White privilege and asian-bashing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not all South Asian or East Asian immigrants to US are MC or UMC.

And not tiger parents are Asian.
Still the phenomenon exists.
Tiger parents come to good school districts in droves and[b] disrupt them.[/b] It’s about the numbers, the concentration of ppl with a different philosophy.
Not about their ethnicity or race or class.

This is a load of BS. There is something inherently wrong if a school cannot accommodate high achievers. The Tiger Parents are not kidnapping other people's children and making them study hard. I think people are upset because their children were getting easy A's and all of a sudden they are being graded in a curve.

A good school district should welcome Tiger parents and students. MCPS is not thriving when instead of Tiger parents they are getting more and more of ESOL, FARMS and low performing kids.

A good school district will expand opportunities. If you had spelling bees before, include Geography, Biology, Science, Literature Bees, Cinema Bee, Sports Bee, Pop Music Bee too,

If you had school newspaper before, include school comic strip. If you had a Green Recycling Team before, include a Butterfly Garden club, a Blue Bird Trail team There is so much a school district can do to include parents and businesses and create more and more opportunities for all caliber of students.

After a point though, parents have to be inconvenienced and make the sacrifice of their time and resources to support their children. Sorry, that is what good human parenting is about.

Yes I am upset when one culture (that you chose) suddenly is overcome by another.
I am upset when it happens to schools suddenly flooded by low income high needs kids, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Slightly off-topic, but I find it hilarious that “equity” in school systems is now this HUGE nation-wide thing, just now when Asians are dominating. Like, no one really cared during the many decades when whites were at the top. Now they’re not so all of a sudden they have to take away the meritocracies and replace them with “equity”

Whites are good students too.
FYI!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Slightly off-topic, but I find it hilarious that “equity” in school systems is now this HUGE nation-wide thing, just now when Asians are dominating. Like, no one really cared during the many decades when whites were at the top. Now they’re not so all of a sudden they have to take away the meritocracies and replace them with “equity”

Whites are good students too.
FYI!

Not as good as Asians. They have much less to lose and arguably can gain.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think there is anything wrong with supplementing your child’s education. That is your right.

But a child, or rather their parent, should not be rewarded with special treatment by pushing their kid ahead in the standard curriculum.

Let Aiden study algebra in 5th grade with daddy. But he will not study algebra I in school until 7th grade—along with the other bright kids who had supplementation or not.

No ifs ands or buts.

This argument that because you’ve tutored a child ahead of the curriculum she is deserving of more advanced work needs to die.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think there is anything wrong with supplementing your child’s education. That is your right.

But a child, or rather their parent, should not be rewarded with special treatment by pushing their kid ahead in the standard curriculum.

Let Aiden study algebra in 5th grade with daddy. But he will not study algebra I in school until 7th grade—along with the other bright kids who had supplementation or not.

No ifs ands or buts.

This argument that because you’ve tutored a child ahead of the curriculum she is deserving of more advanced work needs to die.

Not every kids can be tutored to learn Algebra in 5th grade, even Asian students. Most asian students follow the school curriculum but some of them could lmaster the conceot fast than their peers and are able to go deeper with outside learning.

When my DD was in MCPS, multiplication table was taught in 3rd grade. The kids were drilled everyday morning for 5 minutes and could move up steps if they pass the same level twice. DD was able to move from level A to the highest level in 7 weeks but most of her class took more than 12 weeks to reach the highest level. I assume most kids including mine never saw the multiplication table before 3rd grade.
Yes, we helped her at home because she was so excited about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This must be somewhere in western Fairfax County. That’s where credentialism is is carried to its most bizarre extremes, both by school obsessed Asians and school obsessed whites.

Right? What is with labeling children by degrees of "giftedness"? That is insane and dehumanizing.

It’s weird and it does strange things to parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I take OP’s point that tying things to race or culture is not necessary. A school can say that they are taking steps to help children avoid stress without indicting Asian-American families in the same statement. The phrase “tiger mom” is so loaded and easily avoided.

I can also understand that a school does see shifting norms, for whatever reasons, and find challenges in responding to those. But schools used to deal with different challenges like seniors having legal access to beer and students taking smoke breaks. Then came cultural shifts like elite athletes coming in fatigued from early morning practice or travel teams. There will always be things happening in the world outside of school that schools need to respond to. I wish administrators had greater emotional intelligence and knew what was out of their control.

