<p>citysgirlsmom - I did not throw you a curve by bringing up my son's ADHD. My son is not eligible for an IEP or a 504 at school because he is making "fair and effective progress". He is, actually, in nearly all honors classes (not Spanish) and plays two sports so managing quite a bit. Since he not eligible for an IEP/504, he is one of the many students who appear silently among the masses in classrooms everyday, with different learning strengths and weaknesses, some of whom you may be judging as carelessness, willful or manipulative. Every student has different strengths and weaknesses but schools value some more than others. </p>
<p>I disagree with alumother that "arguing" with the boss is not a good idea. While being contentious is never a good idea, there is no value in having "yesmen" for employees and there certainly is no value in working under someone who prefers "yesmen". I understand your point but I don't believe progress is made by raising yesmen or yeswomen.</p>
<p>I don't mean being a yesman or yeswoman. There are ways to make your case without arguing. It doesn't matter - this is a very fine point I'm making, and one which I have only come to appreciate working for an extremely senior executive in the context of a company with an Asian culture. It is different than the Western way, inheriting something from the tradition of master and student. Probably too fine a point to communicate on an Internet board.</p>
<p>You make an interesting point. College profs often used to voice frustration at Asian students who wereunwilling to contradict them or the textbooks. Sometimes these students would voice their dissenting opinions sotto voce or after class (but not to the teacher) and thus did not contribute their different perspective to the class discussion; sometimes they accepted as gospel truth what they were told by the instructor o what they read.
This image of the docile Asian student who makes a good, docile employee is fading as more and more are attracted by entrepreneurship and assume managerial roles. But it was a dominant image while I was in college and grad school.</p>
<p>The fine point I have come to understand is that there is a difference between docile, and serving well or learning well. There will be much lost in translation, but as best I can put it is that it's a belief that in a situation with a leader or a teacher, the student uses his time best by listening. That most learning takes place hearing from the one who knows more, rather than from hearing oneself speak. After all, one already knows one's own thoughts.</p>
<p>The multiple disclaimers that must follow - I am not Asian, I cannot fully know another culture, the behavior of any person in a foreign country will be altered by their own sense of strangeness, the history of Asians in the US was profoundly colored by the early days of railroads and bigotry. So this is very much IMHO.</p>
<p>To take it back to the thread, the question is whether kids benefit from learning to bow their head somewhat to the seemingly silly strictures of some schools. Depends. But I now have more belief in the virtures of learning obedience, or at least learning how to act obediently, whether one practices it in adult life or no. I mean, as the saying goes, if you keep your eyes open when you bow your head you see yourself.</p>
<p>This takes us back to another thread which discussed class-based methods of learning and teaching. It would appear that the teacher-in- control model is less prevalent in schools with a high proportion of middle class students than the discussion model. In turn, the LAC model with its small classes is predicated on the idea of students discussing and instructors guiding discussions. I know that our high school does as much it as it can to stimulate discussions. So did our elementary school, favored by middle class professional families. Immigrant families and families with lower SES tended to prefer the more traditional pedagogy with the teacher lecturing and emphasizing social skills, responsibility, and so forth.</p>
<p>Alumother, I feel quite confident that we could discuss this all day, and I think you have some valid points. Nonetheless, I hold firm to the belief that blind acceptance of authority is a path to disaster. </p>
<p>I think a teacher, parent, boss, president, whomever, needs to have a better answer than "because I said so" at ALL times. The answer may truthfully be: "I've learned from experience that this is the best way"---but that doesn't always make it the RIGHT answer. I think it is close-minded to think you always have the RIGHT (only, etc.) answer.</p>
<p>I do agree with you, however, that occasionally one must (as my mother said from time to time) "put up and shut up." But I don't think one must "get along to go along" or "put up and shut up" at all times---and I do think too many societal institutions, such as schools, offices, etc., are built around that premise. One should only accept the things that truly cannot be changed.</p>
<p>My own education has followed the model you describe. For that matter, so did our dinner table with a college professor for a father. My kids' education has followed the model in spades. </p>
<p>I do think it's the right model, overall, for schools. Perhaps the time to come to appreciate the fine points of learning from a master is when you are experienced enough and senior enough to find someone who really is a master.</p>
