Posted on 03/29/2016 6:35:00 AM PDT by detective
We just want you to have a good senior year!"
I hardly heard the words leave my guidance counselor's mouth as I stumbled out of her office. I could barely walk back to my classroom without collapsing. I tried to process what just happened and to make sense of the fear inside me. No such luck. I was a mess of emotions, held together haphazardly by black coffee and teenage angst.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
The “Gay” item is what marks him. he wants everything to be just right for his precious self, and wants affirmation and accommodation rather than real success and earned self esteem.
My son was an AP student in northern VA and now is working in the RSO section of an embassy. My oldest daughter is running the mail room in the same embassy. The only whining I hear from them is how much lunch costs in the cafeteria.
Back when I was in HS, an SAT of 1000 was still pretty respectable, and scoring in the high 1200s was enough to qualify for Mensa. It was the kids who got a combined score under 700-800 or so that needed alternate paths.
I worked with a guy in the Arlington, VA area whose wife felt that the two sons needed extra achievement....to get them somewhere in life. Note....the sons were 12 and 14 years old. So, they were both enrolled in Saturday tutor lessons, extra hours episodes Mon-through-Fri, etc. I’d take a guess that each kid was spending 40 hours per month on the extra routine. Saturdays was eaten up with swimming and diving lessons in the morning, dance lessons in the afternoon, and some 5PM lesson on art/culture.
Somewhere around the 3rd year of this agenda, my associate noted that the older son was stressed out and whining daily now about this schedule business. The wife wouldn’t accept any change to her vision. This kid was going to some college like Princeton or Harvard. The kid in my humble opinion...was the type to escape on the day of graduation and join the Navy.
I think for some of these kids....they are getting a dose of something that I never had to experience.
If stress is “killing” this tender snowflake, just drop-out and join the Marines. Grow up, you weakling.
Where is Surbubia?
Not around here. The grades are weighted for AP, regular, and Special Ed classes. (Actually 5 categories). So a 4.0 in a regular class (97 or higher) would be a 5.0 in AP or IB, a 4.5 in Honors, 3.5 in modified, and a 2.5 in applied. So a B in AP equals an A in the regular classes.
My middle son scored 5 on all AP tests. Graduated with a 4.33 GPA from high school and enough college credits to be a sophomore on day 1.
His stress is 90% a result of two circumstances: 1. His narcissist personality, and, 2. His lack of understanding that there is a higher power in life other than the self and how to draw upon that when times get tough.
The same way the rest of Generation XBox’s woosies/vipers are slithering their way up the “Conservative” {uhhh} “but progressive” corporate-collective ladder:
By lying, cheating, and plagiarizing the work of others about whom they manufacture perception whilst nestled, along with the rest of the brood, in their safe space "culture".
Yeah, it takes a lot more dedication, but it’s definitely doable.
>>They also played sports.
It’s interesting to observe how today’s cadre of liberal edumacators are so busy teaching everybody else’s kids how not to compete by making sure everybody gets a trophy/ribbon/cookie... whilst at the same time teaching their own offspring how to draw as much blood as possible.
Doing what the Vanguard elite have always done.
I don't have an easy answer for the status branding that is involved. Parents, teachers, and guidance counselors need to take a deep breath and let kids know that they can get a fine education at a school that is not in the fabled top ten.
My daughter is graduating this year and has to make a college choice soon. She is a good but not exceptional student at a selective and fairly rigorous private school. She is not one of the kids who is freaking out about college choices. She has been selected by a number of fine (but not elite) universities, public and private. She's got it in perspective. Some of her classmates don't -- especially a couple who think they need to go somewhere as prestigious as their parent's colleges, lest they disappoint mom and dad.
Lives in a “region”. The NWO is strong in this one.
Congrats, marxists in academia! Gay symp, citizen of the world, wants to be in government. PC trifecta!
He sounds like he’s about ready to go full Sandy Hook. The cops should raid his house at 3am. Maybe that will take care of his anxiety about school.
If I’m not mistaken, and I’m pretty sure I’m not, my daughter went to the school this writer attends. She graduated some 15 years ago. I will defend what the school was (and probably is today) but not the whiny writer.
Entry to the school IS competitive. Highly competitive. It was then a pure meritocracy. (Admission rules have changed somewhat since to allow for “diversity;” the school is now more than 50% Asian-American kids). The nice thing about the competition for admission was that the admitted students had respect for each other, and for their teachers, and their teachers for them. They also learned early on that no one is as highly gifted in every sphere as some others.
Only 1 of 8 who applied were admitted. The process of admission may have changed somewhat, but at least then it was a 3 step process. 8th grade students took an SAT-type test; Phase 2 is writing an essay based on a prompt. The SAT-type scores are combined with their GPA. The top 800 scorers go on to Phase 2, filling out personal information about their interests, accomplishments, etc. That phase also requires letters of recommendation by teachers and other adults who know the student. At the end of that process, 400 (of @ 3200 applicants) were selected for admission. I’d call that competitive.
In some respects, the high schools which aim to place graduates in the ruling class are worse than the real world.
Yup. My daughter slogged thru ap courses, and did well. The highest gap went to the girl that took cupcake classes their senior year. My kids a doc now, so I can attest, going though the ap rigor helped
I have seen that system before and it has a hidden problem. While it works well for those that are taking a single class, when students take multiple AP classes, the workload becomes significantly harder. As such, what often happens is that the student ends up not being able to keep up with the homework across the board and the overall grade slips by more than one point across multiple classes.
I have a client who pushed their son like this. Their daughter (older) did great! But, the son struggled.
He started real college last year and has attempted suicide 3 times in less than a year, was arrested by campus police, on probation, been to rehab, has to see court order psyche and family counseling....
The whole family is a mess. At first his mother insisted he was physically ill with a disease, even when the doctor told her the kid is depressed, stress out...etc.
Not every child is ready or mature enough for AP classes or college, some should never go at all! “Pampered 16 yr old,” maybe not. May be his passion for life rests elsewhere and he is being pushed towards a life that he thinks wins him approval.
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