In much the same way that varsity sports aren’t for everyone, the spelling or geography bees won’t be appropriate for everyone either. Perhaps the solution isn’t trying to exert more control over others but to create more opportunities for fun competition, akin to JV and club sports. It stinks that we guard these opportunities as if they’re limited resources instead of expanding the opportunities (unless perhaps the point is to sneer at and detract from those we fear may be more talented than ourselves).

NP - Yes, it is unnecessary to tie comments to race, but let's be serious. The comment about immigrants coming from a different system of education is true. It is well documented that many kids suffer from the intense pressure of the educational systems in China, Japan and South Korea (and we could argue about the ultimate educational outcomes of those systems as well.) Parents move here and want to re-create the system that they had at home, and which we as a country have consciously avoided. Those immigrant parents have every right to choose their children's extracurriculars, and to advocate for changes in public school, but the existing population has every right to resist those changes as well. That isn't white privilege (and those resisting may not even be white, they may be second generation Asians, etc.); that is making another judgment about what is valuable for childhood. Not everything is about race.

I do not think Asian parents are pushing their beliefs on others. If they want to provide outside support because that is important to them, they should be able to do so without criticism. As a mother of Asian/white children it has been troubling to have people say things like you get good grades because you are Asian. We have had this happen with teachers, classmates and other parents. This discredits hard work on their part and creates a non-inclusive environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think there is anything wrong with supplementing your child’s education. That is your right.

But a child, or rather their parent, should not be rewarded with special treatment by pushing their kid ahead in the standard curriculum.

Let Aiden study algebra in 5th grade with daddy. But he will not study algebra I in school until 7th grade—along with the other bright kids who had supplementation or not.

No ifs ands or buts.

This argument that because you’ve tutored a child ahead of the curriculum she is deserving of more advanced work needs to die.

But why do you care what the school does with Aiden? How does it hurt your child at all if Aiden is allowed to take Algebra early? Why isn't it a better model to try to teach kids where they are, rather than having they waste their time at school? What if Aiden is actually highly gifted in math and not just the product of tutoring? Do you also feel that all kids in Kindergarten should have to sit through letter sounds and BOB books even if they're already independently reading chapter books, because that would be an equivalent case of rewarding kids with special treatment for having parents who read to them and taught them to read?

Admit it. You don't want other kids to be pushed ahead because you feel like it makes your kid look worse in comparison. You're still clinging to the notion that your child deserves to be the best.

[Anonymous]

11:24 PP here. This is what I'm not understanding about your argument. Let's assume that the most appropriate math track for your child is pre-Algebra in 6th, Algebra in 7th, Geometry in 8th, and so on. If the school starts testing kids and letting those who meet a benchmark take Algebra in 6th, how does that hurt your kid? Your kid is still going to take the same classes and learn the same content regardless.

PP seems to think that her bright child deserves to be in the highest track for everything without putting in any effort. If other kids are doing any outside enrichment and are more advanced than her child, those kids should be held back and have to waste their time in school so her child can still be in the top group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think there is anything wrong with supplementing your child’s education. That is your right.

But a child, or rather their parent, should not be rewarded with special treatment by pushing their kid ahead in the standard curriculum.

Let Aiden study algebra in 5th grade with daddy. But he will not study algebra I in school until 7th grade—along with the other bright kids who had supplementation or not.

No ifs ands or buts.

This argument that because you’ve tutored a child ahead of the curriculum she is deserving of more advanced work needs to die.

But why do you care what the school does with Aiden? How does it hurt your child at all if Aiden is allowed to take Algebra early? Why isn't it a better model to try to teach kids where they are, rather than having they waste their time at school? What if Aiden is actually highly gifted in math and not just the product of tutoring? Do you also feel that all kids in Kindergarten should have to sit through letter sounds and BOB books even if they're already independently reading chapter books, because that would be an equivalent case of rewarding kids with special treatment for having parents who read to them and taught them to read?

Admit it. You don't want other kids to be pushed ahead because you feel like it makes your kid look worse in comparison. You're still clinging to the notion that your child deserves to be the best.

Aiden is not highly gifted in math. He’s doing algebra with dad in 5th grade—not advanced calculus.

School can not operate this way because too many parents will want to rush their kids through math. The kids who are rushed through will suffer. It affects the school and the teachers who have to teach these kids later and find out they have been rushed through. Hopefully it doesn’t affect the actual level of instruction for other kids but I think we can all imagining how it might.

