Why should I feel guilty that I prepped my kid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who cares?

In 20 years you'll be writing a post about "why should I feel guilty my kids hate their lives and never talk to me? I pushed them to be doctors because it's MY CULTURE!"

Signed, married to a successful Asian man who hates his mother

Lol. I totally get this.

In Asian parenting culture, you will put expectations on your kid and you will work for that kid to meet your expectations. (hence, test prepping).

It won't end with just AAP, you will want that kid to go to TJ. You will want that kid to go to an Ivy League. You will want that kid to be in a profession that is highly respected by your Asian culture.
Doesn't matter if the kid hates STEM. If that kid comes to you and tells you that he wants to major in underwater basket weaving, you will make sure that doesn't happen and you will hire tutors and turn the world upside down to get them into say, med school. You have instilled the Asian culture of obedience to parents so your kid will abide. Your kid has not known anything but hard work so they will work hard to be a doctor. Your kid will be successful as a doctor but hate his life because when he's 45, he'll regret that he didn't get to major in underwater basket weaving, lead a carefree, tree-hugging life. He'll realize that you have been controlling his life and hate you.

Signed, Asian mom who is breaking the cycle by letting my kids be who they are going to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You re teaching your kids to do better on tests, not learning more knowledge. This is the problem. People like you are why AAP is struggling: Instead of focusing on learning, which is the goal, you are focusing on the scores of tests.

In my family, we "prep" by taking walks talking about how the water currents change the land forms; how water flows down hill, how we can predict thing using physics and math. We put very little effort on specific tests.

Your hyper-prepped kid my score better on the CogAT -- I don't give a f*** how my kid does on that. But, my kid understands what she is doing. Oh, she is an A student in Middle school at an AAP center.

What??? AAP is flourishing. It is highly sought after, the path to TJ, a source of great pride for the county. I say bullshit to anyone misguided enough to think AAP is "struggling." Utter bullshit.

[Anonymous]

OP, I don't care if you prepped your kids as long as they can handle AAP in the end. If they are doing fine, then whether you prepped or not, it was a good fit for them

If your kids are struggling or needing tutors... then your prepping them was not in their best interests or the FCPS best interests (which matters to me since #IamFCPS, right?).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You re teaching your kids to do better on tests, not learning more knowledge. This is the problem. People like you are why AAP is struggling: Instead of focusing on learning, which is the goal, you are focusing on the scores of tests.

In my family, we "prep" by taking walks talking about how the water currents change the land forms; how water flows down hill, how we can predict thing using physics and math. We put very little effort on specific tests.

Your hyper-prepped kid my score better on the CogAT -- I don't give a f*** how my kid does on that. But, my kid understands what she is doing. Oh, she is an A student in Middle school at an AAP center.

What??? AAP is flourishing. It is highly sought after, the path to TJ, a source of great pride for the county. I say bullshit to anyone misguided enough to think AAP is "struggling." Utter bullshit.

I think maybe that you are misguided. AAP is NOT the path to to TJ. It's A path, among many others but it's not THE path.

[Anonymous]

If FCPS says don't prep, then I don't think you should do it.
To the best of my knowledge, FCPS has never come out and said this.
Basically, the critical comments represent a culture clash. This is just the way it is done in Korean and China and India. Not surprisingly, these groups are hugely over-represented in AAP and at TJ. And at Harvard, Stanford etc., etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You re teaching your kids to do better on tests, not learning more knowledge. This is the problem. People like you are why AAP is struggling: Instead of focusing on learning, which is the goal, you are focusing on the scores of tests.

In my family, we "prep" by taking walks talking about how the water currents change the land forms; how water flows down hill, how we can predict thing using physics and math. We put very little effort on specific tests.

Your hyper-prepped kid my score better on the CogAT -- I don't give a f*** how my kid does on that. But, my kid understands what she is doing. Oh, she is an A student in Middle school at an AAP center.

What??? AAP is flourishing. It is highly sought after, the path to TJ, a source of great pride for the county. I say bullshit to anyone misguided enough to think AAP is "struggling." Utter bullshit.

TJ is overrated IMHO. The quality of teaching is horrible. But, they only admit the top 3% of the county, so they have great scores. Guess what? I could take those kids, put them in a room, tell them what to learn, come back at the end of the term and they will be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You re teaching your kids to do better on tests, not learning more knowledge. This is the problem. People like you are why AAP is struggling: Instead of focusing on learning, which is the goal, you are focusing on the scores of tests.

In my family, we "prep" by taking walks talking about how the water currents change the land forms; how water flows down hill, how we can predict thing using physics and math. We put very little effort on specific tests.

Your hyper-prepped kid my score better on the CogAT -- I don't give a f*** how my kid does on that. But, my kid understands what she is doing. Oh, she is an A student in Middle school at an AAP center.

