Tj teachers - Be prepared!
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Anonymous
...... wow. |
Anonymous
+1. Junior year with 4 APs and a post-AP I maybe upped that average to 3-4 hours/night sometimes. I played 2 school sports and trained for one outside of school, was in both school and church choir, had a weekend job (half days on Saturdays). These parents who force "excellence" on their (perfectly great!) average kids and then are surprised when it almost breaks them...you're the real problem with TJ. |
Anonymous
+100. Thank you for your perspective. |
Anonymous
He absolutely did. But he worked so hard and slept so little. And it was a wake up call his freshman year when he had a band concert and felt sick and missed a project checkin deadline the next day, and the teacher listened to him explain, flunked him and didn’t care. My kid was solidly middle of the class and had some Cs in math. Which was fine. He’s at a great college that is an amazing fit right now. And sure, he got into Pitt and WM. But 90 hours a week and UVA or an Ivy, no so much. I really have concerns about three things: (1) they appear to have chosen kids specifically based on the fact they did not do extra work. The taking A1 over Geometry kids is perplexing, because all kids get screened for Algebra in 7th and they failed the screener. Or didn’t want to push themselves outside their academic comfort zone. Geometry in 8th can happen with no prepping. And you need basic calculus to taken standard, non-AP physics as a junior. He may not have prepped, but in MS my kid did a state level EC asking 20+ hours a week at a TJ feeder, so he had some idea. And yet, we considered having him drop back first semester because of the time demands. I’m sure some kids will swim. I’m equally sure more kids than usual will drop back. And dropping back from TJ has a stigma, at least in my kid’s base school (younger kid did not want to go to TJ). There is the whispering and gossip and watching the kid to see what they do. It isn’t a small thing for a kid not to hack it. Some kids are so relieved they are out that they don’t care, but for many, it’s a real problem, especially since they didn’t start school with their peers. (2). I am unclear on how you make TJ work for ESOL kids. If they need English support, how do they deal with being handed a dense AP Bio test book Day 1 freshman year, being told to read the first chapter, and then take a super picky Bio quiz? If they can get ESOL kids through without watering down expectations, great. But honestly, given the density of the materials and expectations in even Freshman English to write a significant research paper, I don’t see how. Plus, let’s be honest, many of the TJ don’t have English as a first language. My very English kid spent sophomore year catching about 2/3 of the words his Chemistry teacher said. (3’). TJ runs on carpools. Often a parent doing a three hour round trip drive. And, they got rid of neighborhood busing. If you want to bring in a class that’s 25% FARMs, you need to realize that doing drop off and pickup at bus depots and multiple hour round trips if you kid has a group project, wants to see a friend, gets sick or has an EC will be a problem. FARMs kids are likely to have parents working shifts, may not have reliable transportation and gas is expensive. If they want FARMs to work, the SB needs to go back to neighborhood busing, add a late bus every day and have sports, band, drama, clubs, kids in the school working all end at the same time. Managing TJ transportation is a lot if you have a SAHM. And really, really tough if both parents work in UMC, professional jobs (hand raised). I don’t see how it’s possible for many FARMs families. And, once again, the solution to FARMs kids and transportation isn’t to keep FARMs kids out. It is to increase FCPS busing. But the SB hasn’t even thought through and budgeted for something as that. Just like they threw ESOL kids at TJ who must pass IBET and 2 years of HUM to graduate, but haven’t articulated a plan for how that will work. You can do things the smart way, with building a pipeline and adding supports in schools for less advantaged kids. Or you can slapdash and make a bunch of big changes in a COvId year ecause you care about the appearance of making a change more than having the change actually work. They were heavy on the buzz words with this plan and very light on actual implementation. But, that’s how this Board has riled all year. That’s my issue. Not that’s are making changes, but that they are doing so poorly, with little thought and without thinking through the downstream issue and the long term ramifications. I’m glad my kid is out. |
Anonymous
This is very true in some cases. Definately the math department, which is TJs weakest. And some of the intro lab science teachers. |
Anonymous
Okay, so what was your weekly schedule? Looks like 80-90:hours a week, all in, yes? |
Anonymous