It’s not about comparisons. Surely you understand quicker or earlier does not equal smarter. I think parents like you are the ones who have an obsession with being the best. Aiden is the best because he was skipped into algebra I in 6th grade? That’s validation for parents who need that sort of thing. It’s a way for Aiden to be the best without him actually being the best.

Aiden doesn’t look as advanced when he’s with his peers in 7th grade Algebra I. He may still shine in that class, or other kids may outshine him in that class because the have a deeper understanding. Even if he’s taking the next year’s math class with a tutor those same-aged, non-tutored kids may outshine him in his school class and I think that’s a source of anxiety for his parents. Much better to just keep pushing ahead... get the skip and rest on those laurels.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Aiden taking the normal math sequence in school. It’s not a race.

My oldest did enter kindergarten reading chapter books. They did not skip her into 4th grade reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Aiden is not highly gifted in math. He’s doing algebra with dad in 5th grade—not advanced calculus.

School can not operate this way because too many parents will want to rush their kids through math. The kids who are rushed through will suffer. It affects the school and the teachers who have to teach these kids later and find out they have been rushed through. Hopefully it doesn’t affect the actual level of instruction for other kids but I think we can all imagining how it might.

It’s not about comparisons. Surely you understand quicker or earlier does not equal smarter. I think parents like you are the ones who have an obsession with being the best. Aiden is the best because he was skipped into algebra I in 6th grade? That’s validation for parents who need that sort of thing. It’s a way for Aiden to be the best without him actually being the best.

Aiden doesn’t look as advanced when he’s with his peers in 7th grade Algebra I. He may still shine in that class, or other kids may outshine him in that class because the have a deeper understanding. Even if he’s taking the next year’s math class with a tutor those same-aged, non-tutored kids may outshine him in his school class and I think that’s a source of anxiety for his parents. Much better to just keep pushing ahead... get the skip and rest on those laurels.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Aiden taking the normal math sequence in school. It’s not a race.

My oldest did enter kindergarten reading chapter books. They did not skip her into 4th grade reading.

Again, why do you care what Aiden is doing? I doubt you're just altrustic enough to be looking out for Aiden's best interests, so your main concern seems to be that Aiden is getting a higher placement than your kid.

Schools can clamp down on rushing kids through by having rigorous pre-tests. If Aiden has mastered the material that is to be taught in that grade, it's a waste of time teaching him things he's already mastered. If he hasn't mastered the material, but instead just knows it reasonably well, then he shouldn't pass the pre-test. FWIW, in FCPS the kids who take Algebra in 6th have to pass a bunch of tests showing that they're ready. They don't just take the parent's word for it. Kids who have been studying Algebra with their dad would be unlikely to pass the tests.

I'm not obsessed with being the best, but I also don't understand trying to control other people. My kids are both very naturally talented at music. By talent alone, they should be the ones getting solos or making it to the best orchestras in middle school. But, there are many kids in their schools who have been taking private lessons for years and who practice at least an hour every day. Those kids are much more advanced than my kids and will get all of the good orchestra slots and solos. I'm not going to whine that it's unfair or try to make those other kids (mostly Asians, incidentally) practice less. We've accepted that other families have prioritized music more than we have, and we accept that we don't get to be the best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Aiden taking the normal math sequence in school. It’s not a race.

My oldest did enter kindergarten reading chapter books. They did not skip her into 4th grade reading.

If Aiden already knows how to multiply fractions, the teacher should at least give him some challenge problems and not make him slog through the same basic worksheets as the kids who don't understand the material. A good teacher should do a pre-test and give appropriate enrichment materials to the kids who already know the content being taught. If Aiden is so far ahead that it's appropriate to skip him, then school should do that. They shouldn't try to scrutinize why he's that far ahead or whether skipping him is "fair" to everyone else. Kids should not be placed in a class in which they will learn absolutely nothing.

My kid entered K reading around the same level as yours. They didn't skip him ahead, but they did group him in a much higher reading group and let him read things at his level. It would have accomplished nothing, other than making him hate school, if he had to slog through BOB books with the rest of the class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“White parents were accustomed to having their kids shine at everything without working hard. Then, people came along who worked harder and won everything. Rather than developing a work ethic and investing more time into activities, the white parents complain about Asians prepping and "ruining their children's childhood" with too much school. This sentiment is very obvious if you read the AAP forum. There is a huge cultural divide at play, since Asian families are more impressed by work ethic while white ones are more impressed by natural aptitude. ”

White mom here. Yes you are right. I want my kids to have a childhood that does not feel like drill school. I also am not a fan of travel sports teams for most kids as they seem ridiculous over investment of time/money vs enjoying playing the sport for fun.

