Public + AAP vs. private if you want your kid to be a good writer and speaker

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe FCPS' curriculum is not great when it comes to writing and grammar. Talking to friends who have had their children in Catholic elementary school, the Catholic schools seem to be more focused on "traditional" ways of teaching writing and grammar. But I also think that there are teachers in any given FCPS school who are able to teaching excellent writing and speaking skills. Of my three kids, my general ed kid has excellent writing skills and not my AAP kid. Why? I think my GE kid's fourth grade teacher was hands down a better teacher than my AAP's fourth grade teacher.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Every school has good and not so good teachers. Catholic school is no different.

Very impt part of this article: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston says his record didn’t raise any red flags before he was transferred to South Carolina from Chile. Anyone surprised this statement is not true???? Yeah...
https://www.local10.com/news/local/2023/01/09/priest-arrested-in-miami-charged-with-federal-sex-crimes/

[Anonymous]

I think public is fine for this.

Encourage your children to do speech and debate in MS/HS for public speaking. Also have conversations about the world, movies, politics, ideas etc. Regularly put your kids in situations where they need to speak to adults (at get-togethers, making doctor appointments, at the store).

We've had fairly good experiences with writing instruction in FCPS, but it's variable. One of the best ways to become a good writer is to read, so instead of formal supplementing we mostly just encourage wide-ranging reading. We have a lot of books around, go to the library regularly and have long had a policy that all screens are off at least an hour before bed (including screens for homework). That has been sufficient for encouraging our kids to be readers. My HS kid will even regularly pick up our New York Review of Books and read articles he's interested in.

The one supplementation I will do on writing is give occasionally feedback on larger written assignments. They put it in a google doc and I add editorial comments like: Watch out for passive voice, Should this be one paragraph? Do you have evidence for that claim? Reword this sentence so it flows better. Watch your shifting tenses. Verb-subject agreement. (I've checked in with teachers and they have no problem with this kind of involvement in students' writing--and say that they try to do editing in class that addresses the same things but it can be hard to individualize).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

DP. My brothers and I went to regular public school in the US and our parents never supplemented or afterschooled or any of this stuff. It just wasn't necessary.


If you want your kid to be a high achiever, go to a top college, have their pick of whatever career or opportunity they want to pursue, it was always necessary. Sounds like you went to a basic state school. If that is your ambition for your child, do nothing at home and public school can get them there.

No, it wasn't. Why is it hard to believe that, really not that long ago, there were public schools that did in fact teach writing and grammar and prepared kids for excellent schools without supplementation?

Nope. Public school has and always will teach the bare minimum basics. High achieving kids that attend public school have parents heavily supplementing at home plus they are getting into gifted programs.

Agreed, sometimes I wonder, why do I need to send my kid to school. I pay for his classes - Piano, Tennis, Math enrichment, summer swim, Online computer science classes, summer language arts (writing, debate), read with the kid regularly, engage in discussion around the world events, request him to build a "business case" why I should pay for his iphone, take 1-3 vacations to show them the world, museums, aquariums etc. and host of other things that we have done in the past. He loves theater and that is something he has been able to pursue and do well in school. But given. all the great free and paid resources, it's great to have the option to supplement. We have been fortunate!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I am a public speaking instructor for kids and adults. My company runs after school programs/online programs etc. I have taught at both public and private. There is no difference in that respect because ACTUAL public speaking fundamentals are not taught at schools. Just telling kids to do presentations don’t teach them effective communication etc. I have literally worked with students from Flint hill, Basis independent, Nysmith… and local public schools. I privately coached a student who was about to go to Harvard from Flint Hill. He told me they never actually LEARNED public speaking unless they joined a debate club or something. For actual public speaking skills, outside enrichment is highly recommended. The gifted kids actually have the hardest time with it!

I would like to hire a speaking instructor for my daughter. How would I go about finding one? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I am a public speaking instructor for kids and adults. My company runs after school programs/online programs etc. I have taught at both public and private. There is no difference in that respect because ACTUAL public speaking fundamentals are not taught at schools. Just telling kids to do presentations don’t teach them effective communication etc. I have literally worked with students from Flint hill, Basis independent, Nysmith… and local public schools. I privately coached a student who was about to go to Harvard from Flint Hill. He told me they never actually LEARNED public speaking unless they joined a debate club or something. For actual public speaking skills, outside enrichment is highly recommended. The gifted kids actually have the hardest time with it!

I would like to hire a speaking instructor for my daughter. How would I go about finding one? Thanks!

You can connect with my company (I’m the poster of that) at highestspeak.com. Thx!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which would you choose? Is $40k tuition worth the smaller class sizes?

What you want vs what your kid wants, are two very different things.

If you kid wants to be a good writer and speaker, they will pursue this on their own. The tuition won’t force them to have the drive to do it. They must want to be good at it.

[Anonymous]

My kid is at an independent K-8 and one of the things I value is the frequency of public speaking, theater productions, and poster presentations. My kid has gained a lot of confidence.

