Reply to Top private (Sidwell, GDS) versus top public (JKLM) for early years: what are the differences?

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Reply to "Top private (Sidwell, GDS) versus top public (JKLM) for early years: what are the differences? "

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Good guess, LOL!  Very close.

I, too, worry about happiness and, actually, about education -- in the sense of turning our kids onto the delights of reading, thinking, problem-solving, empathizing, figuring things out...

Not so much an issue (for the kids, at least) at the elementary school level -- though the instrumentalist of many parents is already apparent at that stage.  But by HS, even (maybe especially) the kids who love to read and think are under tremendous pressure to just power through crushing workloads with no time to really reflect on what they're learning, much less to pursue interesting tangents.  [b]My own childhood and adolescence was filled with such opportunities and when I arrived at college I was like a kid in a candy store.   [/b]

But had my HS education looked like the Big 3 experience today, I'd have been burnt out and/or needed a gap year [/quote]

Please PP, tell me how I can give this to my kid.  Go off the grid entirely?[/quote]

I failed on that score.  And, perhaps as a result, my answer is close to "go off the grid!"

In case it's any help, I think I know where I went wrong.  I sought out for my DC the "challenging" school I never had.  In retrospect, I see how much I benefited from the absence of externally-imposed challenges.  Basically, I got/had to choose my own intellectual adventures, so to speak.  And I lived in CA near a young university (a "first-rate second-rate school," according to one of my undergrad profs at what would no doubt be considered a first-rate first-rate school) which no doubt helped -- free to dirt-cheap access to libraries and classes, enough profs in the neighborhood for a good intellectually-inclined HS cohort and for encouragement/advice, but outnumbered enough by the dominant culture to be open to people from outside the U who shared their values/interests).  But I know, because my parents and sibs still live in the area, that today my DC couldn't have the same childhood that I had there.  What I don't know is whether those days are just gone or whether you could find the same environment in a different place today.  I hope the latter, but am pretty sure it wouldn't be in or near a major US city on either coast (or Chicago for that matter).

[/quote]

I think you can go off the grid here by being in an EOTP charter, where not everyone graduating is going to even try to go Ivy or go home.  I think you can use the money for travel and camps that are about subjects that interest them (and are NOT in DC).  Girls are/will be Venturers, boys we want to become Eagle scouts which will help college applications and can be done anywhere.  Having other communities helps kids keep their perspective - we also have church community.  CW says colleges are looking for authentic lopsided applicants, that has been my experience as an alumni interviewer, so open the world wide enough and most kids become interested/passionate about something by high school (which is different than finding a "hook" for college). We have one kid who likes computers, one set on becoming a doctor who goes to crazy camps in the summer or takes unfortunately expensive college classes, another on the way to finding a passion, and one who is still too young but seems very much of a performer.  Private would be easier with that one, but we have time to figure it out - maybe Ellington?  Our kids are friends with the smart kids at their school, who do not live in the same areas or come from the same backgrounds.  We have tons of books in our house, try to eat dinner as a family and talk. We get magazines that follow their interests. I think you can find that kind of cohort here for your kids, maybe with us wackadoos who have decided not to go private on financial aid, and to keep our kids internally motivated for as long as we can so they can have a shot at starting to figure out what they are interested.  When I have a kid in 11th grade I may be singing a different tune, but we are fairly confident that our kids will get into decent colleges from where they are, even though they and their friends will definitely be the outliers in their graduating class, and we are very confident that they are getting a broader education by living in a wider world.

We did not like what we saw of the private school pressure cooker here, but could not move far because of our jobs, so we have tried to create an environment like what we had as kids.  It is very hard.  The computer gamer programmer has friends who have left but they still play (it helps that they are all obsessed with the same game and can play virtually with each other while skype allows them to see and talk at the same time on a server they created with my husband).  There is no neighborhood where the younger kids can just wander off and come home for supper, but there are almost always kids in our house from school (the metro makes them fairly independent), and I don't really know what kind of "hanging out" they are doing but they are having fun. I think you can create an environment that fosters genuine intellectual curiosity, and if you are not at a pressure cooker your kids have more time to actively pursue interests and find a passion.

Time is an issue. It is hard for us to watch even our youngest have make trade offs because of homework we think excessive.  We don't remember this.  Although this crazy medical kid may keep more of us here for more of the summer this time, we usually spend the summers with a few week long camps (going to Goshen matters) and wandering, and so far it has worked out. We do have one kid who puts too much pressure on himself, but at least there is genuine intellectual inquiry there in addition to an obsession with getting high grades. The kid is wired that way but he is not contagious and can laugh at himself.  None of them are going to try to play 3 varsity sports and do a ton of meaningless extra curriculars and then stay up all night doing homework. We feel secure that with good grades they will get into a college where they will get a good education, and are not focusing so much on rankings or names, and we are fairly sure that they will also feel like kids "in a candy store").  I think the reading and the talking is essential, and because of computers our kids can find out more about what interests them on their own, independently.  They can also virtually "hang" with their friends and do,

We like their friends and none are going down a wrong road - we want them to make their own way with their friends, many of whom are now going in different directions in terms of interests, but the interests are there, and we never want our kids to feel that there is only one road... Because it is not true.  We do not believe that going to Harvard is critical if you become well educated and are prepared academically so you can do well in college, although the one kid definitely wants Harvard Yale or Princeton. We hope to get most to come out of college debt free - would definitely prefer some merit scholarships to lesser universities because we did have too many kids. Have also considered separating at the critical time and paying out of state tuition senior year so UVA in state tuition is a possibility. We think we can save enough so if more than one kid wants to go to an Ivy where they cannot get merit scholarships, we would be ok. We will expect them to work over summers and such.  We are fairly frugal - old cars, no I phones, no HBO, clothes etc. Easier in a school where most kids are not from wealthy families. Big fans of target, ebay auctions for computer tinkerers, high quality church sales WOTP, public libraries and pools. As "off the grid" as we can be in DC.  We think Whitman and maybe even Wilson would also be pressure cookers.

Definitely off the track of the original question but off the grid is hard but possible, and we think it is important.[/quote]

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