<p>I've read posts on AOL before from parents who say that their kids in elementary school have 2 or more hours of homework a night. Eh--something wrong with that right? I thought it was 10 minutes a night for 1st graders, 20 for 2nd graders, and so on.</p>
<p>"I thought it was 10 minutes a night for 1st graders, 20 for 2nd graders, and so on."
40 for 3rd graders, 80 for 4th graders, 160 for 5th graders, 320 for 6th graders, 640 for 7th graders, 1280 for 8th graders, and 42.67 hours a night for 9th graders, right?? ;) No wonder kids are cheating.. :)</p>
<p>Check out this article on the NewYork Times Sunday Edition/Week in Review for the Old and Overscheduled to see where society is heading off in general, even for retiree let alone high school. Here is a small excerpt</p>
<p>" When the Rolling Stones announced plans last week for another world tour, performing their 34-year old hit "Brown Sugar" and other songs at a Manhattan news conference., it evoked the usual snickers about sexagenarians, drugs and rock'n'roll.
But while Mick jagger, who will be 62 when the tour begins in August, and Keith Richards, who turns 62 in December, may be aging rockers, they are also something else: active seniors.
In that sense, they are not unlike millions of other people. These days, older people are not supposed to be sitting in a rocking chair, but doing things they didn't have time for in the past - studying Italian in Florence, say, or learning the difference between a demi-glace and a veloute at the Cordon Bleu, jetting off to an archeological dig in Timbuktu or a trek in Nepal or even skydiving, as former President George H.W. Bush did last year on his 80th birday.
But must older people aspire to bungee jump? Or to prance aorund singing "Jumpin' Jack Flash"? Can't a 62-year old - or a 72-year old or 82-year old for that matter - just relax?
Society likes its citizens to be busy. Parents are famously harried, and children overschedule. And older people, these days, are often subject to the same pressure: they cannot just retired, they must be superretired.
...............
But it's not just that people have the option of keeping busy. In some ways society is demanding that they do so - to be less of a drain on resources, to remain physically and mentally fit, and as a source of support for the pharmaceutical and other aging-related industries."</p>
<p>This is a very interesting discussion....I have a different point of view because I am not a teenager yet I am not a boomer parent. I am 27 years old, class of 1996...so technically I am in the very beginning of the today's teenage generation (Generation 'Y').</p>
<p>I basically saw a strong transition between generations when I was in high school. When I was a freshman, the seniors tended to be for the most part, relative "slackers". Even those who ended up in Columbia or some Ivy didn't seem to have anywhere near the credentials you'd expect. Maybe one AP course or none at all, few extracurriculars, and a decent but not unbelievable SAT/GPA. As I went on in high school, the students became more and more competitive, and were signing up in record numbers for AP and honors courses. By the time I was a senior, you had people crying if they got an 85 on their report card. I can't imagine anyone from the class of '93 doing that. I was probably one of the last kids from a competitive high school in New York to get into an Ivy League school (Cornell) with only 2 AP's and nothing to write home about on the extracurricular side. And it seems that this ultra-competitiveness has not improved; in fact it seems to have gotten worse.</p>
<p>I think that the boomer generation has a lot to do with this...not to blame an entire generation, but it seems that many, particularly in the upper-middle classes, expect a "trophy" child, and push their kids to no end to get into Yale or Harvard. But there are tremendous consequences. First of all, your child does not gain any independence. If you're dictating the classes you have to take and the activities they have to do, how will they be able to manage when they're older? They'd be running to you every ten minutes. That's why it doesn't surprise me that people in their 20s are called "twixters"...people who are adults but yet are not adults. And when today's teens reach 25 in the next 5-10 years, that will probably be an epidemic. Second of all, and more importantly, you're literally endangering their health. I hate to say it, but the pressure parents put their kids on today is bordering on child abuse. You're getting kids 17, 18 years old who are getting ulcers and are going to the hospital because of stress. Kids are turning into robots and yesmen to the Boomers. They can't enjoy life, and life instead is a maelstrom of work and labor...almost like we are reverting back to the days of sweatshops...only more in a "white collar" form. </p>
