Wasn’t your dau in US public schools for elementary and maybe even middle school? They seem to have served her well enough, and don’t seem to be the cesspools of education you describe. At the very least, they didn’t stilt her academic development and natural abilities.
I’m glad my kids never thought that school was the most important thing in their lives.
And how is it that you are so all-knowing, MiamiDAP? This may have been true for your kids at their schools, but it says nothing about anyone else’s experience. Sometimes a kid will do homework to the best of their ability all year long and it’s still not enough to get the A. Not everyone is born with the same abilities and talents, believe it or not.
Again, an ignorant comment. Both of my kids’ educations in K-12 prepared them well for the
elite colleges they attended. They both graduated college Phi Beta Kappa. Their high school experiences challenged and pushed them to do their best ( but they didn’t always get the A), and it wasn’t all about homework.
You need to get out more, MiamiDAP 
Sorry, but this has been stated over and over, and challenged over and over. It’s simply not the only requirement for getting an A in a class. Sorry…just not true.
“Doing homework in a timely fashion and doing it well is the ONLY requirement for having an A in every class,”
“Sorry, but this has been stated over and over, and challenged over and over. It’s simply not the only requirement for getting an A in a class. Sorry…just not true.”
Sometimes the truth does not matter, if it works. There is a lot of evidence that kids who believe that math is learned by practice consistently outperform students who believe that it is a talent. That statement is not entirely true, but it works anyway.
I’m a professional student and I still don’t believe that school is the most important thing in my life, thanks to my parents.
Last semester I signed up for an English course with one of the most notoriously difficult professors at my college. Have never had any difficulty in English/writing-- earned awards and straight A’s through high school in AP classes. I slaved over the first paper (spent well over 20 hours writing and rewriting). Got it back with red on almost every sentence and a full page of comments on the end. C+.
My knee-jerk reaction to Miami’s post is “I wish that were true!” But thinking it over, I don’t. That class is the best one I’ve ever taken. I’m glad I didn’t get an A simply for putting in hard work-- because I’m not being judged by how much work I’m putting in, I’m being judged against the highest standards of excellence. That motivates me to learn more and push myself harder than a simple letter grade ever could.
Not true. Life and college aren’t that formulaic. One of my favorite classes, similar to @warriordaughter, was a rhetoric class. The papers were very tough and the professor was tougher. I wasn’t the A student but I took the trouble to rewrite my papers, submit them again, and discuss the improvements/weaknesses with the professor. She was happy to review these rewrites with me. I wasn’t going to get a higher grade. What I got was a better understanding of the writing process.
I think MiamiDAP’s Law (that’s what I’m calling it) “just do the homework and get A’s” is true in American high schools - with possible exceptions at a few, but only a few, privates and magnets. It is probably true of more college courses than not.
This is part of the reason why colleges insist on SAT/ACT - because GPA alone is junk. It does not separate out the truly smart kids from the robotic grinds. All a 4.0 tells you is that a kid did 100% of the homework. That’s a slight exaggeration but not much of one.
I think you’re way, way off, Naval. If schools were just turning out good homework writers, colleges as a whole would be failing students right and left. But since you assume colleges are just as bad, that would then mean that very, very few grads are learning enough to innovate or make changes in the world that need to happen. And THAT isn’t true either. I could counter that all a good SAT score tells you is that someone is good at math and reading test-taking. That leaves out a whole lot of other people. And many “well-respected” colleges know that, which is why they’re test optional.
The woman who started my D’s HS studies and researches education in a wide variety of ways and I have seen some of what she’s found. There are some fantastic schools out there and kids who are learning amazing things. D’s school is one of them. Very few kids get A’s but there also isn’t much homework. The kids are making/doing/discovering and inventing all through the school year. They’re putting into practice what they KNOW, not how well they fill in homework papers. I really hate education bashing. It’s really not that terrible-you homeschooled, of course, or was it that you sent your kids to one of the very few “good schools”? Gah.
I never found homework in college very useful to me. In fact I did convince my teachers that to discount my homework grades and just count my tests. But I do admit I don’t dare tell that to my kid. They have their own styles.
@JBriones: This is what I plan to do to help him do well in college. Continue talking about: managing schedule (classes, work, play ) i.e., what kind of planner to use; managing money; attending to personal care (clothes, room); relating to professors as a young adult, not as a child; responding promptly and politely to email; figuring out when to ask for academic help and doing it; when to go to doctor; and attending to personal security (self, computer). This is all In no particular order. I think they all kind of come together because a person can’t manage his or her academic responsibility well if other aspects of life are out of control.
Other parents will probably say their kids already know all these things and have been doing them for years. Mine is more of a work in progress, so I do plan to check in on these general issues while he is in college, but he’ll be far away so it will be more of an occasional reminder.
BTW I am not expecting perfection - I assume there will be bumps and that he’ll get over them.
As for SAT… he studied on his own by doing practice tests from the College Board blue book. That worked very well.
" am not sure about “learning” in american k - 12. It is at such a low level that it is not worhwhile menionning.
Again, an ignorant comment. Both of my kids’ educations in K-12 prepared them well for the elite colleges they attended. They both graduated college Phi Beta Kappa. Their high school experiences challenged and pushed them to do their best ( but they didn’t always get the A), and it wasn’t all about homework.
You need to get out more, MiamiDAP"
-Gradating Phi Beta Kappa from colelge reflects the college work and not how HS prepared kids for it. American k-12 is a huge failure and smart kids understand that they need to adjust in college, And how do I know? It js happened that my D. also graduated Phi Beta Kappa and got an award at a top pre-med in her class, thanks to her very hard work at college. It has no conection to her HS success though, it has to do with the fact that sh realized that she needs to adjust up in her efforts in college.
