My recent article on how to survive Middle School has prompted several responses from both students and parents.
Just today I was visiting a friend who has a 7th grader. He was busy in his room with his computer. When I asked the child his favorite website, he responded, “My-Space.”
This is a perfect example of how not to succeed in middle school, in his room on My-Space!
I cannot imagine that hours spent on this site will produce any increase in the knowledge base of this child.
On my way to this visit I happened to be in one of our public libraries, and decided to stroll by the banks of computers to see what was being viewed.
Among the children using them there were not many, perhaps any, who appeared be on sites that one could have called “research,” but games were very popular.
One parent’s response to my article was as follows: “I thank you for your encouraging remarks Mr. Hoff. It’s a good reminder that we keep doing what we’re doing, which is along the lines of your suggestions above. Extra activities have now gone by the wayside for now as a result of less than satisfactory grades last year. The teachers are not holding students to high enough standards in classroom work, so we are holding our children to them at home.”
“Feeling good about less than average work when being capable of much more is a disservice to a young and learning mind. Doing things as you have suggested above hasn’t made for a miserable life and am sure of it. As a result, I think our children are learning how to play when it’s time to play, and work hard when it’s time to work. If work happens to be fun at the same time, great. As much as we might like life to be fun all of the time, not everything is fun all of the time. Thanks again for the reminders.”
Others thought that my suggestions would be like living in a “jail!”
This past week our School Board, remember who they are?
The group that doesn’t want to allow any public comments, but wants your opinion, announced that there were three National Merit Scholars in the entire district.
A nearby district that is smaller than ours had 18! What’s the difference?
Could it be that the nearby district makes academic achievement a higher priority than we do, and makes sure that all parents are aware of this priority? Could it be that the quality of instruction that is considered appropriate is higher there? Certainly with approximately 1800 students who are eligible for this award we could do better than 3 if it were “important” to the parents of our children.
One of our high schools I don’t believe has ever had a National Merit Semi-finalist! They are however state champions in “hip-hop” several times over! My conclusion is that hip-hop might be a distraction from achievement. Could I be wrong?
When our school board was advised that the number of kids that had high WASL scores were declining, and the number that had low scores was up, there was no “action item” to try to change this.
Perhaps too deep a concept for them to tackle.
The School Board has a better idea! Let’s join a lawsuit to require the state to give us more money! You can spell this as “more taxes.”
So far I haven’t heard of what this money would be spent on, but I don’t think that we would see much, if any improvement in achievement.
(Then) Senator O’bama put it very well when he said, “No amount of money can buy achievement.”
This summer I spent a month in England, and found many Chinese students age 14-16 studying some pretty arcane aspects of technology.
They all had 5 years of English and spoke it quite well. Does this concern any of you? I believe that it should. When you have a group of kids of that age who are increasing their knowledge base of some of the basic fundamentals of modern civilization, one can expect something from them that My Space isn’t likely to produce.
Meantime we are doing pretty well in hallway curriculum, hip-hop, drill team, and proms.
It is only your tax dollars!