Reply to Current experience at Stuart Hobson?

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[quote=Anonymous]I don't know about kids from BASIS but I do know a number of academic, smart kids at SH. I know they do very well academically and often participate in the academic enrichment activities like History Day (SH offers a lot of after school programming which is a big draw both for parents and students).

My impression from talking to these kids is that it's actually a pretty typical public school experience -- they like school and are learning a lot, and also there are some behavioral issues and annoyances that they complain about. There are clearly some very committed teachers and kids are learning and the kids I'm talking to are at or above grade level. Two of them I know to be terrific writers because I have had the pleasure of reading their writing. All are big readers and as far as I can tell are on track with math.

I don't think this is the "average" experience at SH. However as someone who was a super academic kid at a mediocre small town school district, this is pretty much what my experience was in middle school. I liked school and I paid attention in class and spent spare time reading and did mathletes and academic quiz bowl. Kids like me were in the minority but we also weren't held back by the fact that most of our classmates didn't care as much about school. This is incredibly common in public school.

I think a lot of people in this area are warped by perceptions of some of the super wealthy publics and then all the elite privates to thinking that it's normal for there to be schools where ALL the kids are above grade level, or even on grade level. That would be great but realistically most populations have a bell curve academically. At a school with a large at risk population you can expect the curve to skew towards below grade level because academic performance tends to correlate with family income and stability. But that doesn't mean you lose the high achieving end of the curve, you just get a long tail.

Yes this probably can be academically limiting. If I'd gone to some elite private school where I was really pushed and all my classmates were as academic as I was, I probably would have learned more in K-12. I work with people from this background and I can see ways in which they received a better primary education than I did. On the other hand, I think I often have superior people skills and am less fazed by certain challenges and difficult people (including difficult clients). Also my family could not have afforded an elite private so public was it for me. It is what it is. If you work hard and stay focused, you will still get a good education and can do well in life. [/quote]

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