<p>And I don't see this ending at high school graduation. College students are pressured almost as bad as high school students, even if they're 1,000 miles from home. Parents nowadays are making up class schedules, calling the deans and advisors, and making surprise visits all the time. And they're pressuring their kids to keep up their GPA for grad school. I just finished a master's program, and believe me, as recently as 5 or 6 years ago, the grad students I've seen would have never even stepped foot into the school. They're going to grad school simply to please their parents, which is the absolute worst reason to go. And the Ph.D. students are a lot more mainstream...in the entering graduate class of '99, none went on for a Ph.D....in the entering class of '02, 6 or 7 are getting a Ph.D. Fortunately, none of them has wilted (except one who got an ulcer a number of years back), but who knows what the future will hold.</p>
<p>I doubt there is any way we could turn back the tide and let kids be kids. Perhaps in 30 years' time, when Gen 'Y' has kids, things could change as a "rebellion" of their own so-called "childhood". But I think there are a few things that can be done. First of all, I think that the SAT should be eliminated when considering students for college unless it's a borderline case. Too many people are getting inflated SAT scores because they spent many, many hours at Kaplan or Princeton Review. Second, there should be a limit to the numbers of Ivy League or similar schools that one should apply to. When you have 30,000 applications for Harvard and maybe a couple of thousand get in, that is really adding to the pressure. Perhaps this could be done automated through a consortium. Third, the bar which decides who can take AP courses should be raised and nationalized. Also, a student can't take more than a certain number (say, 2 as a junior and 4 as a senior). Having six AP courses in a year is almost inhumane....unless the student has no extracurriculars. And finally, extracurricular activities should be limited...only one sport a season.</p>
<p>I don't know what reaction this will get, but I sincerely hope that as the backside of Gen 'Y' enters high school that things will change. Otherwise, if you think America is stressed out today, you ain't seen nothing yet.</p>
<p>yankeeyosh26:</p>
<p>What about the students that WANT to take a so-called inhumane number of AP courses? I am taking a lot of APs next year (I'm a junior now) but have by no means been pushed into them. My parents had no involvement in my course selection other than signing the approval form. Same with limiting college admissions: the UK does it, they have a central application service with a limited number of total applications. This is detrimental to the students. College admissions at the selective level being discussed on this forum are rolling the dice no matter what your qualifications are. For every qualified person accepted to Harvard, there were several more identical students who were rejected. If a student wants to increase his or her odds of acceptance into reach schools, the option of filling out more applications should be there.</p>
<p>There ARE kids that take 4-5 APs at once, have huge leadership responsibilities in their extracurriculars, and successfully apply to large numbers of top schools, all through their own motivation. I only wish I could do this, but I know a handful of them. You're really underestimating this type of student.</p>
<p>If this kind of stuff ever happens, I'll be really glad that I got through high school without it. There's no need to "protect students from themeslves" in the fashion you describe and an attempt to do so will significantly hurt many people.</p>
<p>I think the easing of immigration law in the 70s(??) has brought thousands of immigrants/immigres from all over the world to USA, whose education back home are a lot tougher than in USA. My theory is that they tend to take more advance classes and got accepted into more Ivies and therefore these Ivies start raising the bar and expect more from hs student, and it becomes a catch-22 kind of thing.
I know my K-12 education from Asia was more advanced, same with my husband education from Europe compare to the same student here. We often wonder why our daughter is taking these subjects in Freshman year, we learned these subjects much more in dept a lot earlier. For example for FL l, most students do not start until high school, some from middle school, but that is way too late for language when the tongue is already too tight from speaking one's native language. Language should have been taught before 10, in my opinion.
So don't blame it all on the baby boomer, there is only so much credit we can take for ruining this younger generation life.(lol)
But for the record not, I've asked my daughter if she would prefer to take non-honors classes and she said she prefered honors classes because kids in non-honors classes are very disruptive,the classes are too easy. For example, she is in French I which is non-honor class and she had to do a group project, some kids in the group are slackers and refuse to learn the lines so she had to switch to a different group.
