sick of high school

Goobie-
I agree 1000% with you. My wife and I personally take a hands on approach with both the children. We expose them to learning experiences outside of the classroom, we sit with them every night to work with them to do homework and sometimes keep them on task. We take them places to explore, to learn, to feel and see, to touch and experience. My son is most content with building legos. He can literally sit down for 2 or 3 hours and create these amazing vehicles or space stations or whatever his beautiful mind can come up with. He is very logic and mechanically inclined. Even as a 37 year old dad, I am astounded by some of the things he creates.

It is a true irony that because of our education and thirst for knowledge as parents, and sharing the same with our children that it has actually put them at a slight DIS-ADVANTAGE.



Case in point: We recently had a parent/teacher conference. The teacher said they are journaling what she puts up on the overhead projector. She says "This is MY notebook" "This is your son's" He had stopped writing after the 3rd of 6 steps. What was it that they were journaling about? Planting a seed and the cycle of germination from seed to plant. She said it in such a condescending way. I retorted "Well Mrs. XXXXX.. it may be that we have taken him to the dirt, he has planted seeds, he has tended to the seeds, and he has seen the fruit of his labors.. in fact we have a pot of marigolds on the porch that he planted this spring" Now believe me I know that he must learn the ability to document things, I do not disagree with that portion of this work.. but my son is a "hands on" learner. And Public schools fail to allow such a thing in elementary school.

The school refuses to place him in High Ability because they think his "behavior track record" does not warrant it. My feeling is that if he was further challenged.. the behavioral aspect would resolve itself. But it is political.. the teachers and administrators get together and decide who should go. Does he pass the high ability exam? We don't know because we are never given results- only a form letter saying that this attempt he did not qualify. Judging by the fact he is an "A" and "B" student, as well as given all of the test results we are given.. it seems very unlikely that he could pass every other exam thrown at him.. but falls short every year on this particular one.

The thing that pisses me off about the schools is that they don't judge individuality at all. They have a "conformity" that if the kid does this this way or says this that way, they're doing it right. In a lot of cases, there is no perfection outside of interpretation. Sure when it comes to math skills, you're right, or you're wrong, period. But on the creative side of things, to grade a kid because he/she isn't thinking like the mass majority of other "higher thinking" people out there that standardize these evaluations, they are passed over and given a lower grade and less consideration. My daughter is an EXTREMELY creative mind, but not as fast on the factual (math and spelling... etc.) as my son was. But does that make her less brilliant than he is? Absolutely not. But the standard tests would make you think otherwise. It's pretty gross. Back when I was going through the same point of school that she is in now, I was placed in an advanced group and moved to another school entirely. 2 Classrooms formed from 2-3 kids from each classroom across the entire school district and they isolated us. We were only in classes with each other virtually from 3rd grade through graduation. A few others were injected into our classes that had gone to private schools or had slowly proven the original 'evaluations' wrong prior to high school, but for the most part, if not for social interaction and sports, I wouldn't have known 75% of the kids I graduated with. So there is a LOT to be said for those aspects too.

I guess my rant is a compilation of everything else that was said on this thread, but still...