As a bio person...the structure of DNA and all of the tech that followed. The ability to manipulate DNA is now used for lots of things - restriction enzymes and plasmids for lab study of what genes do and use in making therapeutics, PCR (lab use and forensics), gene sequencing, etc.

Parts of the south are like this, too. At my undergrad school, people made eye contact and smiled as they passed. As they entered buildings, they would look to see if anybody was coming and then wait to hold the door open if there was. When I've been on campus for ball games, students still seem very open and friendly, even if they do call me 'ma'am' now. 🙂 I've been on other campuses where people are perfectly nice, but there is a different vibe. I think campus cultures get passed down - I know that I was certainly more conscious of it after my first year of college, and I worked at camps on campus 2 summers and always stopped and offered to help lost visitors since I wanted to pass on all of the good stuff that had come my way as a freshman dropped off 8 hours from home knowing nobody. But, I could see others feeling like it's too much - there's nothing wrong with having preferences!

If you feel that algebra is a little shaky, it's a good idea to spend more time with it. We chose to do Life of Fred Algebra as a review while doing AoPS Geometry. Kid liked that it explained things in a different way and kept the algebra concepts fresh. You have time to move more slowly if you choose, but if your student is happy moving at the typical pace of one class/year there's no reason to hold him back. You can incorporate some of the less traditional AoPS classes like Number Theory or Counting and Probability if you want to take the typical classes in a later grade. One advantage to getting to calculus at a younger age is that your student can choose to take physics with calculus, which is required for most engineering programs.

I'd go with either pearls or silver. For the necklace, either short enough to be above the neckline or else very long. Coordinating bracelets or earrings or both, whatever fits with your usual style.

This isn't kind and I don't find it to be funny, but it doesn't seem unusual as the sort of thing that young teen boys do and think is hilarious. My kids are on a slack channel for a team that they are on and recently a couple of the teen boys changed their username and associated icon to match somebody else so that they could confuse people. And, as an adult in charge, i would recognize it as a problem but it wouldn't always be clear what I could do about it - I mean, at this point you know as much as the coach and are also unclear about how to handle it, and coaches walk a fine line with how to intervene in interpersonal situations with the kids. I work with youth at church where part of what people know that we do is to work with the kids about how they interact with each other and it's still not always clear exactly how and how much to get involved (although this situation would certainly present places to talk about meanness and honesty). Tech makes this easier, but even back in the day kids passed notes that pretended to be from the object of a crush to see what happened. I would have your daughter text the boy and say something similar to what was suggested above, something in her own words along the lines of: Hi, it's Girl! I heard that some teammates had sent some text claiming to be from me. This is my number, and those other texts were not from me. I don't like them pretending to be me and I don't think that them trying to prank you is funny.

We used to live out of the suitcase, and we still do that if staying in a house without a dresser. Usually we unpack and then pack dirty clothes or anything that we are done with back into the suitcase. If it's just an overnight trip. we lay out the next day's clothes and then repack things as we finish with them - the previous clothes before bed, the PJs as soon as we get up, and then we're done. If we are staying someplace that has a washer/dryer, we tend to only pack for 1/2 of the days and plan to do laundry. If we are doing a sightseeing road trip with multiple suitcases, we try to break our packing into trip segments so that we only need one bag to be opened each night. When we do an overnight trip everybody brings their own small bag, but for a longer multi-part trip or anything involving checked bags all 4 of us sort our clothes into 'first 3 days' and 'next 3 days' and we pack together in one big suitcase. We do this if we fly, too, so that if one bag is lost then we all still have something to wear until it's found or we can get to a store to buy replacements.

My understanding is that he won't know which teacher he has until AFTER the DE class has been taken, right before school starts. So, if he gets the bad teacher, he'll just use the DE class for credit. If he gets the good teacher, then he'll take it again. They might be able to not show the school the DE grade so that he can take it again, but any college will see the DE transcript and see that he took US History twice back to back at the same level, which may look strange. My kid who does DE and AP is adamant about not wasting time or being bored - kid's goal in taking those types of classes is because taking intro levels and the repeating the class a year or 2 later sounds unpleasant if kid can manage the more advanced level the first time around.