<p>I'm still voting for learning to listen to dolts, just as a skill:).</p>
<p>alumother - while we may find that the Asian culture has much to offer, the reality is that my kids are growing up in the American culture where being passive and obedient at all costs may actually be considered a negative quality. Of course, I want my children to be respectful and I definitely want them to get things in on time, make them presentable, and learn good study skills, etc. But, I think a discussion of the value of obedience is a jump from whether or not we should grade students on the neatness of their binders compared to their knowledge of the subject. My original issue is one of how grades are perceived. If you asked the general public what an A in math means - what do you think most people would say in response? I think most people would say - that kid is good at math, not.... that kid is ok at math but great at timeliness and binder organization! How should we compare grades when one teacher grades only by tests while another teacher assigns 30% to tests, 30% to a project, 30% to homework and 10% to class discussion? Which student with an A is actually good at math? What do admissions officers think? At our HS, honors classes are only for those who achieve a B+ or better.....thus, what composes a grade is rather important for one's future. I can only reference my husband, a physicist who did poorly in high school for many reasons not related to his intellect. He would not have gotten into a selective college today based on grades but recently was awarded a very difficult to obtain $750k grant from NIH and makes a strong contribution to society. I know his secretary made sure he got that grant in on time and I am sure she make sure every box was filled in but the spark that led to this grant had nothing to do with his organizational skills. It just makes me wonder how many bright, creative and progressive people we hold back for things like well organized binders and "neatness". But, again, my original concern - when we talk about "grades" what do we mean? Plus, why grade for the same issue of timeliness, neatness and organization 5 or 6 times via their inclusion in all subjects when you only get graded for the subject matter once?</p>
<p>RIieydog - there are a lot of points in your post. Let me just address the one that is a little off topic, since I took the thread that way, and then we can all return to grades.
[quote]
the reality is that my kids are growing up in the American culture where being passive and obedient at all costs may actually be considered a negative quality.
[/quote]
The fine point I am trying to make is that from my experience of obedience in the Asian culture it is not passive. It is an active, dynamic state, in which one is aware of one's desire to individuate and one actively listens instead to one's superiors. It requires a kind of intellectual deep breathing. I cannot explain it any better than that. And now back to whether kids ought to get graded on binder organization or other arbitrary factors...</p>
<p>Can only go by my observation of Asian culture in my home (mom's Japanese, dad's career military):</p>
<p>In public, my mom would never question my dad in a way that would embarrass him; but in private, she'd tell him exactly what was on her mind. Docile Asian women??--HA! I knew early on that was a stereotype.</p>
<p>Just a question--most of the class skipping seems to be done with math subjects, maybe some science. Is there much class skipping going on in the humanities area?</p>
<p>There is much less skipping in the humanities because it is easier to enrich in those subjects by holding the students to higher standards (longer papers on more difficult topics, longer books, more in-depth research, etc...) However, in our school, one girl was allowed to take AP-US History and AP European History, ordinarly taken in junior and senior years respectively while in 9th and 10th grades, together with AP-English, and some science APs. She'd gotten a 1550 on the SAT in 7th grade. She eventually graduated early with a slew of national awards. And then, her parents decided she was too young for college so they held her back one year...</p>
<p>AP classes typically include all the material in the standard high school level course plus more, because they're intended to approximate the standard college introductory level course. That's why it's often not a problem for gifted kids to take the AP version of the course in 9th or 10th grade, with no prior high school courses in that subject.</p>
<p>I've gotten to this site kind of late, so I'm late to this post and I don't know if I have anything to contribute that hasn't been said.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, I got to skip my Freshman English class, and I wasn't affected by it at all. I still have to take four Englishes though, which means taking two Senior year for me (I switched schools and the new school denied my ahead-being, making me wait for AP Literature when I took AP Language as a Soph).</p>
<p>The only advice I can give is, don't let your son get too far behind, and make sure his school has sufficient courses to fill out what he wants to take.</p>
<p>My S graduated in 3 years, but he had to fulfill the requirement of 4 years of English, so he doubled up with English electives. My older S took both AP-lit (paired with AP-USH) and AP-language (paired with AP-Euro).</p>