Reply to Keys to Thriving or Just Surviving in NW ES--Parents, I need your insights!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hire this guy for next head of GAO[/quote]

For clarification, not a guy, but I do think it would be awesome to work for the GAO (as some kind of research or data wonk, though). Unironically, I do semi-regularly check the GAO careers page for relevant openings. I'm a social psych researcher with a background in moral psychology applied to democracy, governance practices, and policy; I've always thought it would be cool to do some work for the GAO through that lens.

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NP.  Also a social sciences nerd.  I want to tell you, as a liberal who is also a pretty pragmatic person, that a lot of SEL is crap.  It doesn't matter what you can read about re: the curriculum or what the authorities say is going on at the school. What matters is the classroom teacher's personality and the group dynamics of the children orbiting your DC.  You could have the perfect setup and then one disruptive kid terrorizes everyone for months.  Your kid could end up with an unwanted shadow or bully that no other kid has. Or everyone could be nice and friendly but the learning/growth is subpar.  All things I have seen happen.

My non-DMV district has gone so deep into the trauma-informed feelings wheel that we can't have a district committee meeting without spending 10 minutes opening the meeting by 1) describing our current emotional state, 2) talking about 2 good things in our life, and 3) describing/naming the people we think can support us with our reasons for being at the committee meeting.  So we spend the first 10% of the meeting on ritual completely unrelated to the meeting purpose.  That's what happens when people spend a lot of energy on SEL mantras.

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Please listen to this person, OP. They are entirely correct.
You want a school to socialize your kid, have him play with other kids, get teachers who hopefully see him as an individual and appreciate him and have him trained in the teamwork, listening to directions, and play by the rules, no matter how stupid they are. School teaches how to fit into society, essentially. You can teach your kid to read and write and count all by yourself, and easily.

Education begins and ends at home and the socio-emotional learning is mostly through osmosis - except if your kid is autistic, and then he will need explicit teaching.

IT'S NOT THAT DEEP. Truly. I'm a research scientist with kids who are young adults and teens, and I can guarantee you there is no need to parse any of this so minutely.

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Lol, yes! in the words of my high school and now college student kids: "it's not that deep bruh."

Advice from someone who send 2 kids from DCPS to the Ivy league (youngest is still in high school) and more importantly, seems to have raised social, well-adjusted, kind humans what I would focus on is:

-Socialize your kids from an early age. Build a parent community. Create a village. Host a million playdates. No one likes doing this but it will prove to be more valuable for your kid's social development than anything during the 9am-3pm hours at school. 
-Get parental anxiety under control. It's so destructive and kids can sense it. You need to be the rock in their lives. 
-Be consistently involved with their academic and social concerns for all 14 years of school. You're never going to be able to fully hand them off to a school, whether that is the best DCPS school or even a top private (we did both at different points in time). Managing closely for this long is relentless and exhausting which is why almost no one does it. Don't check out.

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