Advice for an “overachiever” considering dropping out of high school

Parents Forum
41

<p>Oh, please. You want to get out of your house, you shovel snow. Next time it snows and you want to get out of your house, you shovel again.
The purpose of high school is not to get out of high school, but to get an education. I hope you can see the difference.
Would you suggest that a student who has completed Precalculus should still go through 7th grade math? That would have been my S. Just imagine what my S would have done in 7th,8th, 9th, and 10th grade had he been told to "suck it up?’ We could: he would have been totally disruptive and demoralized. Luckily the 7th grade math teacher did not think that it was necessary for my S to “suck it up;” nor did he compare learning to snow-shoveling.
A lot of high school work is make-work, especially for students who already have mastered the materials. Most college courses do not involve make-work and there is a huge range of courses to choose from, in a wide variety of fields and at different levels of difficulty.</p>

<p>I am absolutely amazed at the hostility that is being displayed toward the OP.</p>

42

<p>A lot of good parent posts. Almost didn’t add my input. A lot of teenage mentality on the part of the OP. </p>

<p>The opening post where the inability to understand the request for thinking about differences in essay material shows this. HS is a general, not a specialized education- we force everyone in our society to learn a bit about many different things that will not always appeal. A “well roundedness” if you will. Sounds like if we were to talk to some of your teachers they would point out areas of weakness that you could spend your time improving upon- such as critical thinking. The essay topics you dislike are fodder for grad school work as well as undergrad and HS work. You need to understand how some seemingly same things are actually very different, you learn how to analyze at a higher, less superficial level. This can be harder than some of the straightforward math and fact learning (notice I separate the 2- maybe my gifted math major son’s influence. He had trouble in HS trying to write in too much depth without time to finish his thoughts, he also has the verbal skills and he came from WCATY with an attitude problem every summer). Now is the time for you to maximize your skills in all subjects, not just the easiest ones for you. You also need to find an outside passion instead of dwelling on the wrongs you can’t correct. Eventually you may acquire the wisdom to realize how little you did know in HS and how much more you could have learned from it. You won’t always like the courses you take- even in your college major. More than enough said.</p>

43

<p>Fawkes…I feel like I could have written every word of your response to me, like it came right out of my own head. So if you’re going to get criticism for that, it’s not going to come from here.</p>

<p>First of all, you do know something. You know everything you taught yourself, and you taught yourself a lot more than your peers (don’t think reading tens of books a summer is “wasted” or “non academic”). I agree that school is the “floor” - it introduces you to topics which you can then delve into more on your own, and it’s dumbed down for kids who may not be that smart, or who may not have had the kind of opportunities you did for self-study - maybe they don’t have parents willing to take them to the library or let them go to CTY camp. You didn’t waste 10 years of your life…you used it a lot more wisely than other people your age</p>

<p>The education system teaches you how to function within the constraints of society, within a place that will always ask you to conform to someone else’s standards or tests. The world is a giant high school, with bosses taking the place of teachers, with “quotas” and “politics” taking the place of the SAT. My opinion? You overthought it. Your whole life, you have been subconsciously learning these skills, gunning to get As, giving it more relevance than it needed. Then you did a complete 180, realized you were obsessed, found lack of meaning in other areas of your life, etc. Well, as I’m sure you know, there IS a middle ground. You just haven’t found it yet.</p>

<p>If you truly find a job as freewheeling as summer camp, good on you. But it is my belief that every field, even ones that intellectually stimulate you, are pressure cookers if you hold yourself to a high standard. And inevitably, every field is going to be “dumbed down” to a certain extent. For example, if you become a researcher, you’ll only be able to keep your job if you publish - and you have to publish something They like, on a timetable and budget that doesn’t fit your needs or your research’s needs in the slightest, if you want tenure within your institution (and if you’ve been there for awhile and don’t get that golden trophy, you may not have your job at all). Talk about worrying about being able to finish the assignment THEN. The list goes on and on. </p>

<p>Your inability to work inside of the system without having “performance problems” is going to come back and bite you in the ass in college, in the work force (it did to me). And it’s going to get worse if you don’t do something about it.</p>

<p>If you do restructure how you approach high school, make sure you’re not running away from your problems. I did that and it ruined my college career. Face them head on.</p>

<p>Ask yourself why you’re nervous and afraid, and find a way to overcome that fear. Life is a balancing act and you can’t become obsessed with and sell yourself out to “the grade” or “The Man”, but you also can’t say “I can only function in a space entirely without them” or “My life now has no meaning because I have to cater to them”. I have found HS to be a far more forgiving environment than college, than careers. So if you can’t handle HS, you may want to ask yourself if you can handle any sort of Real Life. After all, your boss may not let you say, “let me reduce my course load” aka “let me come into the office only X days a week” or “let me exempt myself from this exam” aka “can this quota not apply to me.” Etc.</p>

44

<p>I’m sorry if my responses seem hostile; perhaps I’ve heard the story too many times, and have lost patience with it. Yes, high school work can seem boring, useless, and irrelevant. So can a lot of other things that simply need to get done in order to achieve broader goals–like shoveling snow, for example. You want to get out of the house, you shovel snow. You want to go to college, you finish high school. It’s really that simple. If you can find some alternatives that make it a better experience–like taking college courses, or asking for different assignments, or doing some self-study–that’s fine. But sometimes you just have to do the exercises 20 times.</p>

45

<p>But while is high school work “irrelevant” or tedious? There may be different reasons. It can be deemed irrelevant because a student thinks he won’t ever need calculus. Or it can be irrelevant and tedious because it has already been mastered and it is not adding to the student’s knowledge. Different reasons call for different remedies.
Shoveling snow is tedious but it is not irrelevant. At least, not unless you want to get out of your house!
A lot of people are willing to put up with tedious work because they see a real purpose to it, in lab work, for instance. But doing 40 math exercises when 10 will do has not purpose except to be a compliant teacher-pleasing grade-focused student.
When I was in school, the standard punishment for lateness was to make students write 100 times in Latin, “I shall not be late again.” That was not advancing their knowledge of Latin or increasing their love of learning.
It seems to me that the OP is losing his love of learning. And to me, that is a real shame. And it is a problem that can be addressed through a variety of means. For our S, it was radical acceleration in those subjects he was advanced. It had a good effect on the rest of his performance (and he happened to love Latin).</p>

46

<p>I don’t really disagree, marite. I guess I’m just coming at this from my own experience, which included some relatives and friends who felt the academic work asked of them was beneath them, but it really wasn’t. Their subsequent experience in the job market pretty much confirmed this. That’s obviously a different story from your son’s. Which category the OP is in, I don’t know–I think he should carefully think it over, though.</p>

<p>By the way, take a look at the advice from other high schoolers on the parallel thread in “High School Life.” They have a pretty pungent way of putting some of the same things that have been said on this thread.</p>

47

<p>There are a few that can get away with just doing what they want to do. If the demand for your talent is so high that employers can overlook other social or academic deficits, then one might be able to do what they want to.</p>

<p>One can look at the Williams sisters and how successful they were without formal schooling or college. Or those that went to work in the computer industry in the 1970s and 1980s without college diplomas because the demand for skilled employees was so strong. Back in the day, maybe you got a job working in an auto plant and made a good living without knowing trig and research writing.</p>

<p>It seems to me that the OP needs guidance - I wasn’t really into learning much in high-school myself. I preferred visiting university libraries and bookstores and computer labs and learning on my own.</p>

48

<p>I don’t want to go into High School Life, thank you. :slight_smile: I spend enough time on CC as it is.
I got from the OP that he is quite smart–he’s taking APs and finding them so easy he gets good grades with no effort. And I think this can be the worse preparation for life aside from creating problems in the present, such as behavioral problems.
Some posters suggest that if the student is that smart, he should have figured out solutions on his own. There are different types of smartness and different solutions available, different levels of flexibility on the part of schools, and different degrees of support of knowledge of the educational landscape on the part of parents. We needed to advocate for our son, though even we were stunned by how fast he was accelerated. One of the consequences of learning on your own is that it increased the gap between what you know and what the expectations are about what you should know and how to get there. When we started enriching our S, we did not think it would result in his skipping 4 grade levels.</p>

