A decade ago a shipmate of ours begged the Navy aviation assignment officer to transfer him from Norfolk to Hawaii (which was happily granted) just so that his son could apply for USNA from an area where he'd stand out among the crowd. He wasn't exactly academically challenged in Hawaii high schools-- he spent most of his senior year applying and interviewing, not so much studying or doing homework. But it worked like a charm.Our daughter was in High School in Hawaii in 1984. We met with her math teacher and she told us 'We have determined your daughter will not be attending college so she will not be taking Algebra.' We also learned that 9th graders took something called 'Core Math' if they did not do well they would take 'Advanced Math', if they did not do well 'Core Algebra' if they did not do well, 'Algebra'. They would then "have 4 years of math and could graduate" and if they desire go to college.
So I think Hawaii has taken its old academic-inferiority complex a little too far to the other side of the pendulum swing. One of my kid's acquaintances is starting her pre-med college program... at the end of her junior year in high school. She's already well past the high school credit requirements and as a sophomore was a semi-finalist at both the Siemens & Intel national science fairs. I hope she's as mature as she is talented and "smart".
We've learned to network the heck out of the parents with kids a year or two older than ours. There are major decisions in middle school affecting high school pre-requisites, qualification testing for advanced programs, and summer-school options. Little things like picking the "wrong" middle-school math course will send ripples across four years of H.S.Sounds to me like you are making an excellent choice. I took AP calculus and chemistry in high school, just so I could loaf my first semester at college, but it was nowhere near as much work as you describe.
My kids are only in 2nd / 6th grade, but I'm a firm believer in school being only a portion of an education. 3 to 4 hours of homework a night is just B.S. if you ask me. Life is more important, get out of those books and get some experiences instead.
Last night (our 3rd & final night of presentations) we were talking with another parent whose daughter is a senior (two years ahead of our kid) and we got a huge dump on "AP-related stress syndrome". The anti-academic backlash in their house has been pretty fearsome. Their younger daughter has also dropped out of Kumon for a couple months to catch up on her coursework.
Paully, I agree with your comments about organized teachers and terrorizing the students to "motivate" them. Or maybe now I'm just allergic to drill-instructor teaching methods.
Yes, but I'm sober now!Think back, did *anything* you do back in high school really matter diddly squat once you were out in the real world?
Yeah, exactly. Last summer she was talking to the NROTC COs about their college's architecture programs, which mostly run five years and include a year in Italy. They were soberly nodding their heads and assuring her that the Navy would have no problem paying her for an extra year of that study, when both my spouse & I caught each other's eyes thinking "Oh sure right."Here's my main concern - she's only a sophomore in hgih school right now - there's still a lot of growing up to do for her, let alone what will occur in college. Plus, if she's interested in engineering, the college curricula for an engineering degree currently tends to try and squeeze a 5 year program into 4 years and frankly there are not many opportunties for 'deviation' from the plan. Case in point - I had a 4-year ROTC scholarship more than twenty years ago and my school did not allow my ROTC classes (which take up 3 credit hours a semester) to count towards my degree. That was an extra 20 credit hours or so that was required by the Air Force ROTC program but did not count towards my engineering degree. It also cut short my time to explore other areas like philosophy, geography, psychology, etc - also, the list of 'approved out of the science, math and engineering curricula classes which were allowed for matriculation' was very short. Bottom line, she's going to be doing a grind in a very specific area in college - plus if she has a ROTC scholarship, they will be all over her to become more involved with 'leadership opportunities' and to *finish* in those four years. Let her have some fun now and be a girl still - besides, based on what you've described and assuming she maintains that trajectory, she will have a humongous amount of college acceptance opportunities from which to choose.
As for our sorely-deficient liberal arts educations-- I've been spending the last five years catching up on that, and I have the rest of my life.
Hey, you already know how to surf!Lastly - will you be my parents? I did *not* have the help that you are giving your daughter and am frankly fortunate I fell into what I did - she's one lucky lady - her problem won't be finding oppportunties but picking the best one offered to her.
It's not that we're so dedicated or committed. We're cool with letting her experience the smaller failures but we know from experience that if we don't guide the most critical decisions from up front, then she'll drive us crazy with daily drama and keep us up all night with teen angst. So this involvement is as much for our sleep as for her future. I guess the trick is knowing when to step in, when to back off, and when to run away screaming.
I found out last night that the extremely persuasive AP U.S. History teacher is also a mega-retailer's "Hawaii Teacher of the Year" who earned the school a $10K cash grant. So her light burns pretty brightly, but its intensity is searing my coronas.
We also found out last night that the high school's AP Calc is actually a real no-foolin' college course. UH's Leeward Community College sends a math professor up to the high school 3x week to teach the subject and we're paying about $400 to earn four transferable calculus credits. The curriculum is accredited by both UH and the AP people, of course, but the idea of having a college prof & college credit neatly sidesteps all the AP crap (no AP exam required) and gives her a transcript that she can take straight to a Mainland school!
Of course validation exams may still be required at USNA. During the AP Statistics brief our kid asked the teacher if the transcript or the AP exam score could be used to obtain college credit. This teacher, who's never seen our daughter before, looked her right in the eye and said "Yes, but if you go to a service academy then you have to take a validation exam." Apparently word is spreading around the teacher's lounge about our kid's aspirations.
This week has had its Freudian moments. I'm the same size today that I was in high school, but those desks are still too darn small. And nearly 30 years after high school, when the teacher calls us by name it still gives us that "Ruh-roh" feeling. Even when the teacher is younger than we are...