<p>mizzou-mom, I work in education, for heavens’ sake, and have just seen my 2nd child graduate h.s. Of course I know what block scheduling is. Doesn’t matter. I’m talking about students who take four total core courses, block or no-block. Not eight courses, with some holding longer class every other day.</p>
<p>Further, graduation requirements vary dramatically by high school. Again, in my profession my students tell me, “Well I don’t have to take history/math/science (fill-in-the-blank) junior year; I took it sophomore year.” Say what? The demands of a rigorous high school will far exceed the bare minimum, regardless of what the local public college finds acceptable. In my D’s school, it was 4 yrs. Eng., 4 yrs. math, 3 yrs science (but the 4th highly recommended & usually taken), 3 yrs language (but ditto with the strong recommendation), etc. All four years of any single student’s schedule looked essentially the same: packed with “solids,” as we used to call them, usually seven, & often with an 8th elective academic core course, whose requirements were just as demanding.</p>
<p>Well, I’m going to be a senior next near, and during my time at high school I have had to switch from block (fresh + soph) to period (senior) scheduling because my high school wanted to save money on teachers. In my opinion, period scheduling is much more preferable, and I’m able to take more classes, but there is a slightly higher strain from courses. Last year i took 10 AP classes (6 in school, 4 online) and compared to the AP’s I had as a soph I felt like the courses were moving much quicker and were more interesting because teachers had to eliminate busy work.</p>
<p>I don’t know what constitutes a “top” student, but I’ve known my share of hard workers. I do want to add though that ‘top’ is extremely subjective. Top could mean academic olympiads, huge EC’s, many leadership roles, or great athletics, and I think all of these students live very different social lives.</p>
<p>about AP time consumption: English Literature AP took me five minutes, yes five, on average each night, except for the pretty-much monthly essay.</p>
<p>US History AP took me about 3 hours ever chapter, or basically an hour or two a week.</p>
<p>Those who I consider to be the most academically successful and are social leaders (student prefect, head boy, MUN S-G) are also usually the core of the party circuit. Those who get admitted to Ivies, as far as I am aware, drink as hardily and blaze as much as anyone else. One Columbia girl I knew, in particular, was known as one of the best party hosts. I am not sure being a top scholar is, at all, an impediment to being the life of the party.</p>
<p>Epiphany, I also work in education, and I am quite bothered by what I see some of my students taking or not taking in school. They figure that if they take an AP class or two, they need at least one block off so they can work on those classes. Many times, however, they do not work on those classes but roam the hall or hang out in the cafeteria and chat with friends. Many of our top students are doing just the minimum in terms of meeting the graduation standards, so when they do not get into their school of choice … do not blame it on guidance, who recommended that physics class.</p>
<p>Time management is key. My son, who is a rising senior, does not have an incredible social life. Driving distance is a problem, as we live in the middle of nowhere. But like teenage_cliche, he probably will be better off in college as everything is there. Meanwhile, I figure he has enough to do with five APs, being student council president, president of another organization, a part-time job, FCA student leader, captain of a team and tutor for lots of subjects. I need to keep a calendar just to keep track of him!</p>
<p>I’ll reserve judgment on the credibility of 5 minutes devoted to AP assignments per night – depending, again, on the content of such “assignments.” Stephen Hawkings could not have spent 5 minutes on anything assigned to students in my D’s school, even the CP classes. </p>
<p>So we have several fluid baselines, to wit:
“top student” (as ‘Poisonous’ & several others have noted)
“AP class”
“full load”
etc.</p>
<p>It completely depends on the class. At my school, the only daily homework many classes (AP physics, calculus, chemistry, etc) assign are practice problems, of which a student only needs to do as many as they feel is necessary for them to become familiar with the material. As I’ve heard, this is consistent with college courses in that there are very few graded “assignments” aside from midterms and exams - it is up to the student whether or not they want/need to spend the time doing the daily homework. Because of this, yes, a student can get away with doing 5 minutes of homework a night per class if that’s all they need to learn the material.</p>
<p>Re Post 86:
Yet students have posted previously on CC that AP <em>class</em> requirements vary by class. Dividing out the semester, or yearly, requirements for any given <em>class</em> (not the exam) in my D’s school, & probably many other schools, would not result in a quotient of 5 minutes.</p>
<p>I’m aware that in many high schools, AP courses are not rigorously taught. D’s high school took AP in the broader sense in which it was originally intended: to provide the student a preview & model of college-level work. (I went to a demanding public U, and of course I didn’t have “homework” every night. I had material to prepare for the next class, which normally included heavy, & a heavy amount of, reading. Dividing it out per night for the semester or year would not equate to 5 minutes, either.) Still not credible.</p>
<p>So for this AP Lit class that only required 5 min. of HW a night, when did you do all the required reading–in class? In AP English in our HS, S sometimes had to read a long novel outside class, take detailed notes on each chapter (which included notes on plot, theme, diction, character development, mood, etc.) which had to be handed in, and then write a short research paper or long essay all in one week. It took way more than 5 minutes a night, and S works quickly.</p>
<p>I guess my frame of reference is our high school, which is apparently more demanding than many. D’s AP and honors summer homework alone is probably more than some of you get all year.</p>