Certainly you can accomplish this by supplementing, or you can go to private and still not find it in your school. But I do appreciate that it's part of the curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Private K through 8 then switch to a public IB school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is at an independent K-8 and one of the things I value is the frequency of public speaking, theater productions, and poster presentations. My kid has gained a lot of confidence.

Certainly you can accomplish this by supplementing, or you can go to private and still not find it in your school. But I do appreciate that it's part of the curriculum.

This is something that I have appreciated about my kids' public ES (AAP in FCPS) which is different from both my private ES growing up and my husband's public ES growing up. I think there are a lot more public presentations in ES than ever before. For in school presentations, my kid has gotten regular rubric feedback with scores on presentation style (e.g., eye contact, speaking pace, volume and tone, nonverbal communication) as well as ratings on the visual communication of the materials and the content of the presentation. They've also had a number of more public presentation opportunities (theater, science fair, STEAM demos etc).

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Completely depends on the school(s). My AAP kid has had to do 2 oral presentations this year in 3rd grade. In 2nd grade private they had 1 per month on a culture (black history month, AAPI month, women's history month, etc).

I wouldn't pay $40k a year for that though.

I give my kids presentations to do at home. I know parenting probably doesn't work for some but if you care about your child's education you might want to try it.

Ah, for the good old days when parents could be parents and rely on schools to be schools!

When was that? I went to school in the 1980's and 1990's and my parents supplemented for all 4 of us. The schools we attended were well regarded but they had holes in the education that my parents supplemented to fill.

DP. My brothers and I went to regular public school in the US and our parents never supplemented or afterschooled or any of this stuff. It just wasn't necessary.

If you want your kid to be a high achiever, go to a top college, have their pick of whatever career or opportunity they want to pursue, it was always necessary. Sounds like you went to a basic state school. If that is your ambition for your child, do nothing at home and public school can get them there.

LOL. HYP here from an excellent town-based public school system in CT. My parents did zero supplementation other than pay for SAT workbooks and occasionally help me with Spanish flash cards. School did everything else and I was well prepared for college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Completely depends on the school(s). My AAP kid has had to do 2 oral presentations this year in 3rd grade. In 2nd grade private they had 1 per month on a culture (black history month, AAPI month, women's history month, etc).

I wouldn't pay $40k a year for that though.

I give my kids presentations to do at home. I know parenting probably doesn't work for some but if you care about your child's education you might want to try it.

Ah, for the good old days when parents could be parents and rely on schools to be schools!

When was that? I went to school in the 1980's and 1990's and my parents supplemented for all 4 of us. The schools we attended were well regarded but they had holes in the education that my parents supplemented to fill.

DP. My brothers and I went to regular public school in the US and our parents never supplemented or afterschooled or any of this stuff. It just wasn't necessary.

If you want your kid to be a high achiever, go to a top college, have their pick of whatever career or opportunity they want to pursue, it was always necessary. Sounds like you went to a basic state school. If that is your ambition for your child, do nothing at home and public school can get them there.

LOL. HYP here from an excellent town-based public school system in CT. My parents did zero supplementation other than pay for SAT workbooks and occasionally help me with Spanish flash cards. School did everything else and I was well prepared for college.

Yeah, sure you are. 99.99999% of public school kids with uninvolved, checked out parents aren't going to top colleges.

[Anonymous]

To answer the OP's question, I would recommend supplementing (either by a parent if the parent has the time, the inclination, and the ability OR via an outside class). You don't need to pay $40,000 a year for private though.

As a dirt poor kid whose parents could not supplement, I graduated at the top of my high school class and went on to an Ivy on scholarship. There I found a weakness in my secondary school education: the lack of good writing classes that went beyond grammar but addressed precision, organization, and style. Fortunately, I had an excellent but tough expository writing teacher in my freshman year who helped me develop my writing skills.

As an employer, I can attest that good writing and speaking skills are hard (& important) to find.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Completely depends on the school(s). My AAP kid has had to do 2 oral presentations this year in 3rd grade. In 2nd grade private they had 1 per month on a culture (black history month, AAPI month, women's history month, etc).

I wouldn't pay $40k a year for that though.

I give my kids presentations to do at home. I know parenting probably doesn't work for some but if you care about your child's education you might want to try it.

Ah, for the good old days when parents could be parents and rely on schools to be schools!

When was that? I went to school in the 1980's and 1990's and my parents supplemented for all 4 of us. The schools we attended were well regarded but they had holes in the education that my parents supplemented to fill.

DP. My brothers and I went to regular public school in the US and our parents never supplemented or afterschooled or any of this stuff. It just wasn't necessary.

If you want your kid to be a high achiever, go to a top college, have their pick of whatever career or opportunity they want to pursue, it was always necessary. Sounds like you went to a basic state school. If that is your ambition for your child, do nothing at home and public school can get them there.

LOL. HYP here from an excellent town-based public school system in CT. My parents did zero supplementation other than pay for SAT workbooks and occasionally help me with Spanish flash cards. School did everything else and I was well prepared for college.

Yeah, sure you are. 99.99999% of public school kids with uninvolved, checked out parents aren't going to top colleges.

Did you learn statistics in private schools? You might want to watch a couple of videos on Khan Academy because you clearly don't understand what 99.99999% actually means