PP. These are fantastic points and I'm really enjoying the conversation. I agree that they're placing a gigantic load on the school to create those support structures and while there are some folks there in the administration who will be supportive, there are others from the Glazer regime that still have very much a sink-or-swim attitude. Let me try to address each of the points: 1) I'm gonna guess that, while the number and percentage of Alg1 kids will increase significantly with this class, it's not going to be quite as overwhelming as many think. When I went to TJ, the Physics 1 and Pre-Calc curricula tracked pretty well together so that students would have the tools they needed to succeed in Physics. Given that about 50-60% of the class was Alg1 back then, this was a necessity. I don't know how well those two track nowadays, as seemingly fewer and fewer students each year actually take Physics 1 to begin with and jump to AP right off the bat, but obviously that will change somewhat with this group. More kids than usual will definitely drop back, but many of them will be dropping back to communities where leaving TJ is far less of a stigma than it is for the traditional feeders. 2) I agree with you 100% that TJ is not designed for ESOL students. That is going to be a huge problem, depending on how significant the deficit in English is. Again - completely dependent on the attitudes of the folks in Student Services. 3) One of the realities of the new geographic distribution is that you will have a significant increase in the number of students who actually live relatively close to TJ - schools that were traditionally underserved, and where the balance of the FARMs kids are coming from, are in neighborhoods 10-15 minutes from the school. Bus depots are going to have to change significantly to handle these numbers. And you're spot on that they'll realize quickly that they need to add daily late buses. Additionally, they'll need to relax significantly on the policy that was borne of the renovation where everyone needs to be out of the building by 4:30 unless they're with a sports team or some other EC. There will be kids who need to stay after for whatever reason, maybe for extra help in a class or something, and those kids will need to wait for their parents to be done with their 9-5. TJ used to have an extremely vibrant after-school hangout culture that did wonders for student health and morale - bringing that back would be a huge plus. |
Anonymous
I heard one of the kids invented the machine that teaches the new kids and the teachers just hang out in the lounge all day! |
Anonymous
Let's do the math: - I left around 7:15 to get to school by 8. Hung out with friends or did last-minute studying 8-8:30 - School day 8:30-4 - Sports practice 4:30-6 - Commute home/dinner 6-7 - Homework 7-10 - Sleep 10-6 (8 hours!) So that's a roughly 15 hour day, including conservative estimates of 1.5 hours of commuting and 3 hours of homework, as well as at least an hour/day of unscheduled down time at school. I didn't do homework on Friday nights but did have meets, so we'll call that a wash and say the week is 15 x 5 = 75 hours. 4-6 hours of homework + 4 hours of weekend job + 2 hours for church choir/service = 10-12 more hours of weekend commitments. Total 85-87 hours...but absent the commuting (7.5-8 hours/week), I don't see how this schedule would have been much different than if I had been doing the full IB program at my base school...? |
Anonymous
This is a pretty common story for the kids who are maximizing their TJ experience. I took issue with the person who talked about 90 hour workweeks because my assumption was that they were referring to 90 hours a week of pure academics. This is indeed the case for some, but it tracks neatly with the students who only were admitted because of prep - which is a SUBSET of all of the prepped kids. Many students who prepped didn't need it and wasted their money/time/resources because they would have gotten in anyway. The kids who got into TJ because of prep end up being the ones who pay for outside tutoring and spend inordinate amounts of time studying to try to get the same A that comes (relatively more) easily to the kids who actually belong at TJ. |
Anonymous
Wow, that’s a phone it sports commitment. I did 4 years of band pickup at 7:30 and there was always a full parking lot with parents of kids from several sports. By HS very few kids are getting by on 6 hours a week of sports practice. Maybe the football team that lost to deaf school if it’s Friday night? Anyway, your EC commitments are very light. Plus, I’m not seeing Church choir, TJ choir, outside of school sports blocked off. |
Anonymous
You don't know what you're talking about. At TJ the vast majority of athletic teams practice 1.5-2 hours per evening with 1-2 contests per week depending on the sport that replace the practice time on that day. Because of the limited space, some teams practice 4:30-6 while others might practice 6-7:30 - the latter kids usually do homework from 4-6 and in many cases are done before they even get home. |
Anonymous
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Wow - a thread that bashes teachers *and* students.
Impressive, OP. You're a POS. |
Anonymous
+1000. |
Anonymous
my child also enjoys sports ball contests. Clearly you have experience in this area |