We live near Knoxville and I'm confident that I could happily live on Cookeville. The kids that I know who got to TN Tech love it, and their families love visiting them there. But, I don't have a lot of need for stuff to do - I'm the type to be content with an outing to see a high school or college ball game with dinner at the concession stand (or maybe I've just adapted to it since that is what my life looks like right now!). 🙂 People who live in Cookeville would likely drive to Nashville or Knoxville to do something like a Broadway show. So, I could easily imagine somebody really loving it, but I'm not sure whether it would work for you if someplace like Charlottesville wouldn't be busy enough.

I'm dubious about some mission trips, but I also know of situations where unskilled hands are needed. Some disaster clean-up efforts just need people who will work. There are obviously needs for skilled workers to do construction, but moving debris after a hurricane just needs workers. My mom's church sent workers to a domestic location for a decade after a major hurricane hit - the news goes away after a few weeks, but it takes much longer to get everybody back into houses. A youth group that I know of did many small local mission projects - wheelchair ramps, etc - and once there was a crew that could actually do something, a group went to Puerto Rico to work. Following a couple of natural disasters, there weren't enough people to do the work so just sending money wouldn't have helped. They went to the same church twice - I know that one time they dug, by hand, a trench to run drain pipes to stop the continued flooding of the building. Another situation that I know of involved a group from a church going to Belize every year for 5+ years. They went to the same place and got to know the people. They took machines and taught sewing one year. Another year they took/bought bikes and repair supplies so that the kids could get to school. The group would stay 1-2 weeks, but there were some members who stayed longer or make another trip during the year. I don't tend to be a fan of the 'do a Bible school' thing or other make-work projects, but I do think that there are times when a group can go to do a particular job and establish long-term relationships so that they can find out what is actually needed. But, I think the same thing about most domestic volunteer work. I've done volunteer gigs at after-school places, and have stayed at each 2, 6, and 3 (and counting) years. You can help a little any time, but become much more effective once you've been someplace a while and know the needs and the kids. I'd imagine that's true of most places unless, as with the examples above, they just need hands (our youth once spent an afternoon locally helping to move junk into a dumpster, for instance - one and done is fine for that).

I don't have good suggestions for fully planned or live classes, but if I had a struggling or behind student I would avoid AoPS. It's challenging and, at the pre-A level, tedious. I posted a week or 2 ago in the General Education section looking for online/straigtforward programs for middle school for a friend who will be pulling a kid out of school next year. You might want to look there to see if anything would fit.

I'll add one more thought...from the time my kids were tiny, my husband was out of town M-F 2-3 weeks/month. This absolutely shaped our routines. We both grew up in families where there was a family dinner most nights. But, with me flying solo so often, I had 2 schedules - family dinner of some sort when he was home, and a variety of different things when he was gone. We developed different patterns to break up the 'just me and the kids' thing in the evening. I packed picnics and we walked to the park. We did dinner in front of a movie once/week. I'd let them take plates out to eat in the fort part of the swingset. In the summer we might have another mom and kids over and we'd have the kids eat outside to avoid messes. So, it wasn't a big routine shift for us to not have family dinner. For some families this is a really important time to catch up with each other. For a homeschool mom with a traveling husband...it was just another meal. I often fix the biggest meal of the day at lunchtime now. We may or may not eat it together, depending on workload. So, activities could lead to new schedules with good family time, or they could disrupt a good routine.

