Middle School is Easy, But Does it Matter? (Not Deal)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, i think it's funny that you think Deal has high-level programming. The reality is, it doesn't. It's pretty darn easy to get straight As and the academic high flyers are not challenged in any way, outside of maybe math.
In math they offer 4 levels by grade 8 (math 8, algebra 1, geometry, algebra 2). I had 2 kids finish Algebra 2 at Deal and go on to private high school (Sidwell/NCS). They did well in math but the rest of the transition was a
crazy and rude awakening which Deal did not prepare them for. It took a full semester to rewire their brains to think and to get their organization skills up to par. The homework demand went from 30 minutes to 3 hours. My kids are still (several years later) not the best writers because
DCPS often does not (outside of some teachers) teach kids to write a top quality essay, analyze literary text, etc. We really like MANY things about DCPS and Deal specifically but we have moved our 3rd kid to private for middle
school because it's almost too late (or at the minimum rough) to make this jump in expectations at high school.

Did those problems partially rooted from students not being high performers, transfer trauma, unrealistic parental expectations or too much pressure at the new school?

I'm the poster your'e replying to. My kids are not prodigies but they did very well at Deal with minimal work, always scored 99% on the PARCC, etc.
The privates are just next level of work. My Deal kid last year went from reading 4 books at Deal to at least 8 in Freshman English and having to write 12+ papers. Exams are also essay in all subjects outside of math and science.
Deal had never taught him to write a literary analysis of the text. He could write a half decent essay (Thanks to his elementary school) but never really had to at Deal. The private school work load is also a giant step up: from 20 minutes (maybe?) at Deal to 3, 4 hours a night. Plus no retakes (ever---on any assignment) and no credit for late work.

I am not here to tout the wonders of private school as there are plusses and minuses (and that is another post) but private high school has highlighted how little work my kids did at Deal and honestly, how poorly they were prepared in all subjects outside of math.
This is both pre-covid and during covid (different kids).
So I'm not sure what the point of my post is except maybe to say to the OP that Deal is probably not much better than whatever school her kids attend. Because it's kind of weak academically. It has many other strengths (many extracurriculars, teachers that care, a committed principal, racial and
economic diversity, etc) but it's by no means a strong academic school with all sorts of differentiation. It's kind of bare-bones schooling.

When you say your kid does 3-4 hours of HW a night in MS, do you mean simply assigned academic work, or other HW + types of enrichment, too (e.g. practicing musical instruments, foreign language instruction and practice, reading independently, preparing for nerdy competitions like chess, debate etc.).

I would say that my 6th grader did 3-4 hours a night of HW + enrichment, attending a parochial school. As may know, there's a large corpus of academic research showing that more than around 2 hours of assigned academic HW a night for 11-14 year olds promotes diminishing returns on achievement. Kids start to burn out and joy of learning erodes, damaging what is perhaps the most vital tool in a family's intellectual tool box.

I went to Boston Latin from 7th-12th, and Ivies for undergrad and PhD. I don't remember doing four hours of HW a night on a regular basis, not in MS or HS.

[Anonymous]

The only thing Deal accelerates is math. So don't worry about not being at Deal. Middle School doesn't need to be hard, but the DCPS curriculum is just thin in terms of content. To get some perspective on what a rich curriculum looks like, take a look at the Core Knowledge Sequence for grades 6, 7, and 8, https://www.coreknowledge.org/our-approach/core-knowledge-sequence/ especially in history, geography, literature, music, and art history. If you see topics that your learner is interested in, you can download the units for free. https://www.coreknowledge.org/curriculum/history-geography/core-knowledge-history-and-geography-for-middle-school/ You could also take a look at Outschool, or some other online group to supplement.

[Anonymous]

Any insight on how well Basis prepares kids regarding essays and that sort of written analysis?

[Anonymous]

3-4 hours a night is for high school, not middle school. It's the typical amount at Sidwell, STA, NCS, GDS. I have high schoolers in 2 of these schools.
30-45 minutes in each of 5-6 subjects.

[Anonymous]

this is OP; part of it for me is, I don't actually want my kid to get some finance or biglaw job. The rat race is not for me and I'm not going to start my kid on the treadmill at 12 so that they can "have opportunities" like a finance job at 22, a biglaw partnership by 32, or academic tenure by 42. I don't see any of those meritocratic choices as lifestyle-friendly, so feel no need to enable them.

I get that some here want that for their kids, so try not to judge too harshly.

[Anonymous]

There is a reason for depression, drug use and suicide attempts among teenagers, social and social pressures, lack of sleep, pressure to do more from parents and college admission demands.

Ironically, kids can become successful without sacrificing their childhood, youth years and mental health.