What??? AAP is flourishing. It is highly sought after, the path to TJ, a source of great pride for the county. I say bullshit to anyone misguided enough to think AAP is "struggling." Utter bullshit.

I think maybe that you are misguided. AAP is NOT the path to to TJ. It's A path, among many others but it's not THE path.

Wrong. Huge, overwhelming majority of kids at TJ were in AAP. Hide your head in the sand if you want.

[Anonymous]

some real sour grapes here. No nothing wrong with prepping for any test worth passing, and that includes the Act, SAT, a concert (gee it's so unfair, [insert Asian name] is first chair in violin - she practices all the time!).

[Anonymous]

AAP has enough space for everyone who qualifies, so what some other families do has no bearing on your child.

[Anonymous]

I don't think there is any doubt that public education at all levels, ES, MS HS and college, has been changed by the arrival of large numbers of Asians. They are just simply outperforming academically, and what you are reading here is angst over that. They are taking spots at the most selective, prestigious institutions that used to go to other groups. Rather than work harder to compete, some people in these groups want to kvetch and make accusations - sad really.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think there is any doubt that public education at all levels, ES, MS HS and college, has been changed by the arrival of large numbers of Asians. They are just simply outperforming academically, and what you are reading here is angst over that. They are taking spots at the most selective, prestigious institutions that used to go to other groups. Rather than work harder to compete, some people in these groups want to kvetch and make accusations - sad really.

What you are really seeing is a clash of cultures comparing people coming from a resource limited society to a rich society: we have the resources to educate all, and as such prefer a well rounded student. Frankly, the biggest medical problem facing this country is obesity. Fighting that requires time spent active, not studying. In addition, it has been shown that leadership is best developed in unstructured time. So, kids need time to just play. If you look at the creativity of the countries these immigrants come from, you find a lot of excellent technicians, but few leaders. That is why samsung copies apple. That is why, per capita, The US and the EU far outpace Asia in Nobel Prizes per capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Nobel_laureates_per_capita, with about 10/10 million people whereas Japan leads asia with 1.6/10 million people.

Humans are more than just a career. How would we have art? Music? Literature?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think there is any doubt that public education at all levels, ES, MS HS and college, has been changed by the arrival of large numbers of Asians. They are just simply outperforming academically, and what you are reading here is angst over that. They are taking spots at the most selective, prestigious institutions that used to go to other groups. Rather than work harder to compete, some people in these groups want to kvetch and make accusations - sad really.

The difference growing intellectually, leading to a well rounded human, compared with optimizing the metrics so it looks smarter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think there is any doubt that public education at all levels, ES, MS HS and college, has been changed by the arrival of large numbers of Asians. They are just simply outperforming academically, and what you are reading here is angst over that. They are taking spots at the most selective, prestigious institutions that used to go to other groups. Rather than work harder to compete, some people in these groups want to kvetch and make accusations - sad really.

What you are really seeing is a clash of cultures comparing people coming from a resource limited society to a rich society: we have the resources to educate all, and as such prefer a well rounded student. Frankly, the biggest medical problem facing this country is obesity. Fighting that requires time spent active, not studying. In addition, it has been shown that leadership is best developed in unstructured time. So, kids need time to just play. If you look at the creativity of the countries these immigrants come from, you find a lot of excellent technicians, but few leaders. That is why samsung copies apple. That is why, per capita, The US and the EU far outpace Asia in Nobel Prizes per capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Nobel_laureates_per_capita, with about 10/10 million people whereas Japan leads asia with 1.6/10 million people.

Humans are more than just a career. How would we have art? Music? Literature?

As for being well rounded, if that is indeed the ticket to success, I think they’ll figure that out too.

oh, I think the Asians do just fine in Music and Literature.
As far as being well rounded,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:AAP has enough space for everyone who qualifies, so what some other families do has no bearing on your child.

Except prepping raises the cutoff score necessary to get in, so yeah, it does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You shouldn't. We didn't prep but if we did I wouldn't feel guilty. All these people who complain about test prep, talk to them when their kids get ready to take the SAT or ACT and I dare them to suggest no PSAT was taken and no prep courses were paid for.

AAP wasn't important enough for us to prep for so we didn't. 2 of my kids got in and 1 is too young, but had it been important to us, we would have prepped with no guilt. I can say with 100% certainty when the time comes we WILL do SAT prep for every single child. I had SAT prep, as did my husband. We got great scores and both went to Brown. I went on to get my JD from Harvard (with LSAT prep) and my DH got his MBA from Wharton at UPenn (he did GMAT prep). No guilt. No shame.

But a pathological need to trot out names of schools you attended as opposed to what you've contributed in life

My kid didn't prep for the PSAT or the SAT. He was a NMSF. So just because you needed to prep to get good scores, don't assume that everyone does.