A bit of a rant here. Our local public high school announced proudly last week that it now offers 14 AP courses, each of which includes a 5.00 GPA scale and a mandatory $86 (you pay) AP exam. I've missed tae kwon do all week because we're spending three nights at school being "briefed" on next year's advanced placement choices.
During our three-college tour last summer, we learned that AP courses are only a sign that a student seeks challenges and performs well at a harder level. (Student: "Which is better, an "A" in a regular course or a "B" in an AP course?" College admissions staff: "Good question, never heard that one before, ha-ha, we prefer the "A" in the AP course!") Maybe AP students have better critical-thinking & writing skills, too. But none of the colleges would promise that the AP exams or courses would validate any of their curriculum, so there's no guaranteed savings from taking AP exams. Carnegie-Mellon & Renssalaer flatly stated that no English AP validation is permitted in order to properly develop their student's technical-writing skills. Colleges appear to view an AP course as "just" a résumé bullet, still necessary for admission but not a discounted ticket.
Our high school, however, seems to suffer from AP envy. The AP teachers are specially trained & certified (all of the ones we've met are scary good) and AP students are on probation all first semester-- if they don't keep up then they're dropped from the course. At least two of the AP courses screen their students by assigning work the summer before. If you don't meet with the teacher (or swap e-mail) to finish your 100 notecards (primary sources only!) or even write your entire National History Day research paper before the school year formally begins, then you can't take the school's AP history courses.
During Tuesday's AP U.S. History presentation we watched the teacher firmly set the hook in our kid: "You'll need to study 3-4 hours a night! You'll be doing another National History Day project!! You'll read two chapters every week and write a five-page essay on them!!! You'll take four practice AP exams on Saturdays before the real thing!!!! This course is very focused, very intense, and you will have no social life!!!!!"
The first issue is that our 10th-grader is already taking AP World History, trigonometry, advanced English, and advanced chemistry (plus two electives). This is in addition to tae kwon do (3-4 hours/week, prepping for January's black-belt test) and working at the Kumon center (10 hours/week). All of those commitments are teaching valuable skills, not the least of which are hard work and supremely efficient time management. However she's still 15 years old and is much more likely to work on the things she wants to work on, not the things she HAS to work on. She tends to expand her labors to fit all available time, so if the teacher says 3-4 hours a night then by golly that's what our kid will attempt to impose on herself.
Another issue is that the AP history courses seem like extraordinary labor for minimal rewards. She's interested in history but she wants to be an engineer. She's fascinated by challenges (as I was at that age) but she seems to already have plenty of them. It's probably more important to work on engineering topics first and take the minimum required history but it really intimidates her to say "No" to a teacher who's [-]selling[/-] promising "You have so much potential, I know you can handle this."
A final issue is the "Sweathog Fear Factor" marketing. Every AP teacher guarantees that their students will be the school's best, brightest, and hottest winners. If you don't take their course then you're doomed to mediocrity and despair among the jocks, druggies, & gang-banger losers. Your IQ will be cut in half, you'll be addicted to reruns of "America's Next Top Model", and you'll be struggling to get into the local community college.
Our kid's summer plans include driver's ed, more Kumon work, and a summer-school building construction course. There's rumors of drafting internships with Alexander & Baldwin. We'd like to visit more Mainland colleges. Somewhere in there she needs to start studying for the SATs. When she turns 16 next fall she wants to ramp Kumon up to 15 hours/week like the other older kids. She [-]blissfully ignorantly[/-] fearlessly claims that she'll be able to graft an AP U.S. History paper on top of that summer schedule. (Heaven forbid that she should be able to sleep 9-10 hours a night and [-]go surfing[/-] laze around an hour or two each day.) Then in 11th grade she plans to tackle AP U.S. History, AP calculus, advanced physics, AP English, and two electives. Plus all of the stuff she's doing this year as well as that extra Kumon work.
I'm a firm believer in experiential learning and in making as many mistakes as possible while you're still living with your parents. (Especially if you can't bear to be seen in public with them or even talk with such clueless dinosaurs.) Failure, if you survive it, is a great teaching tool. However the crushing burden of three AP courses seems destined to drive her straight over the brink, not realizing that "You can do anything, but you can't do everything."
Last night our kid talked with the teachers and came back out to discuss it with us. Then she'd go back in to the teachers with more questions. After three rounds of shuttle diplomacy we realized that the teachers had no idea that there was any other priority in the world besides their AP courses, let alone any concept of how busy the kid is. Our young hyperachieving Jedi was not going to admit that she could pass up a challenge.
So in desperation we actually (*gasp*) talked to a teacher in our kid's presence. Based on the class' presentation, I started with "It's a bit of a concern to hear your smiling students tell us that you're a Dementor whose AP U.S. History course sucks the souls out of their lives." A few minutes later we'd achieved agreement, although not necessarily comprehension. The teacher conceded that the regular U.S. History course was not as bad as her prior remarks made it seem, especially because she'd be teaching two sections of it in addition to her AP load. She even admitted that maybe AP English could fill in for the regular history course's lack of extra writing assignments. Our kid appears to trust the teacher to keep the "regular" class from degenerating into chaos.
I never thought I'd say "No, I don't think you should take that AP course". I never thought a school could put too much pressure on a student. I never thought I'd have to politely intervene to get a teacher to back off the fear marketing. I never thought parenting would be difficult in this manner.