[Anonymous]

*social and social media pressures

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a reason for depression, drug use and suicide attempts among teenagers, social and social pressures, lack of sleep, pressure to do more from parents and college admission demands.

Ironically, kids can become successful without sacrificing their childhood, youth years and mental health.

I'm the one with kids at two of those privates who give 3-4 hours of homework per night in high school. There are kids who absolutely thrive with this amount of work. They simply love to do school work and learn. They're a GREAT fit for this type of school. They're classic overachievers and will go on to demanding careers where they are actually reasonably happy working 50+ hour weeks and barely sleeping. I have one. School is never a burden. She sleeps 6 hours a night and wakes up refreshed. She grinds out the schoolwork and loves the process. Unfortunately there are other kids in these schools who are not a great fit. It can be miserable for them. I have one of these kids. He is in public and it's a much better fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a reason for depression, drug use and suicide attempts among teenagers, social and social pressures, lack of sleep, pressure to do more from parents and college admission demands.

Ironically, kids can become successful without sacrificing their childhood, youth years and mental health.

I'm the one with kids at two of those privates who give 3-4 hours of homework per night in high school. There are kids who absolutely thrive with this amount of work. They simply love to do school work and learn. They're a GREAT fit for this type of school. They're classic overachievers and will go on to demanding careers where they are actually reasonably happy working 50+ hour weeks and barely sleeping. I have one. School is never a burden. She sleeps 6 hours a night and wakes up refreshed. She grinds out the schoolwork and loves the process. Unfortunately there are other kids in these schools who are not a great fit. It can be miserable for them. I have one of these kids. He is in public and it's a much better fit.

FYI 6 hours of sleep is not enough for a HSer. The fact she’s trained herself to feel refreshed after that is evidence of chronic sleep deprivation, not an accomplishment. Seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:this is OP; part of it for me is, I don't actually want my kid to get some finance or biglaw job. The rat race is not for me and I'm not going to start my kid on the treadmill at 12 so that they can "have opportunities" like a finance job at 22, a biglaw partnership by 32, or academic tenure by 42. I don't see any of those meritocratic choices as lifestyle-friendly, so feel no need to enable them.

I get that some here want that for their kids, so try not to judge too harshly.

It’s not about that. It’s about challenging them, learning, and preparing them for high school and college.

I’m not in the rat race, chose not to although had opportunities. But getting a full academic scholarship in college with no debt absolutely gave me a leg up in life. Also being prepared for college made college easy and paved the way for med school.

None of the above would have happen if I wasn’t tracked and challenged in middle school and beyond.

I’m not saying to kill your kid but if school is too easy, then you need to look at more challenging curriculums. Things build upon each other starting in middle school and it becomes an additive effect if your kid is not advancing along. Little information not learned builds up from a mole to a mountain and then in college, he will be the kid very far behind.

[Anonymous]

Whatever happened to challenging yourself? I went to a less-than-challenging public middle school, but loved to read. I routinely read for a couple hours on a weekday afternoon in middle school. I also played instruments (including in a garage band) and sports, and acted in plays.

I'm a firm believer in middle school kids being allowed to explore interests in both structured and unstructured ways in the afternoons. We bailed on BASIS partly because we didn't care for how programmed our kid was there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:this is OP; part of it for me is, I don't actually want my kid to get some finance or biglaw job. The rat race is not for me and I'm not going to start my kid on the treadmill at 12 so that they can "have opportunities" like a finance job at 22, a biglaw partnership by 32, or academic tenure by 42. I don't see any of those meritocratic choices as lifestyle-friendly, so feel no need to enable them.

I get that some here want that for their kids, so try not to judge too harshly.

I don't know if you are trolling or if you're serious. I will say that my dad was a tenured professor, and it is one of the most lifestyle friendly careers a person can have.

[Anonymous]

To everyone saying that the only subject where Deal is special is math… how does IB affect the rest of the subjects? I assumed it meant they were more challenging than at other non-IB MS?

[Anonymous]

No, I'm serious. My small town high school was ranked in the bottom third in my state and my family wasn't well off. But our little town had an excellent Carnegie library where I spent a great deal of time from a young age. I scored 700s on the SAT and went to an Ivy (the only student in my graduating class to do so). I don't think that intellectually curious kids need to be spoon fed most of their reading material by a curriculum, particularly not here in the Information Age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To everyone saying that the only subject where Deal is special is math… how does IB affect the rest of the subjects? I assumed it meant they were more challenging than at other non-IB MS?

Any curriculum is obviously only as good as a school system, administrators, teachers and students. Unfortunately, Deal does IB Middle Years lite although it had the demographics to offer far more humanities rigor.