So not everybody has ulcer either.</p>
<p>Dang foreigners.</p>
<p>David:</p>
<p>All I can say is more power to you. If you think you are truly capable of handling that work AND you enjoy it, then by all means do it. But what I am talking about are the kids who are doing this because of their parents' wishes. Those are the ones I am worried about, since they are working 18 hour days every day not because they enjoy what they're doing but because they have been told since day one that if you don't go to this school or that school that you'll be a failure. There's a book out calling "Doing School"...it's a nice expose interviewing a bunch of overachieving HS students. To them, school is like a jail sentence.</p>
<p>Another side effect of those who are pushed into Harvard and Yale is that kids who "really want" to go there not because of societal pressure but because of the learning experience get screwed, since the application pool is such that they're against those who are "artificial" applicants.</p>
<p>Regarding the applications, I understand what you are saying regarding the detrimental effects of limiting the number of applications. However, the problem is that today, so many kids are sending applications to any "name brand" school that they could think of that they're not critically thinking about a school that would actually be a good fit. So limiting the numbers of applications will allow the student to actually think for themselves and determine what school would be right for them.</p>
<p>I am not denying that there are kids that get pushed into what is essentially a prison sentence in the form of too many AP classes. I'm saying that there are kids for whom this is NOT the case, and it is not fair to them to implement ideas such as those yankeeyosh26 posted to attempt to limit stress. This can't be changed through regulations, but rather only by changing the attitudes of some overdemanding parents.</p>
<p>Susie:</p>
<p>You bring up a good point, that the influx of immigration has contributed to the competition, and I'm not denying that. Even if you're not an immigrant or first gen American, you (and parents) may feel the pressure by immigrant children (to avoid the stereotype, NOT all immigrant parents push their kids to get into the Ivies, but a lot do, as well as native-born Americans). </p>
<p>But you have to admit, society over the past 15 or so years has become a lot more child-centric, and the Boomers have a big role in that. Until the mid 80s or so, kids were more likely to have an undersupervised childhood and were therefore not pressured by their parents. But especially in the past 15 years, parents have reversed the tide 180 degrees and now kids and teens are the most oversupervised generation in history. And with that oversupervision, parents have a lot more say, and exert a lot more pressure.</p>
<p>David: That's true, but the problem is that the number who don't feel the pressure is so few and far between that something needs to be done or else we're looking at a generation of type-A superstressed types that will have a mid-life crisis 25 years too early.</p>
<p>One main problem is that America's school system needs reform. Teaching to a standardized test may not help the situation because teachers nowadays are afraid to go against the curriculum required to pass the test or else they could lose funding. So instead of opening kids' minds, teachers just spend months going over old standardized tests with kids. This makes kids get bored, and may artificially increase AP registrants. If we have more challenging coursework, then the demand for AP may decrease.</p>
<p>But as I said, it will be hard to change the parents' attitudes...as the world gets more and more competitive it will be more difficult for any meaningful attitude changes to take place. The only way we can get change, unfortunately, is by forcing the system.</p>
<p>yankeeyosh26, have you been watching/reading the news lately? Too many kids got kill/kidnapped and you want parents not to supervise kids! May be we have too much information: internet, Megan's law, freeway alert, TVs, newspaper that are constantly have these bad news on, that is why parents have to oversupervise kids. Even the internet is bad if your child is on it unsupervised, didn't some girl(13) get killed recently by someone she met online.
I must admit my husband and I looked back at our childhood fondly(unsupervised play) but like you said earlier, I don't know if we can go back. I think It comes with the territory for being industrialized, super high tech kind of society.</p>
<p>Actually, there are FEWER kidnappings today than there were 20 years ago. Twenty years ago, a kidnapping may have shown up on some obscure milk carton, but that was about it. Nowadays, with Amber alerts, everything makes national news and is the top story on CNN. Obviously, that's a good result of this high attention....much more vigilance equals much less crime on kids. Unfortunately, it also means lack of freedom....kids just can't be kids anymore. It's hard, but it would be nice if some kind of happy medium was developed.</p>
<p>we just see every single act of violence on tv because news stations want to up their ratings... craziness.. i was watching some thing on comedy central (haha ellen degeneres maybe?) about those little clips the news stations show, like: "the most unbelievably shocking and gruesome death you've ever heard of....tongiht at 11", or "what are you eating for dinner that MAY KILL YOU..find out tonight at 11..", etc. media is just crazy (albeit interesting) these days... its like everyones trying to copy the OC ..including Channel 7 News.. hmm.. drama.</p>
<p>anyways, the question taht people like David06 need to ask themselves is, why do i WANT to go to harvard?
