Large schools for the talented late bloomer/lazy underachiever

[starbright]

<p>Miamidap, you have a tendency to a) assume your personal experience or extremely limited sample size is somehow generalizable when it is not and b) that it is all about just ‘hard work’ - that everyone’s outcome is attributable to a lot or a little hard work (completely ignoring the fact that students actually do vary in terms of their past education grounding at whatever level, their general educational environment both at home and school and their actual innate cognitive abilities which surely DO vary across individuals). I have seen time and again some students who can sail through advanced coursework like drinking water and some, despite years of one on one tutoring and practice, that can not bring themselves up to even average levels of math (as but one example). Of course hard work matters, but it is hardly the only part of the equation. I have to assume your own education was one of memorization and regurgitation where one can ace the ‘exam’ with ‘hard work’ (pushed by external rewards and punishments when necessary) but was not one that involve a lot of critical thinking and depth of analysis and understanding. Ridiculously overly simplistic. </p>

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If we do not improve k-12 here, we are in trouble. Many foreign proffessionals are leaving USA, going back, we will need replacements. Many departments that involve technology are facing very old work force. People around me were much younger when I started working, we all got very old, some approaching close to 70. I have taken Computer class later in my proffessional life, prof. has mentioned that academic quality of kids coming to his class from HS went down considerably. At the end we had 3 people n our class (summer session), I was assigned by prof. to assist one, prof took care of another. He just needed to get some work out of them to give them some reasonable grades. It was very sad. If we do not face up to that, we are in trouble. </p>

<p>It does not take anything but hard work to get straingt 'A’s, including the most regorous programs and most rigorous programs at most colleges. Yes, I heard that it is hard at MIT, but other than that, hard work will always win. If you tell your kids otherwise, you set them for failure. Even in worst moments of despair, I always tell this to my D. Others have connections, special status, tons of talent… but at the end hard worker will be a winner.

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