Reply to DD behavior issues at school-- advice needed!

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Reply to "DD behavior issues at school-- advice needed!"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]^ sounds like you think AAP is the problem. For kids who cut out for it, it really isn't a problem.
Yeah, private school may be better for her. Maybe. But they have homework there too don't they?
Homework isn't fun, it's just something that has to be done. Learning this lesson did not give my kids a nervous breakdown - I think you went a bit overboard with that.[/quote]

Homework isn't always fun, but what I said was why give 50 problems when the child can learn it in 5? This is standard for FCPS public school gifted programs - more work = gifted. That's not the case. Busy work isn't learning, not by a longshot.

Colleges are starting to move away from SAT and ACT and other means of scoring kids - the trend is not to require them.  They are now looking for well-rounded kids because they are sick of seeing automatons. Think sending your kid to Habitat for Humanity will make them more appealing to colleges? Nope, because they are seeing this as a product of the parent telling the kid to jump through X or Y hoop, and not a product of the child's desire to actually help. And they would be right.

My DD is straight As and has wonderful friends and STILL hates her public high school because she says the teachers can't teach (she's right) and the homework is ridiculous, not because the work is hard but because it is a huge quantity. Not unusual for her to come home with a six page document of requirements for a 2 page essay. She spends more time trying to figure out if she's doing it right according to the anal-retentive rules then writing the actual paper. If one is asked to give one's interpretation of a particular part of a piece of literature and then is graded as to whether or not the teacher agrees with that interpretation, is that really learning? I say no.

My kids are in both public and private, so I am not an 'only private school' advocate. What I have noticed, however, is private schools focus on the whole child, i.e. they are required to do physical activity, clubs, art, etc and it is incorporated into the curriculum. This means the homework is balanced to compensate, because things are equally weighted. That takes a lot of the stress off the child. When stress is removed, learning is not impeded. It's not rocket science. When the kid applies to colleges, the college sees academics AND extras, i.e. sees balance.

I knew the public high school my DD attended was on the wrong path when they told me with pride that they offered stress seminars for the kids, but were doing nothing about adjusting their program to address the actual stress. Completely ridiculous.[/quote]

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