honestly though, why ARE people so obsessed with harvard? yes its a good school, but its really not amazing... i mean they have teaching assistants teaching tons of classes since its so focused on research and grads, theres a major lack of social life, and boston is damn cold! (believe me, i live there!) if theres something specific about harvard (or other ivies too... i just always use harvard as an example since its such an obvious one) that you love, then sure, go for it, but its ridic how many kids these days are saying they want to go to these "top" schools w/out even knowing anything farther than their shiny names... i mean it would make you feel pretty cool to have a nice Harvard sticker on the back of your car, no? theres one kid i know who is 100000% sure he wants to go to duke, while he doesnt even know anything about it or other similar schools. i told him i wanted to go to emory and he was like what? MRI? i mean come on... at least do some research before you get set on one school solely for its prestige.</p>
<p>oh stress. we love to stress about it (me included...i WAS the one that started this post, i know)... but its hard to reach a conclusion, a happy medium if you will. i stick by what i said earlier (page 5 maybe?) about being happy no matter what, but i realize that its still an issue. but... whataya gonna do? </p>
<p>oh by the way, i am such a 60s/70s/80s music fan... ahh rolling stones, beatles, tom petty... (i could literally go on for pages).. i love them all. but i've been trying to find some modern music i can love just as much lately and while i do love rap/hiphop, and is good to dance to and stuff, the messages it sends arent exactly empowering.. i'm not into whiny emo, and pop..oh god dont get me started. the mere mention of kelly clarkson is almost vomit-inducing.. and thank god the boy band phase is dead and gone (if the backstreet boys succeed in their attempted comeback i may kill myself).
anyway, what i finally found were AWESOME bands like the shins, modest mouse, spoon, frou frou, keane, etc etc... i suggest starting with the garden state soundtrack and moving your way outward.</p>
<p>so true though, what h4zin said about our generation not having a cause. i don't think stress can be it. but we can still fight The Establishment, can't we?</p>
<p>hilary6:</p>
<p>First: I agree with your comments about the media. Our media can't get much worse with all the sensationalistic garbage and fluffy feature trash in place of real hard news.</p>
<p>I'm not Harvard obsessed. I couldn't get into Harvard and I wouldn't waste my time applying. I'm doing a summer program there in slightly over a month, but that's because based on my research they had the best summer program. As for schools, my top two at the moment are NYU and Penn. I'm planning to visit both before I leave for Harvard, since at the moment I'm thinking about applying Early Decision to one of the two.</p>
<p>I wouldn't go to a top Ivy League school JUST because of the name, but of course it's going to be a factor. If I find there are multiple schools that I think I'd be happy at, and all other things are equal, yes I would choose the one that is more prestigious. Graduating from an Ivy League school has never hurt anyone. I wouldn't consider prestige as the sole or main factor for choosing a school, but it's certainly another factor to look at.</p>
<p>A few posts ago (sorry if I'm going a bit too far back :smile:), someone mentioned the UK's system of limiting college applications. I think that this system merits some examination by US schools. For those of you who don't know much about the UCAS application (that's the common application to all universities in the UK), students are limited to applying to about six schools (sorry, I can't find my UCAS app from last year to check the number), and may only apply to one of Oxford and Cambridge. If the Ivies and other top schools were to mimic this, and join up and institute a policy saying that students may only apply to two of Ivies+SM, and if students were limited to applying to a maximum of, say, eight schools total, college admissions would be a whole different game. I'd be interested to see how things would change.</p>
<p>ah, here it is:
[quote]
limiting college admissions: the UK does it, they have a central application service with a limited number of total applications. This is detrimental to the students.
