<p>I think kenf1234 has a valid point. For a lot of kids, the assigned work in many classes amounts to no-value-added busywork. While I have no sympathy for those who don't do the required busywork and then complain about the clear consequences, I also don't think it is lazy of one to state the simple fact that the work doesn't add anything to their educational experience. In my high school's IB program, I was blessed to have teachers who more or less never assigned mandatory homework; you were allowed to do it or not, depending on whether or not you thought you needed the practice - unless you were doing badly in which case it was mandatory. I think that model is a good one.</p>
<p>Adults, your comparisons with work are absolutely unwarranted because at a job your primary task is to do what your job entails/your boss tells you to - if that's menial grunt work, so be it. At school, a student's job is to learn, not to get grades, and if the latter is interfering with the former, somebody at the school has screwed up.</p>
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No it's not. LIfe is full of busywork. It is enormously important to learn that you have to put the work in.
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<p>Exactly. Dig a ditch and fill it in to learn a lesson about life. Exactly my point.</p>
<p>Tedious is not the same as busywork. There are all kinds of things in life that need to be done. Like doing your tax return or paying bills or whatever. But they are to a purpose. Filling out a low-level worksheet serves no purpose it accomplishes nothing. You just need to do it to get your check-plus and get your A.</p>
<p>"There are all kinds of things in life that need to be done."</p>
<p>In my daughter's IB, she signs a contract at the beginning of each year with each teacher (parents sign as well) that sets out the requirements and the penalties for not doing homework. I sincerely believe that once she signed that document, she is responsible for holding her end of the bargain. Some of her teachers don't assign busy work. Actually, come to think of it, there isn't that much busy work. But in math there is practice and I see no reason why she shouldn't do that. In most of her classes this year, she does an enormous amount of writing at home and I find that valuable on its own merits for many reasons.</p>
<p>^^zoosermom, your daughter is lucky to have an IB curriculum at an apparently good high school. Many many students are not so lucky. The situation is particularly bad at many middle schools.</p>
<p>I can understand letting the work go while the boy was in elementary school, if he was learning, enjoying school, and passing. But once the grades started to matter in high school, (and they matter only in that they are used to demonstrate mastery of the material) why didn't his family make sure he understood that not doing the work would limit his future opportunities?
Did he not understand the connection between grades and college admissions? I thought he was supposed to be smart!
Or did he know, but think he was a special case and would be admitted on his intelligence alone, without having to demonstrate it the same way all the other students have to. Or did he know, and not really care what college he went to. It's hard to know from this article, as the mom doesn't give us much of an idea of her son's expectations, only her own.</p>
<p>"^^zoosermom, your daughter is lucky to have an IB curriculum at an apparently good high school. Many many students are not so lucky. The situation is particularly bad at many middle schools."</p>
<p>I completely agree with that, but we worked hard to find the right program for her and she has some really interesting outside activities. LIke I said above, she's earned respect from her teachers by showing her work ethic along with her "giftedness" so they've rewarded her with some very nice opportunities. I don't see anything terrible about paying one's dues at the high school level. MIddle school, maybe I'd be more lenient.</p>
<p>This pretty simple. The college had a choice between the kid that did not do his work or an equally smart kid who did do their work. Seems like an easy call to me. </p>
<p>The mother should be ashamed of herself for blaming the school. Her kid, her responsibility.</p>
<p>I think this is actually somewhat unfair. This kid obviously learned what he was supposed to learn in high school.</p>
<p>I would say, "Okay, maybe this kid is lazy and somewhat intellectually apathetic", if he had high test scores AND low AP scores.</p>
<p>However, it is obvious that he learned the material.
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So what's the problem? He has gone way beyond the class work to learn the material in-depth and has demonstrated his knowledge on national and international exams. Unfortunately, none of these exams is factored into high school grades or college admission decisions.