[/rant] OK, thanks for listening.
During our three-college tour last summer, we learned that AP courses are only a sign that a student seeks challenges and performs well at a harder level. (Student: "Which is better, an "A" in a regular course or a "B" in an AP course?" College admissions staff: "Good question, never heard that one before, ha-ha, we prefer the "A" in the AP course!") Maybe AP students have better critical-thinking & writing skills, too. But none of the colleges would promise that the AP exams or courses would validate any of their curriculum, so there's no guaranteed savings from taking AP exams. Carnegie-Mellon & Renssalaer flatly stated that no English AP validation is permitted in order to properly develop their student's technical-writing skills. Colleges appear to view an AP course as "just" a résumé bullet, still necessary for admission but not a discounted ticket.
Our high school, however, seems to suffer from AP envy. The AP teachers are specially trained & certified (all of the ones we've met are scary good) and AP students are on probation all first semester-- if they don't keep up then they're dropped from the course. At least two of the AP courses screen their students by assigning work the summer before. If you don't meet with the teacher (or swap e-mail) to finish your 100 notecards (primary sources only!) or even write your entire National History Day research paper before the school year formally begins, then you can't take the school's AP history courses.
During Tuesday's AP U.S. History presentation we watched the teacher firmly set the hook in our kid: "You'll need to study 3-4 hours a night! You'll be doing another National History Day project!! You'll read two chapters every week and write a five-page essay on them!!! You'll take four practice AP exams on Saturdays before the real thing!!!! This course is very focused, very intense, and you will have no social life!!!!!"
The first issue is that our 10th-grader is already taking AP World History, trigonometry, advanced English, and advanced chemistry (plus two electives). This is in addition to tae kwon do (3-4 hours/week, prepping for January's black-belt test) and working at the Kumon center (10 hours/week). All of those commitments are teaching valuable skills, not the least of which are hard work and supremely efficient time management. However she's still 15 years old and is much more likely to work on the things she wants to work on, not the things she HAS to work on. She tends to expand her labors to fit all available time, so if the teacher says 3-4 hours a night then by golly that's what our kid will attempt to impose on herself.
Another issue is that the AP history courses seem like extraordinary labor for minimal rewards. She's interested in history but she wants to be an engineer. She's fascinated by challenges (as I was at that age) but she seems to already have plenty of them. It's probably more important to work on engineering topics first and take the minimum required history but it really intimidates her to say "No" to a teacher who's [-]selling[/-] promising "You have so much potential, I know you can handle this."
A final issue is the "Sweathog Fear Factor" marketing. Every AP teacher guarantees that their students will be the school's best, brightest, and hottest winners. If you don't take their course then you're doomed to mediocrity and despair among the jocks, druggies, & gang-banger losers. Your IQ will be cut in half, you'll be addicted to reruns of "America's Next Top Model", and you'll be struggling to get into the local community college.
Our kid's summer plans include driver's ed, more Kumon work, and a summer-school building construction course. There's rumors of drafting internships with Alexander & Baldwin. We'd like to visit more Mainland colleges. Somewhere in there she needs to start studying for the SATs. When she turns 16 next fall she wants to ramp Kumon up to 15 hours/week like the other older kids. She [-]blissfully ignorantly[/-] fearlessly claims that she'll be able to graft an AP U.S. History paper on top of that summer schedule. (Heaven forbid that she should be able to sleep 9-10 hours a night and [-]go surfing[/-] laze around an hour or two each day.) Then in 11th grade she plans to tackle AP U.S. History, AP calculus, advanced physics, AP English, and two electives. Plus all of the stuff she's doing this year as well as that extra Kumon work.
I'm a firm believer in experiential learning and in making as many mistakes as possible while you're still living with your parents. (Especially if you can't bear to be seen in public with them or even talk with such clueless dinosaurs.) Failure, if you survive it, is a great teaching tool. However the crushing burden of three AP courses seems destined to drive her straight over the brink, not realizing that "You can do anything, but you can't do everything."
Last night our kid talked with the teachers and came back out to discuss it with us. Then she'd go back in to the teachers with more questions. After three rounds of shuttle diplomacy we realized that the teachers had no idea that there was any other priority in the world besides their AP courses, let alone any concept of how busy the kid is. Our young hyperachieving Jedi was not going to admit that she could pass up a challenge.
So in desperation we actually (*gasp*) talked to a teacher in our kid's presence. Based on the class' presentation, I started with "It's a bit of a concern to hear your smiling students tell us that you're a Dementor whose AP U.S. History course sucks the souls out of their lives." A few minutes later we'd achieved agreement, although not necessarily comprehension. The teacher conceded that the regular U.S. History course was not as bad as her prior remarks made it seem, especially because she'd be teaching two sections of it in addition to her AP load. She even admitted that maybe AP English could fill in for the regular history course's lack of extra writing assignments. Our kid appears to trust the teacher to keep the "regular" class from degenerating into chaos.
I never thought I'd say "No, I don't think you should take that AP course". I never thought a school could put too much pressure on a student. I never thought I'd have to politely intervene to get a teacher to back off the fear marketing. I never thought parenting would be difficult in this manner.
[/rant] OK, thanks for listening.