation. ]</p>
<p>P.S. I had a significantly more comprehensive post, but it got deleted. So frustrating.</p>
<p>I think the infantalization of young adults only goes back to the mid-20th century – at least in the US. Before that, only a small percentage even attended college, and a much larger percentage dropped out before 12th grade to start working. Only one of my four grandparents (1920s) finished high school, and both my grandfathers went to work after 6th grade. Each generation seems to have stayed young longer – my parents both went to junior college (53-55) and I went to a 4-year university. It now strikes me as odd to find an 18-year-old working full-time and not attending school, but the opposite would have seemed odd to my grandparents in the 20s and 30s. </p>
<p>I’m a Boy Scout leader and a mentor for a youth robotics team. I’ve been working with young adults for seven years. They are capable of amazing intiative, responsibility, and self-motivation. They are equally willing (for the most part) to slide along with adults making the decisions and running things. </p>
<p>I don’t know how to reconcile the amount of education it takes to be successful in the tech age with my instinct that kids are growing up too late. Maybe the new Democratic majority in Congress will solve this for me…</p>
<p>The same I would have for Smith! Seriously, you overlooked the next sentence where the answer to your question could be found: “The result is a massive and generalized dumbing down of the entire system, except for a very small percentage of schools that maintain a worldwide recognition. Our system works well for the elite, but not that well for most everyone.”</p>
Agree that this is a big problem. Vo-tech education should be expanded. Skilled trades can’t find enough workers, and kids with smarts & mechanical inclination are missing out on good fit careers.</p>
<p>I have nieces who cheer & always found it silly until one got scholarship money! She graduated with honors & has a well-paying nursing career. She also cheered for an NFL team for a couple years. She was an excellent gymnast & enjoyed the performing. My d always gravitated toward sports participation rather than cheering, which is my preference. (So I never had to steer her in the “right” direction.) But I do admire the elaborate, precise routines that the cheerleaders prepare for those big competitions.</p>
<p>dke–As for Dads being pals with their teenage sons, I blame rock and roll. If boomers’ music were not still cool, we would not be cool. When you were a kid, did you want to listen to your parents’ music? Big Band? Get real. But my kids love Beatles, Pink Floyd, Stones, ELP, (as well as the good music of today.) However, I do NOT attempt to party with my teens. :eek:</p>
<p>"The same I would have for Smith! Seriously, you overlooked the next sentence where the answer to your question could be found: “The result is a massive and generalized dumbing down of the entire system, except for a very small percentage of schools that maintain a worldwide recognition. Our system works well for the elite, but not that well for most everyone.”</p>
<p>I think the school systems in the U.S. work exactly as intended, and are tremendously successful. They provide a docile, malleable workforce that will not rebel, and will find their life satisfactions in the production and consumption of material goods. We had a problem for awhile that enough students weren’t flunking out or leaving school so as to later inhabit the lowest rungs of the employment system (i, but that is now being well taken care of through NCLB. (As they say: if you fail 10th grade math, you don’t deserve health insurance.) School boards get re-elected, school administrators get raises, and everyone is happy.</p>
<p>But it is critical to keep the kids out of the workforce, or the whole thing begins to crumble.</p>
<p>I’m actually working on an article now called “Schools make the Kids Dumb(er)”, based on new data about to be published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology, and based on 30 years work of empirical data, indicating that the cognitive development of 11-year-olds has dropped between 2-3 years in the past 15 years, and has accelerated in the past 5. Maybe I’ll post when done. The schools are doing very well.</p>