I really think that there isn't a right way to do this. I come from a long line of 'joiners'. Two of my 4 grandparents played school sports. My mom did orchestra, dance, and cheer, dad played a couple of sports. This was at a time when they often walked to school, so minimal parental involvement was needed - my parents are in their 70s. All of my cousins (I'm 1 of 5 on one side, 1 of 9 on the other) played a sport, cheered, or were in the band. Spouse...his sibling ran a little bit of cross country, but otherwise they have no family history of doing any activities. They thought nothing of driving an hour to try a new restaurant, but would never have signed their kids up for an activity if they'd have to drive 20-30 minutes to get to it. Meanwhile, my grandmother talked about getting off work at the mill and loading the relevant teens into the car to drive 2 hours for an all-star game. The differences in what people perceive as 'normal' are huge. I don't think that activities necessarily affect family closeness, but they will affect family routines. I love road trips, so I'm perfectly happy to be traveling an hour or 2 or sometimes more for the kids to compete, and we find that we are sometimes more likely to talk in the car, with no distractions or chores to occupy us, than we are at home. That likely varies based on the personalities of the family members. We enjoy finding diners and local restaurants to try and have gotten to know some great families. When the kids were young, we found that the sports added structure to our days. When the kids were too young to stay at home alone and spouse was traveling, I sometimes packed dinner and had 1:1 time with each kid while we waited for the other to do their activity. I remember those as chaotic but good years. But, we had friends whose response was 'I don't see how you do that', and they were happy to be home every night. Nobody was wrong, just different. Part of this is also influenced by the fact that my kids completed their school work relatively quickly - we were done by lunchtime most days during elementary. They had all afternoon to play before we headed out for the evening. We don't have nearby homeschool friends, so they were happy to get out and see other kids. Our summers were largely unscheduled so that was also downtime. We always got feedback from them about whether they wanted more or less time spent on activities. As they got to middle, we talked about what would be needed to play high school sports and told them it was up to them whether they wanted to do it. Other than talking about the schedule, we try to give them a lot of control over their level of busyness. That was something that my parents did and I've always been grateful, since when I went to college I was already used to doing it.

Yes! My kid got a 5 on US History last year and said that the thing they learned from the video is that if it said to give 5 reasons, that they could be incrementally tiny and obvious reasons. Like, if you were supposed to describe some differences between the colonies and England then it was fine to say that England was on an island and the colonies were part of a larger body of land as 2 separate things, while kid would have said 'geographic differences' and thought of it as one thing.

My kid has found that the prep videos on the college board site are a good overview of what will be on the test.

My understanding is that if there is overlap, the testing site can make accommodations. But, the most common ones are not set up to overlap. For some, there are 2 classes that would be unlikely to be taken at the same time - Calc AB and Calc BC, or American History and European History. Testing site availability varies a lot depending on location. Here, it seems to be pretty easy. I know a couple of people who test at their zoned high school - most are already used to working with homeschoolers for sports and are usually helpful. Some umbrella schools will let their umbrella students take any tests that they offer. One local private school lets all homeschoolers test with them - you just let their testing coordinator know what tests you need in September and then write a check for the college board's fees when you take the tests. In other places, it is far more difficult.

Our kids started doing something at 4-5. Some activities are easy to start at any age, while with others it's hard to be a beginner after age 8 or so. After each season we stopped and talked with the kids about whether they wanted to continue or whether to try something new or if they wanted a break. Normally we took summers off except for maybe a day camp. We did something during the whole school year. My kids did 2 things each usually a sport or dance and then something different - music for one, scouts for the other. We wanted them to try different thiings if they wanted to so that they could see what they enjoyed. One kid mostly kept with the same things, while the other tried several different activities before settling into a few favorites.

When my kids were little, somebody gave each baby a little crocheted hat that was made to look like an apple or pumpkin - red or orange with a little stem and leaves. If you wanted to do a brighter color, a hat like that with a matching color would be cute. Or you could do the sweater in the brown or green of the stem or leaf with the hat being a pop of color. I wasn't big into hats, but those were so cute that my kids wore them all the time when they were 8-12 months.

Right, and I completely understand people not choosing to take this class. Or, as homeschoolers, people might choose to call the class a philosophy class. Similarly, somebody might choose to call the Bible class a history credit while I'd count it as a religion credit (or not take it, depending on what I wanted for my kid). But, however those classes are taught, it would be unlikely to affect whether my kid took Geometry or French from that teacher since their political/religious philosophy isn't likely to be part of geometric proofs or French grammar. I tend to make decisions on a class-by-class basis, depending on how I think the teacher will do with the class in question. We don't take every class from every teacher for a variety of reasons, but how they teach a different class has never been part of our decision-making.

