Reply to Middle School is way too easy

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You should be using the after school hours to invest in high intensity sports, science, foreign language, music, arts, and community service training. Your kid needs to be flourishing in one or more of these areas at the start of high school to take part in the high level (state and national level) activities that get them noticed by colleges.

Academics will ramp up in 9th or 10th grade. Middle school is the time to invest in the activities that matter to you and your child that the school can’t provide. [/quote]
Argh I hate this mentality. You all just look at your kids like freaking investments who need to end up at a T20 school vs. actual people.  Instead of having kids explore various things that might interest them, they *need* to pick one or two things to "invest" on so they can be good enough for college. Growing up, kids could explore and be involved in different sports and ECs.  You had fall sports, then spring sports. Now you need to pick one so can do travel and be competitive.  You can't just pick up an instrument for fun. Oh no, you have to at the national level. It's all or nothing.  If you can't be a superstar at it, you shouldn't go for it. [i]That's such a F up thing to teach kids. [/i] And all this really, really tells you at the end is that you probably came from an UMC family who had the $$$ to "invest" in you.  And then you end up with kids who crash and burn/commit suicide/excel but never feel good enough.  Do you hear yourselves? You can encourage hard work/academics and support their interests but this....it's gone too far.  There is a happy medium between mediocrity and this BS. [/quote]
While you've aptly described the 'tiger' parents who mostly care about prestige and showing off (and there are certainly many in this area), you have to realize that there are also a significant # of families who honestly care about education and want their children to enjoy learning, be curious, and experience that in a stimulating environment. Is that too much to ask of kids in elementary school? Kids are capable of much more than what schools expect them to do (i.e mostly follow recipes and procedures), they are creative, they love a good challenge, and they love to think about things. Schools in this area are not meeting their needs because the curriculum is unchallenging, and frankly boring. If students enjoy learning more math from going to websites such as Khan academy, or learning more problem solving from playing games like Minecraft, that is pretty telling in how badly our schools are failing them. When they come home disinterested even though on paper they are passing tests and doing well, that is also telling. Education is in many ways more problematic now than it was way back when resources and technology were limited. It's not unreasonable for families to expose their kids to actual learning (whether they do it themselves at home, or outside). So yes, for some of us it's not at all about credentialing and signaling; we actually want them to find some joy in school.[/quote]
But I wasn’t talking about parents like you. I agree with you. I was responding to the PP who was implying that MS students need to invest and be really good at specific ECs for college.  [/quote]

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