I do not want to be in an atmosphere where my kid needs to drill for hours to keep up with the top vs doing a normal amount of work and letting aptitude help them along.

I do not think those other parents are bad parents. I just do not want that environment for my kids. We picked a more “normal” (for America) school zone and are happy with the non-extreme level of competitiveness.

NP here. I agree with you. But, you don't have the right to enforce your standards and your choices on other families. If you want a more relaxed atmosphere, then you should be fine if your child is tracked out of the advanced classes. The advanced classses would be for those children who are advanced. There is room for the advanced classes, the good ahead/at grade level the average and the remedial level. If your atmosphere where children enjoy more of their childhood means that your child is tracked out of the advanced classes, then that is your choice. Those families who want to give their children more tutoring and more educational workouts are no different from the families that want their children to excel at music or sports. There are families who spend a lot of time and money on music instruction to ensure their child makes it into music competitions. There are those who spend time and money on trainers and gym memberships and facilities so that their child can be an advanced skater or track star or football star or gymnastics star.

If you are going to restrict outside training and tutoring in the academics, then you better be prepared to do the same for athletics and artistic training and tutoring. And while I agree that you shouldn't force children into this stressful training and tutoring, I don't agree that you should restrict other families from making those choices. And if that means that your naturally gifted but untutored child falls into the good but not advanced classes, so be it.

What gets me is that the families complaining are ones who have smart or naturally gifted children who they feel entitled to be at the top and in the best classes, and they feel that the top classes and most advanced classes should be defined by their children, not defined by other children who are more educated than theirs.

I am not talking about banning those families from supplementing. But the school should not expect - and set advanced class requirements - to align with kids needing to do ridiculous amounts of cramming. Homework yes, studying of course. But not extra schooling at home to the point the kids have a double shift. If that means the kids who are also “home schooling” or study centering on top of the school day are board,well they can stop spending every blessed hour studying or they can go private.

I also strongly agree with a PP above who said that the parents who dislike the shift in school environment have every right to complain. Now that said,again I am the PO that kept this I mind when house hunting and I a happy with where on the spectrum our schools fall in terms of competitiveness vs kids getting to be kids.

this is so hilarious. I'm going to cut and paste it the next time some white parent complains that their "advanced learner" is not receiving "differentiation" at their Title 1 school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not all South Asian or East Asian immigrants to US are MC or UMC.

And not tiger parents are Asian.
Still the phenomenon exists.
Tiger parents come to good school districts in droves and[b] disrupt them.[/b] It’s about the numbers, the concentration of ppl with a different philosophy.
Not about their ethnicity or race or class.

This is a load of BS. There is something inherently wrong if a school cannot accommodate high achievers. The Tiger Parents are not kidnapping other people's children and making them study hard. I think people are upset because their children were getting easy A's and all of a sudden they are being graded in a curve.

A good school district should welcome Tiger parents and students. MCPS is not thriving when instead of Tiger parents they are getting more and more of ESOL, FARMS and low performing kids.

A good school district will expand opportunities. If you had spelling bees before, include Geography, Biology, Science, Literature Bees, Cinema Bee, Sports Bee, Pop Music Bee too,

If you had school newspaper before, include school comic strip. If you had a Green Recycling Team before, include a Butterfly Garden club, a Blue Bird Trail team There is so much a school district can do to include parents and businesses and create more and more opportunities for all caliber of students.

After a point though, parents have to be inconvenienced and make the sacrifice of their time and resources to support their children. Sorry, that is what good human parenting is about.

Yes I am upset when one culture (that you chose) suddenly is overcome by another.
I am upset when it happens to schools suddenly flooded by low income high needs kids, too.

white supremacist

[Anonymous]

PP again. My DD's school skipped a handful of 6th graders ahead into Algebra. Some of them are probably the products of tutoring. My DD is not one of the kids who skipped ahead. I still don't see why I should care about what the other kids are doing. If they succeed and look better to colleges than my DD, then good for them. If they have poor foundations in math and fail later, it's not my problem.