49

<p>Definitely talk to your guidance counselor, check into dual enrollment at nearby colleges or Stanford EPGY online classes (they are pricey, though), as others advised. There is no reason to suffer if you really hate high school. It is not unusual for high school seniors to spend most of their day outside of school in independent learning activities. You may have already fulfilled most of your graduation requirements and may be able to complete them with a few dual enrollment classes and not even return to high school for your senior year.</p>

<p>Realize that the scores, grades, etc., exist only to prove that you have learned the basics; they’re not an end in themselves but are helpful to college adcoms or anyone else who needs some evidence of your credentials.</p>

<p>Your posts raise some questions. You say your science research teacher told you to teach yourself calculus and this was a problem for you – that seems a little silly. Why didn’t you just take a calc class?</p>

<p>You seem to be a student who wants to know more about the reasons behind things, rather than just memorizing formulas. Talk to your teachers – do they have office hours? Most physics teachers, for example, would love to discuss the background and fundamentals with you. They may be able to offer you much more than what they are teaching to the class; ask for outside reading suggestions and pick their brains for the answers to some of the questions you have. Most good teachers will encourage students who want to think more deeply about what was presented in class.</p>

<p>Don’t worry about research! Pursue it if it sincerely interests you, but it is rarely meaningful at the high school level. My husband is an engineering professor at a top school and he finds high school science research, including those Intel awards, somewhat ridiculous. You really need a strong foundation in your discipline to do meaningful work. Learning the basics takes many years, and in fact, never really ends. </p>

<p>I also agree with previous posters that you may be depressed. Please seek an evaluation – this is covered under most health insurance policies, so ask your parents.</p>

<p>Lastly, slow down! Students do not need to “find their passion” in high school. And your passion may change many times over. Just make the most of your current interests and whatever your community and school offer.</p>

50

<p>EVERY job involves some tedium… Yes, even becoming an academic/professor, a researcher, a CEO, etc., etc. Not everything is going to mountains of intellectual novelty all the time.That’s life.</p>

51

<p>

</p>

<p>As am I. I’m also suprised by the narrow vision. That most people go down path A or B doesn’t mean that path C or D is a “joke” or impossible or only for those with entitlement issues. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>That is a possibility here but there is also the possibility that the OP is being sincere. For my kid it took a whole mix of things to get back on track, including considering ending his formal education. Instead we (mostly he) decided to accelerate and widen his formal education. It also took therapy and time to mature into the answers. I truly believe it was our willingness to meet him far more than half way that has brought him to his current state of wellbeing. The academic success is nice but it is a by-product.</p>

52

<p>Just coming back briefly to comment that it is not necessary to fnish high school in the traditional way, for future success, and also that the alternatives (whether GED or online courses) are certainly not a “joke.”</p>

<p>Our kids took online AP courses because they were so much more rigorous than our school’s. Kids in the school’s AP US History got 2’s, our kids got 5’s. My daughter had complained to the principal about the history teacher, who spent classtime talking about himself. She told the principal: “I want to learn history!” Her alternative was online, and she was very happy.</p>

<p>As for a GED. many talented kids get GED’s and enter good schools. A student like th OP with 3 years of high school and some demonstrated talent, can get a GED, do some learning on his own in whatever way possible or desired, and have a perfectly legitimate application anywhere.</p>

<p>Again, I am surprised at the attitudes here. All of our kids are teenagers and suffer angst. In honestly think there is something wrong, if they don’t (though there are degrees). Is this how CC parents talk to their kids when they are in pain?</p>

<p>This kid may be at a crossroads, and I hope that he gets careful, thoughtful, empathetic help that respects many options and many kinds of people.</p>