[/quote]
... no, I don't think it's detrimental to the students; actually, I think it's beneficial. With students forced to limit their applications to top schools, not only is the total number of applicants limited (resulting in a higher probability that qualified applicants will be admitted - I believe it reduces the "lottery" effect currently present in HYPSM admissions), but students are forced to consider other schools, ie. safeties and matches, to fill up the rest of the slots on their UCAS application. I think that in the long run, this probably helps students be admitted to schools that are really at the right academic level for them. Of course, I'm not an expert on this, so this is definitely open for discussion and I'd be interested to hear what everyone else has to say.</p>
<p>I could go on about high-school stress, but I think I'll spare you all my rant about AP classes. I'll save that one for a rainy day or something :-P... just one more comment before I end this (somewhat pointless?) post: I definitely agree that it's important to recognize the difference between students who take AP classes & millions of ECs because they want to and those who do it because their parents want them to. I was one of those high school students who had taken 9 AP exams by the time I graduated, spent a minimum of 15 hours a week on my main EC, etc., all because I pursued what was interesting to me. Actually, I admit, my parents thought I was insane and repeatedly told me not to do these things if I didn't really want to. And for me, high school was a wonderful experience. On the other hand, one of my very good friends was the kind of student whose parents pressured her to take the most demanding course load possible, and though she did well, she often broke down in tears during our free period, saying she just couldn't handle the work & the stress.</p>
<p>It feels to me that schools should put forth more effort to notice when students are under high stress from parents etc., and should make it clear that the students' health (mental & physical) is more important than taking a million APs, doing a million activities, all for the purpose <em>maybe</em> getting into an extremely selective school. If the student is self-motivated and can handle the work without getting stressed out, fine, but if he/she can't handle it, the school needs to intervene and tell the student & parents to back off a bit.</p>
<p>Eh, sorry if that was sort of long and unfocused. I suppose I made it through the college admissions process all right by myself, but now that I'm looking back on it and watching my younger friends go through the same thing, I've begun to realize how horrid the whole thing is :-P I think that on the whole, we all need to make a collective effort to step back, take a deep breath, and work to change the whole high-stress culture about colleges and jobs and things...</p>
<p>My daughter hs limits the number of recommandations the counselor is going to provide(6), so in a way this limits the number of applications. However, you can still do the UCs and common application to a lot of school.</p>
<p>I've always thought the point of high school was to prepare us for the real world and/or college. Taking it easy in the real world doesn't get you anywhere.</p>
<p>Pressure from high school and my immigrant parents has almost pushed me over the edge many times. Ever since I started high school I knew I had to work harder than anyone else or than my parents wouldnt respect me and my family wouldnt be proud of me. Every day I carried everyone's expectations on my back until my own health began to suffer. I am a male wrestler and I let depression take over me during the years. Including the weight I lost in wrestling, I stopped eating because I was so focused on doing well. As I dropped about 30 pounds in 2 weeks until i was 115 pounds I realized that I was killing myself for school. Thanks to my friends over the summer I was able to recover from this. Earlier this year as I was applying to college I felt the pressure again. I did not get into Harvard early and my parents clearly were dissapointed in me. I soon relapsed after the walls of my world came crashing down on me again. Throughout this year I have grown up and realized that it is not worth it. I love my life and I am happy to say I am a recovered anorexic. As the end of the year approached and I was faced with staying in the high paced east coast by going to Yale, which was my parents choice and the choice of my peers, I decided to take the risk and go on to Stanford next year in the laid back world of california. Now I am happy with my decision because I know that I did this completely for me and that my happiness is more important than anything else in this world. High school has a way to break you down and parents have a role in this as well though they might not realize this. I stand proud now to say that I got through this struggle that is my life but I would like other high schoolers to know that they should never let their education come before their happiness or their health. There are more important things in this world than getting the A and we as a society need to realize this.</p>
<p>Stanmaster22... I had the exact same thing happen to me this year, only I'm a junior. It's been incredibly hard, but I've finally gained weight and a healthy perspective after a low of 86 pounds (I'm 5'4"). I'm a bit nervous regarding the college admissions season, as high stress brings back old behaviors... but I'm learning to temper my perfectionism and not need all the outside affirmation to feel good about myself. You are a very strong person for having recovered from this, and your advice could not be more true. Have fun at Stanford!</p>
<p>I realize that, as many posters have pointed out, many overachieving high schoolers are internally driven to succeed at such a high level. But just because the stress comes from within doesn't mean it's any healthier. Both parents and students need to find ways to temper that inner drive and keep it in check, a skill much needed throughout life.</p>