I have nothing against her HS experiences, after all she graduated #1 from the #2 private HS in our state. It was an awesome place that matcehd my D. very well. However, even at such awesome places and in the top test-in shools of NYC they still have to follow the same prgram or school would not be cartified, and this program is very low level in comparison to the rest of the world. Even very top HSs do not prepared kids for colleges, and I am not talking about Elite colleges, I am talking about state publics or for that matter just any “generic” college.
Anybody can call my comment ignorant as much as they wish. It does not change a thing, the facts stay the same.
Your opinion is your opinion. And its been heard. Over and over and over. Other posters are saying they have had different experiences with public schools. Have the courtesy to respectufully acknowledge their experiences and opinions, even if they differ for your own rigid opinion. And out of curiousity, if your dd attended a private HS where she was #1 in a class of 34, how do you know how the grading works in the public system? Did your son attend public school and did he have that experience?
I don’t mean to be insulting, Miami, but it just doesn’t make logical sense. If my kids did well in college, then they were prepared to do so. And they were prepared because of their K-12 educations. My son didn’t just arrive at Pomona College and start working hard- he had been working hard all through high school. He came prepared, and since I didn’t teach him and he didn’t learn by osmosis, I have to give the credit to his K-12, and particularly his high school, education. To say his high school didn’t prepare him is just false.
Need to know your kids learning style and introduce them to other methods. I am mostly talking about kids who have great memories and have always passed class by only paying attention to what has been said in class. The kids who don’t have great study habits since school has always been easy.
You parents who have these kids know who they are. It has been a struggle with one daughter to preread anything for her classes so she can participate in class discussions. They argue this method has always worked in the past so why change.
My friend from high school did this and he didn’t know how to study when he went to Rice. He never finished his degree even though he went back a couple of times.
It’s too bad when a parent feels the public schools aren’t good enough and resorts to private schools instead of insuring the caliber of the public schools improves. Historically Wisconsin public schools have been better than private- the state historically has invested in education (not so sure in recent times). MiamiDAP- you are not in one of the elite for education states if Florida is yours.
“Elite” may mean many public flagship universities that are so much better than so many more difficult to get into private colleges. Depends on definitions. Remember that flagship U’s serve the gifted as well as the brightest of a state.
Homework is not always needed to master material. It all depends on the student- innate ability and material previously learned. Gifted kid did/did not get A’s in HS based on whether homework was graded (0’s on homework with 100% on every test…).
Again- it all depends on one’s definition of success.
I never felt I had mastered all of the material in college unless I got an A (and, depending on the course, even then did not master all that was presented- good courses show there is more in the world beyond what is presented/expected to learn).
As a physician I need to point out that physicians, while they serve a very needed function and need to be intelligent, are not the epitome of intelligence, etc. And- not all need to work as hard to master the material and use it wisely. We used to tell people our son was too smart to become a physician- I’m sure there are many physician parents here who know how medicine has changed since our eons ago start and understand the comment.
Back to OP’s title. First you need to determine what constitutes success for you. Success is not the same as being tops in anything. Is success graduating from college? Is success having a good social life and meeting one’s mate? I remember hearing about the days when girls were sent off to get their Mrs. degree. Is it finding a lucrative job after college, or even being able to support oneself? Is it being able to manage the academics and expand one’s horizons in other ways?
Step one. Pick a college that matches the student’s abilities and other facets of the person. This means one that is not too hard nor too easy. It also means one where the student can fit in- eg no uber religious schools for atheists.
Step two. The student chooses a major that works for him/her. Then does the work.
Step three. Parent backs off and lets it be student’s business as an adult. The emerging adult needs to learn how to function independently of family. While we want to know just about everything about our young adult children they need to separate from us emotionally as well as physically.
My child was successful in college- he graduated and is self supporting. Most college students do graduate and with/without more formal education do support themselves. Notice that this is a pass/fail view. It doesn’t matter if my son was the top student/got the best test scores /went to the most elite schools/makes the most money. It matters if he is able to function well in the adult world. He seems to.
Re; post 55: Miami’s kid went to school in Ohio, @wis75.
Short answer. Some preparation for tests such as the ACT and SAT is good so your child is familiar with them. Huge amounts of prep work in lieu of reading a lot and doing the school work all along won’t make your child more able to handle college work. Better your child gets into the appropriate school that is a good match for his/her abilities.
Your child needs good study habits no matter how smart s/he is. This means buckling down to do the m
As others have stated, it depends on your definition of success.
What do graduates think about how college prepared them for success? Let’s see what research has to say
From a massive Gallup study of 30,000 college graduates in the U.S. – it measured the degree to which graduates were engaged in their work and thriving in their purpose, social, financial, community and physical well-being
Graduates who strongly agree they had the following six experiences in college – which Gallup refers to as the “Big Six” – perform markedly better on every measure of long-term success compared with graduates who missed the mark on these experiences:
- a professor who made them excited about learning
- professors who cared about them as a person
- a mentor who encouraged them to pursue their goals and dreams
- worked on a long-term project
- had a job or internship where they applied what they were learning
- were extremely involved in extra-curricular activities
These are things that students should be striving to have happen in their college experiences.
I have been advising students in college for over 15 years (it’s my actual job, not as a parent, so I’ve advised thousands, not just my own kid) and I would agree with what Gallup found. There are lots of kids who graduate college but didn’t get much out of it (even with good grades). Conversely, I’ve had students with lower GPA’s who received a great education.
Privateadvisor, that’s an interesting list. I always like getting the inside scoop from those who do this kind of thing for a living.