Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, people on here claiming to be children of immigrants. Were you tutored as a child or attend prep courses? What type of schools did you attend as a child? Were the schools you attended deemed inadequate? For example, have Koreans always forced their kids to learn excessively? Is this a cultural thing? Americans, in general haven’t needed to do this, maybe we are all a bunch ignorant slackers? Should we all be studying and prepping for the majority of the day?

I emigrated from the former Soviet Union and my parents and grandparents were extremely unimpressed by the math curriculum at my very good public school. This was before Russian School of Math existed, but my grandmother was a retired math teacher and she spent some time teaching me more advanced material when I was in elementary school and junior high.

My grandmother and my parents were not as strict as most of my Russian-speakong friends' parents, and I was a lazy kid, so I did not wind up spending much time being tutored. But my grandmother also had other Russian-speaking tutees who put in much more time and took it much more seriously.

Thank you. I am just curious how parents handle the logistics of all of this extra tutoring and school work. My children already spend about 7 hrs in school per day, come home at about 3:30, eat dinner for about a half hour to an hour, maybe attend a sports practice sometimes until 6:30-7:00, but my kids don’t play many sports so usually they begin homework at about 6:30 until 7:30 while I clean up the dinner dishes and kitchen. Then bath and read and bed by 8:30. My kids are young and I cannot imagine cramming anything else into this schedule.

Most kids are not playing travel sports and the number of kids who play rec level sports decreases each year. I would guess that it is a pretty small percentage of kids playing a rec sport by Middle School.

Right now, DS has Scouts one day a week and a sport 2 days a week. He has a game on Saturday and does RSM on Sunday. When school starts he will be allowed to choose the after school extras he wants, they run for an hour after school which leaves time to come home and eat a snack before practice if he has practice. We do dinner after practices because of the time. We have dinner before Scouts and games because they are a bit later. If he chooses an after school activity it replaces playing with friends at the park or some video game time at home.

Rec sports and Scouts are great for activity and socialization. The after school activities are good for socialization and fun learning.

At our FCPS HS you would not have your kid in the AP sciences/math without having a sense of what the asian kids were doing re: tutoring/studying. Ideally you did some reconnaissance. They were setting the curve. You tried to know, and then decide on your own how much prep you wanted to match. And of course figuring out how. The same avenues weren't available. They had their own tutoring network and, mostly, it was a closed circle.

Also, I was always keeping an eye on TJ offerings to see what those students were expected to master.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, people on here claiming to be children of immigrants. Were you tutored as a child or attend prep courses? What type of schools did you attend as a child? Were the schools you attended deemed inadequate? For example, have Koreans always forced their kids to learn excessively? Is this a cultural thing? Americans, in general haven’t needed to do this, maybe we are all a bunch ignorant slackers? Should we all be studying and prepping for the majority of the day?

I emigrated from the former Soviet Union and my parents and grandparents were extremely unimpressed by the math curriculum at my very good public school. This was before Russian School of Math existed, but my grandmother was a retired math teacher and she spent some time teaching me more advanced material when I was in elementary school and junior high.

My grandmother and my parents were not as strict as most of my Russian-speakong friends' parents, and I was a lazy kid, so I did not wind up spending much time being tutored. But my grandmother also had other Russian-speaking tutees who put in much more time and took it much more seriously.

Thank you. I am just curious how parents handle the logistics of all of this extra tutoring and school work. My children already spend about 7 hrs in school per day, come home at about 3:30, eat dinner for about a half hour to an hour, maybe attend a sports practice sometimes until 6:30-7:00, but my kids don’t play many sports so usually they begin homework at about 6:30 until 7:30 while I clean up the dinner dishes and kitchen. Then bath and read and bed by 8:30. My kids are young and I cannot imagine cramming anything else into this schedule.

Russian PP. I don't know what people do today. When I was in school, we got out at 2:15 p.m., and I never did sports at any serious level, just once or twice a week lessons and only sporadically. My other grandmother, who lived with us, usually fed me dinner shortly after school and I went to bed late. I also think kids had less homework back in the 1990's.

Maybe I should keep my ES kids up later than 8:30 and teach them until 10:00. Then wake up at 6:30 and do it all over again. We probably aren’t staying up late enough.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, people on here claiming to be children of immigrants. Were you tutored as a child or attend prep courses? What type of schools did you attend as a child? Were the schools you attended deemed inadequate? For example, have Koreans always forced their kids to learn excessively? Is this a cultural thing? Americans, in general haven’t needed to do this, maybe we are all a bunch ignorant slackers? Should we all be studying and prepping for the majority of the day?

I emigrated from the former Soviet Union and my parents and grandparents were extremely unimpressed by the math curriculum at my very good public school. This was before Russian School of Math existed, but my grandmother was a retired math teacher and she spent some time teaching me more advanced material when I was in elementary school and junior high.

My grandmother and my parents were not as strict as most of my Russian-speakong friends' parents, and I was a lazy kid, so I did not wind up spending much time being tutored. But my grandmother also had other Russian-speaking tutees who put in much more time and took it much more seriously.

Thank you. I am just curious how parents handle the logistics of all of this extra tutoring and school work. My children already spend about 7 hrs in school per day, come home at about 3:30, eat dinner for about a half hour to an hour, maybe attend a sports practice sometimes until 6:30-7:00, but my kids don’t play many sports so usually they begin homework at about 6:30 until 7:30 while I clean up the dinner dishes and kitchen. Then bath and read and bed by 8:30. My kids are young and I cannot imagine cramming anything else into this schedule.

Russian PP. I don't know what people do today. When I was in school, we got out at 2:15 p.m., and I never did sports at any serious level, just once or twice a week lessons and only sporadically. My other grandmother, who lived with us, usually fed me dinner shortly after school and I went to bed late. I also think kids had less homework back in the 1990's.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, people on here claiming to be children of immigrants. Were you tutored as a child or attend prep courses? What type of schools did you attend as a child? Were the schools you attended deemed inadequate? For example, have Koreans always forced their kids to learn excessively? Is this a cultural thing? Americans, in general haven’t needed to do this, maybe we are all a bunch ignorant slackers? Should we all be studying and prepping for the majority of the day?

I emigrated from the former Soviet Union and my parents and grandparents were extremely unimpressed by the math curriculum at my very good public school. This was before Russian School of Math existed, but my grandmother was a retired math teacher and she spent some time teaching me more advanced material when I was in elementary school and junior high.

My grandmother and my parents were not as strict as most of my Russian-speakong friends' parents, and I was a lazy kid, so I did not wind up spending much time being tutored. But my grandmother also had other Russian-speaking tutees who put in much more time and took it much more seriously.

Thank you. I am just curious how parents handle the logistics of all of this extra tutoring and school work. My children already spend about 7 hrs in school per day, come home at about 3:30, eat dinner for about a half hour to an hour, maybe attend a sports practice sometimes until 6:30-7:00, but my kids don’t play many sports so usually they begin homework at about 6:30 until 7:30 while I clean up the dinner dishes and kitchen. Then bath and read and bed by 8:30. My kids are young and I cannot imagine cramming anything else into this schedule.

Anyone who has studied the history of China will know that tutoring and studying for the various exams to join the government bureaucracy has been a regular practice for thousands of years. Joining the government was a good way to improve your families economic status. Families poured their savings into preparing their child for the exams because entrance into the bureaucracy was based on merit exams. The practice of tutoring and the importance of exams is still common place in China and can also be found in South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and other Asian cultures. I will not claim to know if the practice in other Asian countries is tied back to the Chinese practice, I would suspect that it is but I have never looked for those connections.

There are many places in the world were education is seen as a way to leave poverty. Families place a lot of emphasis on education so that their kids can live better lives and take care of their parents when their parents are older.

So yes, it is cultural and it has real historic roots. I do think that there is a balance that is needed between the tutoring/enrichment classes and other activities but I would say the same thing about sports. I think travel sports starts far too young and that it is not great for kids to be playing one sport 6 days a week, year round.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let’s face it - this came from South Korean immigrants who wanted a leg up on life. It’s called a Hagwon - and it’s here to stay...

Koreans are not the only culture to tutor kids. Yes, hagwons are rampant but it’s not like that idea is unique to Korea.. Tutoring/extracurriculars are commonplace in all major US metro centers (SF, NyC, DC, LA, BOS, etc). Parents found schools underperforming or wanted more competition so had to step in

Agreed - but I think what the original op was seeing was where South Korea is now. School becomes something to attend (and sleep through) while Hagwon goes until 11:00 at night to get an education of value. Read ‘The Smartest Kids in the World,’ and you will see where this is all headed - in all the competitive cities you just listed. Was just saying I think the Koreans are the pace-setters...

SK parents like to send their kids to the US because it's less competitive and still easier than what they have in SK. Kids who go to after school programs here are not in school 12 hrs, 5 days/week. I seriously doubt it will get to that point.

My kid does several hours of an academic oriented activity per week. It's a school club. He still manages to find time to play a lot of computer games, and be in a magnet, get straight As, and be involved in another non academic activity.

I see kids who wake up at 4:30am to go practice their chosen sport. They are sleep deprived. Yet, there is no mention of curtailing sports.

Americans seems to prioritize athetlics over academics. So weird.

I don’t prioritize sports and I am American. I feel that I should probably be getting my children into some extra academic courses. At the rate this all is going, kids who don’t do extra won’t be able to attend college. The bar has been set and it’s sink or swim. It’s the new normal in academics.

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, people on here claiming to be children of immigrants. Were you tutored as a child or attend prep courses? What type of schools did you attend as a child? Were the schools you attended deemed inadequate? For example, have Koreans always forced their kids to learn excessively? Is this a cultural thing? Americans, in general haven’t needed to do this, maybe we are all a bunch ignorant slackers? Should we all be studying and prepping for the majority of the day?

I emigrated from the former Soviet Union and my parents and grandparents were extremely unimpressed by the math curriculum at my very good public school. This was before Russian School of Math existed, but my grandmother was a retired math teacher and she spent some time teaching me more advanced material when I was in elementary school and junior high.

My grandmother and my parents were not as strict as most of my Russian-speakong friends' parents, and I was a lazy kid, so I did not wind up spending much time being tutored. But my grandmother also had other Russian-speaking tutees who put in much more time and took it much more seriously.

Just curious, people on here claiming to be children of immigrants. Were you tutored as a child or attend prep courses? What type of schools did you attend as a child? Were the schools you attended deemed inadequate? For example, have Koreans always forced their kids to learn excessively? Is this a cultural thing? Americans, in general haven’t needed to do this, maybe we are all a bunch ignorant slackers? Should we all be studying and prepping for the majority of the day?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let’s face it - this came from South Korean immigrants who wanted a leg up on life. It’s called a Hagwon - and it’s here to stay...

Koreans are not the only culture to tutor kids. Yes, hagwons are rampant but it’s not like that idea is unique to Korea.. Tutoring/extracurriculars are commonplace in all major US metro centers (SF, NyC, DC, LA, BOS, etc). Parents found schools underperforming or wanted more competition so had to step in

Agreed - but I think what the original op was seeing was where South Korea is now. School becomes something to attend (and sleep through) while Hagwon goes until 11:00 at night to get an education of value. Read ‘The Smartest Kids in the World,’ and you will see where this is all headed - in all the competitive cities you just listed. Was just saying I think the Koreans are the pace-setters...

SK parents like to send their kids to the US because it's less competitive and still easier than what they have in SK. Kids who go to after school programs here are not in school 12 hrs, 5 days/week. I seriously doubt it will get to that point.

My kid does several hours of an academic oriented activity per week. It's a school club. He still manages to find time to play a lot of computer games, and be in a magnet, get straight As, and be involved in another non academic activity.

I see kids who wake up at 4:30am to go practice their chosen sport. They are sleep deprived. Yet, there is no mention of curtailing sports.

Americans seems to prioritize athetlics over academics. So weird.