Robert Frost beats Takoma Park in Mathcounts

[Anonymous]

I’ll just chime in from the land of normal parents that I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a 17-year-old to study for the SAT, and perfectly unreasonable for parents to make 10-year-olds do COGAT workbooks to get into magnet middle schools. I think there’s a clear difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll just chime in from the land of normal parents that I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a 17-year-old to study for the SAT, and perfectly unreasonable for parents to make 10-year-olds do COGAT workbooks to get into magnet middle schools. I think there’s a clear difference.

Which is what? This goes back to how American parents think studying an extra hour of math is "too much".

BTW, my kids didn't go to a prep class.

[Anonymous]

+1
I think those who complain and claim they look down on those who prep are jealous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1
I think those who complain and claim they look down on those who prep are jealous.

Not really but perhaps you believe Mozart was jealous of Salieri too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1
I think those who complain and claim they look down on those who prep are jealous.

Not really but perhaps you believe Mozart was jealous of Salieri too.

DP.. I don't think they are jealous. But, I think they think they are "better" because they don't push their kids to prep or an academic program. These same parents however may push their kids to practice the piano or sports more. IMO, not a lot of difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll just chime in from the land of normal parents that I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a 17-year-old to study for the SAT, and perfectly unreasonable for parents to make 10-year-olds do COGAT workbooks to get into magnet middle schools. I think there’s a clear difference.

Should the parents who send their 4 year old kids to ballet classes, baseball camp, soccer classes, or chess lessons be condemned?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll just chime in from the land of normal parents that I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a 17-year-old to study for the SAT, and perfectly unreasonable for parents to make 10-year-olds do COGAT workbooks to get into magnet middle schools. I think there’s a clear difference.

Should the parents who send their 4 year old kids to ballet classes, baseball camp, soccer classes, or chess lessons be condemned?

No, because those are things that have standalone value, and where you learn mastery through such camps and classes. As someone getting a high score on the CoGAT would note, you're making a poor analogy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid got in. We’ve never heard of CogAT until DC told us. Never heard of the distasteful Dr. Li either. I don’t understand why so many parents (and some teachers) I guess are so obsessed with math competitions. My kid has no real interests in math. So what?!

Has to support the pp. Seriously, how much math you need to do your job? Why is Mathcounts such a big deal at DCUM? DD was accepted to both eastern and TP. She is good at lots of things but math definitely does not click with her. She chose TP. I am not worried. Didn’t Thomas Edison hate math too?

I'm not a "prepper" and not a TPMS parent (or Frost parent), but I can't believe you're throwing shade at math generally and the general usefulness of math. I'm in a non-math field, and we use math CONSTANTLY. It drives me absolutely batty the number of Americans that can't think about numbers in any sort of intelligent way and think that math is just for the mathematicians. I wish I was better at it, and think it's phenomenal that these kids want to spend their time thinking about numbers. Good for them! We should only encourage this, not crap all over it. Mathcounts is one of many great options to make math a fun and attractive extracurricular for many kids -- that's a good thing!

+1000 ! Math = thinking, PP is hopefully a troll and not crazy enough to think that their DD will be fine without understanding math, especially in the TPMS program.

Mathcounts = thinking in a predefined way. Those skills can be acquired if you try hard enough to go through all the tricks. But why wasting the time??? I am glad TP “lost” to Frost. We can focus on something more useful.

Also glad that MCPS changed the selection process. It should do the same to Blair.

I really hope you are a troll. Such a weird way of describing kids who love math. I know many of these kids and have seen their creativity and problem solving skills. Blair Math classes are loud affairs where the students and teacher engage in spirited exchanges about Math and logic. It is hard work and you do need to practice to master concepts but it is also highly intellectual and can be creative. You are training your brain to think in new ways and to make increasingly complex connections. Many of these kids are also great at English and History.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll just chime in from the land of normal parents that I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a 17-year-old to study for the SAT, and perfectly unreasonable for parents to make 10-year-olds do COGAT workbooks to get into magnet middle schools. I think there’s a clear difference.

Should the parents who send their 4 year old kids to ballet classes, baseball camp, soccer classes, or chess lessons be condemned?

No, because those are things that have standalone value, and where you learn mastery through such camps and classes. As someone getting a high score on the CoGAT would note, you're making a poor analogy.

One could state that prepping is helping to learn "mastery" in academics. Do you never send your kids to any kind of enrichment type summer camp where they learn to code or learn about science? Sure, that can be more "fun", but it's still "prepping" your kid for academics.

I used to think like you.. that prep classes were terrible. But, I thought about how we send our kids to all kinds of different summer camps and enrichment classes that probably end up helping them in academics (coding camps; science camps; DD loves to write and went to an after school PTA sponsored creative writing class.. this was her idea). I have bought them singapore workbooks from amazon; printed out free math worksheets for them to practice when they were younger; they go on khan academy and do math, sometimes on their own, sometimes from prodding by me; I encourage them to read, take them to the library; I also made my kids take piano lessons because I know it helps in academics even though they absolutely loathe piano, though they are pretty good at it.

... really, is any of that all that different to prep type classes? Sure, the prep type classes have one goal, but at the end of the day, we do all the other stuff for our kids to ensure that they do the best that they can in school in hopes of them getting into a good college. IMO, making your kid go to prep classes is not that different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll just chime in from the land of normal parents that I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a 17-year-old to study for the SAT, and perfectly unreasonable for parents to make 10-year-olds do COGAT workbooks to get into magnet middle schools. I think there’s a clear difference.

Should the parents who send their 4 year old kids to ballet classes, baseball camp, soccer classes, or chess lessons be condemned?

No, because those are things that have standalone value, and where you learn mastery through such camps and classes. As someone getting a high score on the CoGAT would note, you're making a poor analogy.

One could state that prepping is helping to learn "mastery" in academics. Do you never send your kids to any kind of enrichment type summer camp where they learn to code or learn about science? Sure, that can be more "fun", but it's still "prepping" your kid for academics.

I used to think like you.. that prep classes were terrible. But, I thought about how we send our kids to all kinds of different summer camps and enrichment classes that probably end up helping them in academics (coding camps; science camps; DD loves to write and went to an after school PTA sponsored creative writing class.. this was her idea). I have bought them singapore workbooks from amazon; printed out free math worksheets for them to practice when they were younger; they go on khan academy and do math, sometimes on their own, sometimes from prodding by me; I encourage them to read, take them to the library; I also made my kids take piano lessons because I know it helps in academics even though they absolutely loathe piano, though they are pretty good at it.

... really, is any of that all that different to prep type classes? Sure, the prep type classes have one goal, but at the end of the day, we do all the other stuff for our kids to ensure that they do the best that they can in school in hopes of them getting into a good college. IMO, making your kid go to prep classes is not that different.

To be clear, I don't have a problem with prep in general. I just don't like it for CoGAT, WISC, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll just chime in from the land of normal parents that I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a 17-year-old to study for the SAT, and perfectly unreasonable for parents to make 10-year-olds do COGAT workbooks to get into magnet middle schools. I think there’s a clear difference.

Should the parents who send their 4 year old kids to ballet classes, baseball camp, soccer classes, or chess lessons be condemned?

No, because those are things that have standalone value, and where you learn mastery through such camps and classes. As someone getting a high score on the CoGAT would note, you're making a poor analogy.

One could state that prepping is helping to learn "mastery" in academics. Do you never send your kids to any kind of enrichment type summer camp where they learn to code or learn about science? Sure, that can be more "fun", but it's still "prepping" your kid for academics.

I used to think like you.. that prep classes were terrible. But, I thought about how we send our kids to all kinds of different summer camps and enrichment classes that probably end up helping them in academics (coding camps; science camps; DD loves to write and went to an after school PTA sponsored creative writing class.. this was her idea). I have bought them singapore workbooks from amazon; printed out free math worksheets for them to practice when they were younger; they go on khan academy and do math, sometimes on their own, sometimes from prodding by me; I encourage them to read, take them to the library; I also made my kids take piano lessons because I know it helps in academics even though they absolutely loathe piano, though they are pretty good at it.

... really, is any of that all that different to prep type classes? Sure, the prep type classes have one goal, but at the end of the day, we do all the other stuff for our kids to ensure that they do the best that they can in school in hopes of them getting into a good college. IMO, making your kid go to prep classes is not that different.

To be clear, I don't have a problem with prep in general. I just don't like it for CoGAT, WISC, etc.

Why? I honestly don't understand what difference it makes. All of what was stated above is about training your brain. How is prepping for something like Cogat really any different?

I bought a cogat prep book for my kids because they wanted to prepare for it. I had never seen one before this. For the most part, it's about familiarizing yourself with certain types of questions, and how you look at a problem. If you've never seen certain types of questions before you won't necessarily know how to answer it. Even MCPS gives out sample cogat questions. I see no problem with going to a class that teaches you how to look at a problem a certain way, like understanding patterns.

[Anonymous]

The problem with all. this prep is it makes a mediocre student look like a good candidate for programs like the magnet but when they get there they just slow everyone else down because they're actually just a mediocre kid with pushy parents.

[Anonymous]

Everyone on this thread is aware that we're talking about middle school, right? I'm having a hard time understanding how people get super invested in this. College, sure. High school, probably not. But middle school? No way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem with all. this prep is it makes a mediocre student look like a good candidate for programs like the magnet but when they get there they just slow everyone else down because they're actually just a mediocre kid with pushy parents.

So which one is it? Frost beats Takoma because Takoma kids were prepped and couldn’t perform well? Or they are truly gifted, according to MCPS, and simply don’t care about Mathcounts? You cannot have it both ways.

[Anonymous]

According to several TP parents there is a general lack of math talents among the current 7th graders who got in under the new selection process. I guess that their poor performance in math contests kind of confirms it. Sounds like the new selection process favors the mediocre kids who have been prepped, correct?