Reply to If you gave BASIS a chance and it didn't work out, when did you know?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "If you gave BASIS a chance and it didn't work out, when did you know?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Mine isn't. He's getting very little support for his senior year projects and activities and doesn't want to goof around (like so many of his classmates are doing). [/quote]

Our next door neighbor is pretty unhappy with his senior year. He’s basically done by lunch, his classmates are all totally checked out of all ECs (unlike at most HSes where EC leadership is a huge part of senior year) and the school isn’t helping at all with his senior project logistics. He has mostly likely BASIS along the way, but hates the senior year model. Definitely not having a blast other than the break from work being nice.[/quote]

We hated it, too. My kid found it lonely and a silly waste of time. We ran our kid's senior project logistics ourselves, using our contacts and resources. BASIS did so little to help us that I'm not sure what the point of the senior project was.  If I could go back, we'd have found a four-year high school program instead.[/quote]

My senior and friends are leading the projects themselves.    I have nothing to do with it.  But I know mine has found an advisor at a local university, a related internship, has interviewed many people, and is reading tons.  Neither I nor the school have provided contacts.  It is mostly cold calling, which seems to be working remarkably well.  I believe the point is that it is to be self driven.  I have not once considered helping and certainly haven’t been asked to help.  It is fascinating to watch.  In addition to many extracurriculars and large social gatherings occurring seemingly constantly.  [/quote]

This.

The senior year project is obviously one of those "it is what you make of it" things. Some students will do nothing, some will have parents who do 80 percent of it, and some students will have an amazing experience of their own initiative.

That's completely obvious when the year is explained. [/quote]

Eh. I think it also depends what you want to do. Our neighbor could do something amazing on paper (parents connections), but what he actually wants to do for a job isn’t something where a HS kid can do anything remotely useful. There are tons of fields where a senior project is a waste of time. This is multiplied for families with no contacts at all in a relevant field. Basically you can pretty easily do something, but doing something actually useful is a crap shoot based on interests. Honestly, it’s a terrible model. [/quote]

If you start from the perspective that your child is trying to get a job or you plan on using parent connections at all, you are absolutely correct.  There is no point at all.  But if you encourage your child to independently reach out and figure out what to do, you might be surprised by what they can do in the model.  My child had no relevant contacts.  So, the first step was a whole lot of cold call informational interviews where people who connected with her in that manner helped her find the right niche.  I have tons of contacts that I could have just handed to her, but what is the point of that.  Senior project is about establishing independent thought and work; it isn't a girl scout cookie sale where the parents bring the order form to work.

[/quote]

I think you totally missed my point. It's not about getting a job. It's about the fact that there are some fields where a HSer cannot actually do anything interesting or useful. They can observe other people doing things with the right connections or perhaps cold calls as you note, but that's stupid in my book. There are other fields where a HS project can be meaningful. For those kids, the senior project can be totally worthwhile. But as a mandatory thing? It's dumb. I completely agree with the PP that says a normal year with fun electives and EC leadership positions would be better for 80% of kids at BASIS. The reason they don't do it? The building is too small. School leadership told me that directly. The senior project is about resource conservation and nothing more. It's a shame.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics