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LOL!!!</p>
<p>Mammall, do you ever tell your kids, “Honey, when you’re done being a scholar, would you load the dishwasher?”</p>
<p>By “homework” I think of graded stuff to be turned in. Is that what a lot of you see your kids doing in AP courses? My point is that perhaps some high schools treat the students a little more as if they are already in college. Not so much monitoring of work from assignment to assignment, and more emphasis on just a few milestones - a term paper, a midterm and final.</p>
<p>What I see missing here is a concept of productivity during study time. You can make a course grueling, give lots of homework to hand in, make the average grade a C… none of this means the students are learning more than a class with a clear concise lecturer and minimal homework.</p>
<p>Or you can be even more efficient by customizing a course (usually by self-studying, although a private tutor is a wonderful luxury). By this method you assess what you already know, and then study to fill in the gaps, and then practice it all up to speed. </p>
<p>My DS has taken 7 AP exams by this method, with 5’s on all. Total time spent on the year-long AP courses ranged from about 30 hours (which included about 10 hours of very fine tutoring) to 90 hours (learned mainly from online free lectures). Overall, this is a two to five-fold increase in productivity over sitting in a classroom.</p>
<p>You would think this results in an attitude of just wanting to take the quick way out, but the opposite seems to be true. With the removal of external pressure, DS seems to adopt even higher standards as a matter of pride. To quote DS, “In my AP classes I just want a 5 on the exam, but when I study on my own I want to be able to get every question right.”</p>
<p>Looking for opportunities for not just maximum learning, but also maximum efficiency frees up more time for ultimate frisbee, leisure reading, music, sleepovers, i.e. a social and personal life.</p>
<p>^ For some kids it is not efficiency but the standards that they themselves set up. I always tried to stop my D. improving her papers (although most time it did not work). She would go on indefinately until the time is up and she needed to be somewhere else.</p>
<p>I just dislike the idea of this cookie cutter education. Everyone has learned the exact same topics in the exact same way just to pass a test. We have kids who are studying to pass one test created by a very small group of people, who have certain perspectives.</p>
<p>Is that a healthy way to teach something like history? I would think it would be much better if there were different persepctives, different approaches that make for a better educated population and a more interesting college class.</p>
<p>If the kids in the class studied for a test, and all studied for the same test which is graded by people trained in the same way, is that actually beneficial?</p>
<p>i don’t think so. I know kids who got fives who are just regurgitators of data and facts, with no real insight.</p>
<p>Sad indeed. I am taking a class right now, and we have some students who never share in class, never ask a question, dont’ contribute in anyway to the discussions, but can ace a test. Is that what we want itn college, good test takers, but no real insight into the subject matter. DO we want kids who have all read the same books, the same texts, the same test prep books< or is it better to have kids come in with some variety of education, approaches, styles, questions, etc?</p>
<p>The latter sounds much more interesting and evocative.</p>