<p>Wow, epiphany. How the heck am I supposed to know you work in education??? Calm down. You don’t have to be so toxic in your replies. Next time I will research everyone’s chosen career before replying.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, I looked up what D has to do for just one of her summer homework assignments. She was given 2 marble composition books to fill for her Spanish class. The main body if the HW entails watching 10 TV shows of at least a half hour in length in Spanish, listening to 10 radio shows (interview format) in Spanish, reading 10 Spanish news articles, and engaging in 2–5 min. conversations with native speakers. After each of these there are questions to answer and summaries to write. Also, there is a lengthy reading assignment with accompanying comprehension exercises, vocab. exercises, and an essay due. There are comparable assignments for each of her other primary classes. More involved and onerous are those for AP sciences. Last summer’s AP Chem assignment was wicked and even involved a lab.</p>
<p>PS From the lazy summer thread: the kid who is doing this over the summer must be a genius with amazing time management skills-- “Ugh, i’m taking 3 college classes, 5 online AP’s, writing a research paper for publication, and trying to get some of my digital art published.” Until finding CC, I don’t think I encountered more than 1 genius in my whole life.</p>
<p>Your post # 80 directly followed my post 79, in which I said:</p>
<p>“in my work right now I am shocked to see high schoolers in publics get away with so few courses in the school day.”</p>
<p>So I said it right there. Second, I didn’t talk about schedules, but about <em>courses.</em> There was no indication in my post that I’m confused about block scheduling.</p>
<p>GFG, my observations correspond with yours. I’m not sure how effective CB is going to be (or has been) with their stipulation to schools that the requirements of an AP class be sent to them by the school, to verify the AP label. But the mere fact that it occurred to them to ask for this is a sign that someone’s beginning to understand the variable worth & accuracy of the “Advanced” Placement title. An additional signal has come from colleges who have begun to communicate skepticism about AP as an indication of achievement (and challenge!)in the subject matter.</p>
<p>And I was supposed to know that “in my work right now” meant you were a educator? You could have been a journalist, a council person, a mom, anyone. I am a stay at home mom and yet I see high schoolers getting away with things. Again, I am not a mind reader. God Bless you.</p>
<p>Thanks, epiphany. I was beginning to think I live in an alternate universe. </p>
<p>And as for a certain time management strategy, while I’m on a roll I’d like to contend that no teacher, and especially no AP teacher, worth his salt would fail to notice that students were working on homework for another class during his class. And since they are still high school students, the teacher would likely not overlook that because unlike in college, there is a sense of responsibility for the children’s learning. (Kids in S’s AP Spanish class tried to do AP Physics homework during the class. The teacher caught on and promptly gave them an exam on the subjunctive, which they all failed. Needless to say, they never did it again!) Besides, if the AP classes are as challenging as they’re supposed to be, it would be a rare day that a student could pay sufficient attention to the class in progress while at the same time doing AP homework for another class and still learn properly and produce quality work.</p>
<p>I must be missing something. Don’t we all understand that the rigor of AP classes differs by school and teacher? Are the kids themselves to be blamed and ridiculed for this? Frankly, I haven’t been all that over-the-moon about any of the four APs my son has taken so far–I would have liked to see much more outside reading other than the text/review book, and much less teaching to the test. But these kids don’t exactly have a choice, do they? In order to compete with all the kids who have taken “the most rigorous courseload” they must take all the APs offered, or near all. The CB has no one to blame but themselves.</p>
<p>Hey, my son is a rebel: He’s nixed a science AP for Senior Year since he has no intention of going anywhere near science in college. Just Lang and Lit, Calc, Gov’t., and Spanish. I wonder if this will hurt him, since I have actually read that you should have a science AP on your transcript! (sarcasm) It is absolutely ridiculous, imo.</p>
<p>I think you’re overreacting, mizzou-mom, but I’m sorry if I offended you in either post. Even most non-educators who have high school students themselves (and my earlier post definitely indicated that I had h.s.-age children of my own) actually really do understand block scheduling.</p>
<p>Yes, Ilsa, you’re right. I guess I was trying to point out that if a “top” kid can do the things they’re saying they can on this thread, then maybe they’re not as tops in intelligence and time management as they believe. They’re just attending a mediocre school.</p>
<p>All of the “top” kids in our high school study their brains out. Most have little time for social lives. Why? Because it is very tough to be at the top here. We have large numbers of kids who are very advanced in math and science, for example. It is not unheard of for kids to take AP calculus as freshmen. S had a 7th grader in his AP Physics BC class. But even the kids who are several notches below have to work extremely hard. One reason is that there is greater demand for AP spots than what is available. Thus, the classes (and summer assignments) are made more difficult to discourage students.</p>
<p>^^I hereby officially withdraw my S as a “top” kid. :)</p>
<p>At least there is a stiff protocol for kids to be admitted at his present school, so only the “top” kids are let in for under 30 slots for each AP class. Our public school lets in pretty much anyone, and has multiple classes for each AP and does not require the test–the very method (# of kids taking APs) Jay Matthew et al are using to judge the “best” high schools!</p>