Reply to Where do Professors Send Their Children?

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Where do Professors Send Their Children?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a law school prof and we definitely have it good.

Only think I can add to the question of where to send kids to school: mine are at a progressive private that gets a very self-selecting applicant pool. It's a school that often gets derided by the more uptight DCUMers as "indufficiently rigorous," which mostly seems to mean that the kids don't get enough homework, don't take enough tests, and have too much fun.

As someone who spends most weekdays with extraordinarily bright young men and women from extraordinarily rigorous high schools and colleges, I see a lot of anxious, obsessive people who are all about hard work and more than a little lacking in the intellectual curiosty and playfulness department. Some of most talented and interesting students are the ones who did not come from this kind of high pressure background--  the ones who drifted around for a bit and somehow or other, God help them, still found their way to law school.

I'm already confident that my kids are bright. I want them to be at a school where their creativity and curiosity will be nurtured, not their competitive anxieties.  I would not send one of my kids either to Sidwell or St Albans or NCS if you paid me-- nor would I send one to any of the top-performing MoCo or NoVa publics. Too obsessively achievement oriented; too competitive. I don't want my kids to end up as miserable, highly-paid over-achieving lawyers with a raft of fancy diplomas on their walls: I'd much rather they be poorer but happier.[/quote]

I'm the law prof poster. Sorry, skeptics, even law professors make typos. This is a parenting forum, not the supreme ct or the yale law journal. And, well, this is kinda my point: if your idea of the perfect school is one that will turn out kids who never make spelling mistakes, then you're looking for something different than what we're looking for. good luck in your pursuit of perfect spelling and perfect test scores! I'll take happy kids who get enough sleep and enough playtime.

[/quote]

Being bright isn't enough, as you probably well know. It's how to combine brightness with drive and hard work -- this applies as much to someone in the social sector trying to change the world as it does to an associate on the partner track. While this combination of capabilities and skills may be innate in some kids, a lot of bright kids benefit from having a competitive cohort pushing them to work harder and do better.[/quote]

+1 This is why we moved from MCPS to private.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics