One of my children is in 5th grade in a school that is well known for a rigorous education. She does well, probably the top student or at least one of the top in her year, but I find that her lack of understanding of what she is studying is a bit worrying. She learns the material well for the tests but really has very little depth of knowledge, as the author describes for his daughter in this article. I sometimes ask her questions about what she is studying and if it is outside the narrow confines of what she needs to know she will not have thought about it - she doesn’t have time! I think the idea is to set down a base of knowledge that will then be there for the kids when they need go more in depth later, or at least I hope so. She really enjoys school and it is better for her than her previous school where she was very bored, but I’m not yet convinced of the long term benefits of this type of education.
The worst part isn’t the homework in my opinion. It’s that they have to sit through eight hours of mediocre live performance art every day. That’s the biggest waste of time.
This sounds like keeping up with the Jones' more than anything... these are not middle America public schools or even middle class neighborhoods where this family is residing - these are feeders to the upper echelon of American society. Do I wish my public school rural America kids had different homework? Yes, we could make many points about quality over quantity. But, if this guy and his kids feel the work is too onerous, there are plenty of regular public school options that will be a shocking step down in terms of rigor, but that might be more in line with their expectations.
“We end up borrowing our neighbor’s printer. The logistics of picking up the printer, bringing it over to our apartment, downloading the software, and then printing take about half an hour.”
Why don’t you send the file and ask them to print instead?
I think the problem is magnified by the status of teaching as a profession. Teachers compensation and work conditions are less than ideal. People that would be great teachers leave for other fields with better conditions. This will attract people who are good playing by the rules even if they are bad at teaching.
Very few people care about students time usage and future as long as they follow those processes.
It's crazy how little value we see in kids and teenagers time usage and filling it with dumb tasks is the standard.
What is this? Repost old articles from the Atlantic week?
In the USA, there has been a constant campaign of negligence and outright sabotage of our school districts. I feel sorry for the kids that are stuck in these systems without any way to escape the endless pressure, petty rules, violence, and prejudice.
cyberbullying? really? anyhow - a good read, thanks.
Fuck, they loose their youth to this shit!
I had school 8am to 2pm and hardly ever did my homework (min-maxing it by copying, doing it selectively, testing which teachers are strict about it etc., also switched to a bi-phasic sleep pattern to cope with 8am as a night-owl).
It left just enough time to keep making music, learning to program, doing some photography, dabbling in public relations for a non-profit and of course some partying on the weekend. Once I was old enough to write my own sick-notes I would go for walks in woods instead of a double lesson of math etc.
Now that I spell it out, that's a lot, but that's the amount of life experience these kids loose.
And it's not just about temporary fun. It set me up for the further course of my life: Music brought me my best friends, programming was my entry in to a real career and non-profit work set me up to deal with people well, helping me step up to product management. I also had a few wonderful years studying digital art.