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This shows not only a gifted student but one who is highly intellectually curious. I don't see what Tech's problem is by taking in people who are likely just more eager to play 'the grade game' in high school.</p>
<p>I guess this is why so many of the top schools have such an anti-intellectual feel to them, since they are more eager to accept people who are grade-hungry than those who are truly interested in learning.</p>
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We've spent considerable time talking to admissions counselors at Virginia Tech. They say they won't look at AP scores until after the students are admitted, don't look at SAT subject test scores and don't recognize the educational value or rigor of Cambridge classes. I have a student who will place out of a year (about 44 credits) of college classes, but they won't let him in because, in their opinion, his GPA indicates he's lazy, he can't do college-level work and he's an underachiever because he scored well on his tests but has only a 3.275 GPA. They recommended that he go to a community college (where the classes are much less intense than the Cambridge curriculum), so he can prove he can handle college-level work. These are my tax dollars at work.
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Sounds like a narrow-minded and a 'by-the-book' policy on the admissions office's part. It isn't like that this guy scored a couple dozen points above VT's SAT average. He scored 200-300 points above the average! I am also not too familiar with VT's admissions policy on GPA but I know that for the SUNY schools- there have been many accepted with 3.3 GPAs who took much less APs and had much lower SAT scores!</p>
<p>Maybe he can pull off good grades at Clemson freshman year and transfer to VT afterwards?</p>
<p>Am I wrong but doesn't this part of the country have gifted magnet schools? If so, why didn't this very gifted child go to one of these? I guess that I'm confused.</p>
<p>BTW my D has a very good friend who is alot like this. He's going to a smaller state school, he's very gifted but just doesn't want to do the work. I think that schools are full of gifted but unmotivated kids, are schools supposed to cater to them all? Seems to me that schools that a ton of things they have to do and most offer options for gifted students, do they have to also prod the gifted but unmotivated?</p>
<p>My H says that the rarest thing of all, is a gifted student who is highly motivated. It's so hard to be highly motivated when everything comes so easy.</p>
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My H says that the rarest thing of all, is a gifted student who is highly motivated. It's so hard to be highly motivated when everything comes so easy.
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<p>Put them in an ACTUALLY stimulating environment and see how they blossom.</p>
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This pretty simple. The college had a choice between the kid that did not do his work or an equally smart kid who did do their work. Seems like an easy call to me.
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<p>No, they had a choice between a kid who is smarter and learned more in high school, but earned lower grades, and another kid who is less smart, learned LESS in high school, but earned higher grades. </p>
<p>Maybe the less smart, learned less kid HAS earned their way into the school. That's a public policy decision. But they have earned that through high grades, not by being smarter or learning more.</p>
<p>I'm a self proclaimed slacker, but the idea that this kid should get in on test scores alone is ridiculous. </p>
<p>I HATE when people go on about how they're so smart that they could do the work, if only they cared enough. Thats ridiculous to me...either do the work and prove that you're competent, or deal with the consequences. Don't complain because people refuse to look beyond the laziness and see your true "genius."</p>
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either do the work and prove that you're competent
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<p>Here is the specific example from the article. He actually did prove his competence beyond all the other students, but still got a C:</p>
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He's the only student in the history of the school to get a 5 on the AP chemistry exam, but this type of result never gets fed back into the course grade. He still got a C-plus
<p>Colleges are not just looking for the smartest kids. I've seen some of the smartest kids flunk out of college. They are looking for kids who can do the work, will do the work and do it well. If this young man had done something truly phenomonal in the schools' views, they might have let him in despite in grades. I'm not sure why JMU and VPI did not take him with his grades, by the way. I know kids with lower grades and test scores who got into those schools. </p>