My perspective is a little different. We are involved in a co-op that offers high quality classes. I know that there are teachers, administrators, and board members who have very different political perspectives. It doesn't affect instruction in classes. It's not relevant to math or most science, and the history and English teachers don't teach their own perspectives, instead requiring students to defend their statements. We do offer the occasional class from a particular viewpoint - some years there is a Bible-based class for high schoolers that involves a lot of discussion. But, knowing that classes may be taught by people who have very different opinions and perspectives has never affected my willingness to enroll my kids in their classes if their opinion is not a part of the class that my child will take. If I didn't want my student exposed to the thoughts of the person teaching the Bible class I wouldn't choose that class, but knowing that they are teaching a Bible class wouldn't affect my willingness to sign my kid up for a different class with that person even if I didn't agree with their religious perspectives. In general I'm not comfortable only doing business with people with whom I agree politically. But, knowing that many people do consider that to be a good course of action, and since I also teach, I share my thoughts on current events with very, very few people. I don't really think that is a good thing, but I'm aware that there is no perspective that I could have that wouldn't upset a decent percentage of our fairly politically diverse group. It's a little strange to realize that there are people who have known me for over a decade who don't know my thoughts on many issues, and from what i can tell most people just seem to assume that I agree with them, whatever their own beliefs. But, this thread confirms my thoughts that there might be people who would say 'We've known you for 10 years, and our older kids have taken your class and enjoyed it, but knowing that you think X and Y, we're not going to sign up our youngest to learn mitosis with you.' As far as I know, this has never happened (I've taught multiple children in lots of families) but I have no way of knowing if its because I don't talk about my thoughts or because our families only use that as a factor when it pertains directly to the class, which, for my class, it doesn't.

We often still can't all eat together due to somebody being on a phone call or zoom meeting or needing to read while they eat, but we do this several days each week. Dinner is usually DIY sandwiches, salad, or leftovers (or, disturbingly often lately, something from the concession stand and the ball field). I'm actually finishing cooking lunch right now. We tend to do this in the spring and fall due to sports - summer is unpredictable. I prefer it because I don't like to have a big meal right before I go to bed.

From the newest reply...if he's skipping practices at the current place then he may soon be skipping them at the new place and give it up quickly. At any rate, if he's skipping practice then the issue of the long commute disrupting life becomes moot since it's not actually occurring. Instead of trying to convince him to quit, I'd have him start at the new place ASAP. Either the new people will inspire him to dig in and work or he'll decide that it's too much effort. If he only goes sporadically, I do think it's fair to give it a month or 2 and then say that you aren't willing to invest time and money into something that he's not committed to enough to go to practice for at least X days/week. We do this with one of our kids and music practice - if they don't usually practice a minimum of X, then we won't continue with lessons. There are off-weeks, but most of the time they do it. I'd also see if there's a way to do the activity just as exercise if that's of interest. My kid gave up basketball, but in the summer goes to the open gym at church and plays for a couple of hours once/week for fun. Not all of us who drive 30+ minutes to things are doing it in the country - I drive across a small city several days/week and many drives involve budgeting extra time in case of traffic and having GPS on in case we need to take an alternate route. It's not a favorite thing, but it isn't unusual. One last thought - if he quit the other activities, there may be a reason for them that is making him unexcited about going back to them. Even if he gives up the sport, he may not want to return to something that he has mentally put in his 'done with that' box.

They would definitely be at an advantage, but hiring academics can be complicated by other issues. If they've been somewhere for a while, they may be waiting for their state retirement to vest. Academics are often married to other academics, and just because the CS dept makes an offer doesn't mean that the Biology or English dept is eager to hire the spouse. For our first job out of grad school, we both looked at job postings (postdocs for me, faculty for him based on different patterns in our areas) and eliminated anything where the other couldn't find a job. it would be far worse looking for 2 faculty positions. Uprooting an entire lab can be complicated - maybe less of a problem in CS departments, but if a faculty member has a trusted admin, lab manager, research faculty staff, etc that person/those people may not want to move, and that could cause disruption that makes it not worth it to the faculty member. Clearly people do change jobs just like any other field, but people also have preferences and if they mange to meet enough of them they stay put. We drew a line across the country and won't move north of it - we both dislike cold weather. We also moved to an area where we could buy several acres the first time we had the chance. Having done that, it would take an awful lot to get us to move. