Professor here -- curious to hear parents' perspective on this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think I they should get their tuition back, because then you'll see more slacking off.

I think part of the problem is that many kids are loaded with tutors in high school. Then they get into a top school and they're on their own. I think parents shouldn't start the tutoring in the first place so that kids end up in colleges they can handle and they learn to count on themselves.

Really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another professor here and I hear you.

We have early alert processes but I don't find that strangers reaching out to students has any success in getting them to respond.

I share you experiments in futility but I continue to reach out. Stuff like "Hi Student, I've noticed you haven't come to the pats 5 classes. Are you ok? Do you need my help to get back on track?" has a decent track record of pulling some back if I follow through. But there are many who are just...disengaged. Those aren't gonna come back around, and I think at at certain point it's damaging to keep contacting them, so I let admin know and stop after a while.

There are a lot of reasons kids these days are more anxious and affected by poor mental health. High up on that list is that we're pushing more kids to the college path that perhaps are not equipped. No judgement there, but it obviously results in seeing more issues show up in college. I think its also more acceptable to talk about mental health, so we hear more about this instead of students just completely ghosting.

I do feel for them.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At some point enough is enough and adults need to do their work. Stop babying your kids in MS and HS and giving them an out for doing their assignments. COVID is zero excuse. As a parent you need to instill the values that assignments are turned in on time, if you need help ask, if you need more time, ask and help them as needed. Or, stop complaining when your kids fail out of school (baring real mental health issues, not this fake covid stuff) as you and the schools failed them early on. And, stop relying on the schools to parent your kids. This is a great teacher but teaches should be teaching not parenting adults.

I agree that our kids should not be babied in high school.

But with test and grade inflation, and the insanely competitive situation with colleges these days, kids can't afford to have lower grades if they want to go to a T20 college.

It's utterly stupid, but the numbers of applicants are so large that these colleges can't possibly interview and evaluate each student.

In the old days, a kid could get a C and still get into Harvard. Nowadays, a C rules out any T20 school.

And competitive colleges love the fact that they are deluged with applicants. It makes them feel special and elite to only accept 5% of their applicants when 99% of those kids applying are perfectly capable of performing well at those schools.

I'd like my kid to have the opportunity to get Cs in the classes she thinks are stupid (they are stupid!), but that's not possible. She has to get As in all those idiotic classes or doors will be closed to her, and I can't let that happen.

She knows this and understands it, but it's made her cynical about education at an early age.

Gently, why not? If the prerequisites for entering those doors are incredibly difficult for someone, perhaps what's behind those particular doors wouldn't be a good fit & other doors would be a better option anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think I they should get their tuition back, because then you'll see more slacking off.

I think part of the problem is that many kids are loaded with tutors in high school. Then they get into a top school and they're on their own. I think parents shouldn't start the tutoring in the first place so that kids end up in colleges they can handle and they learn to count on themselves.

AGREE.

I come from a MC family and was shocked when I learned (at a W school in Montgomery County) that when rich kids encounter any difficulty, their parents hire a one one one tutor.
With intensive one-on-one remediation, the kid usually pulls up their grade. But that is in no way a level playing field.

They have to either do the work, or ask the teacher for extra help (at lunch, like my kid did) OR accept that they are not going to a T 20school.
Those outcomes are ALL okay.

People on this site even discuss how to find tutors for kids away at college. People, this is not a sustainable plan longterm. Accept the child you have.

Tutoring at college is widely available. Most colleges we toured have a tutoring center, where students can get free peer tutoring. And writing centers are common too.

For kids that learn better with one-on-one attention, they may not be "as smart" as the kids who can just learn from the teacher in the classroom, but they are also entitled to an education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think I they should get their tuition back, because then you'll see more slacking off.

I think part of the problem is that many kids are loaded with tutors in high school. Then they get into a top school and they're on their own. I think parents shouldn't start the tutoring in the first place so that kids end up in colleges they can handle and they learn to count on themselves.

AGREE.

I come from a MC family and was shocked when I learned (at a W school in Montgomery County) that when rich kids encounter any difficulty, their parents hire a one one one tutor.
With intensive one-on-one remediation, the kid usually pulls up their grade. But that is in no way a level playing field.

They have to either do the work, or ask the teacher for extra help (at lunch, like my kid did) OR accept that they are not going to a T 20school.
Those outcomes are ALL okay.

People on this site even discuss how to find tutors for kids away at college. People, this is not a sustainable plan longterm. Accept the child you have.

Tutoring at college is widely available. Most colleges we toured have a tutoring center, where students can get free peer tutoring. And writing centers are common too.

For kids that learn better with one-on-one attention, they may not be "as smart" as the kids who can just learn from the teacher in the classroom, but they are also entitled to an education.

I was just coming here to say that, if one wants a college tutor, there will be no issue getting it.

And for many it has nothing to do with "smart" but how they learn (group setting with a teacher catering to a bunch of people is not easy for some; but one-on-one they pick it up). Sorry, if my kid needs one-on-one, we can afford it so it is happening. That is regardless of whether or not that is "fair" to another kid or not.