<p>It is a loophole for kids like this to be homeschooled. I have a son who benefited from that situation. I homeschooled him in middle school after a disasterous year. So without grades or negative teacher's recs, he got into a competitive private highschool that would not have touched him with the sort of grades he tends to get. He did have very high ISEE scores and great ECs which were not overshadowed by a lousy school record being a home schooler.</p>
<p>The disadvantage about home schooling is that you then do not get the benefit of the grades and highschool facilities. That can be a plus for some kids and it can be difficult predicting which way it would go for your kid. I have friends who have some wonderful kids who are homeschooled that did not get the most terrific scores on the College Boards. Had they been in school, excellent grades and recs would get them into state U. Without the grades, they do not look like good prospects.</p>
<p>If you have a child who has an unusual profile, it would be smart to assess whether homeschool with heavy outside ECs would be more productive for him. Kids who are unusually gifted and don't get the top grades are often recognized if they do something truly outstanding. Otherwise they are not considered that special. If you can't get the grades, you better have something else in hand to show how good you are, other than the test scores. </p>
<p>By the way, this is an issue that parents who put their kids in rigorous private schools have. A number of those kids will not get into elite state universities or even their own flagship schools because they do not make the gpa cut off. Those same kids might have been in the top 5-10% or higher, had they stayed with their peers in a less rigorous school. Colleges who know these schools will take the grading scales into account, but if such kids apply to state schools who primarily go by the numbers, with the gpa or class rank taking a prominent position, they will be at a disadvantage and may not get in. This can also hurt in terms of getting merit awards and scholarships.</p>
<p>We have a similar sitch as the family in the article. Straight As in all tests in almost every (honors) class -- but failure to turn in homework which shot grades to low Bs or Cs.</p>
<p>It's pretty fruitless to complain; you just deal--hope the kid matures to understand the personal benefit if doing required work (no matter how dull); kicks it in college; then gets to a super-demanding grad school or job after college. </p>
<p>Plus--I know from my son's experience -- it actually (often) takes very little effort to complete the mindless, busy-work assignments (if concepts/substance come easily). Sometimes it's a matter of (self-defeating) principle on the student's part.</p>
<p>We try to teach the life lesson: sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.</p>
<p>That said, we would have loved to have intellectually gifted son in a super-academic high school. We didn't though -- so you just make the best of it.</p>
<p>"The family's frustration in his failure to gain entry into several Virginia universities is understandable but, I believe, misplaced. Yes, some of his high school courses may be too slow-paced for such a "gifted" person and, yes, he probably acquired more knowledge in his independent academic pursuits than he might have completing the required assignments of his high school courses. But the fact remains that he, apparently with his parents' support, chose not to complete the assignments he knew were mandatory for a high grade. That's his prerogative. But by exercising that prerogative he also must accept the consequences."</p>
<p>Yes public schools sometimes serve the gifted poorly -- my own local school system has recently eliminated ALL gifted and talented activities. But being bright (or rich or famous or athletic or powerful) is no excuse for failure to follow requirements. Contempt for authority leads to much heartache.</p>
<p>ken, you're right - a lot of homework is ridiculous and has no value for an individual student. But the individual student is not being tutored. That's why it's a class. The class cannot be tailored to him. </p>
<p>Perhaps he could have discussed this with his teachers; my d did. She was bored with the multiple math problems for homework, doing the same thing over and over again. She went to her math teacher and said, "If I get the first five problems of a concept and feel I've gotten it, can I stop? And if the review we do in class shows I didn't get those 5 correct, I'll do the rest of the homework the following night. Is that OK?" The teacher agreed. So there are options for the bright student.</p>
<p>Now certainly this very bright kid can learn the idea of consequences. He knew that not doing the homework would lead to lower grades, which could also lead to rejection from the college he wanted to attend. He took that chance, and he lost.</p>
<p>Digging the ditch and filling it in may not teach you anything. It doesn't have to. If you don't want to dig it and fill it in, don't. But don't complain when you fail (or are fired), or don't get the promotion, or whatever. (And by the way, you're wrong if you believe that all the tedium that occur in our jobs are "necessary tasks" that "need to be done." There's as much busywork, unnecessary forms, irrelevant paperwork in most jobs as you will find in schools.)</p>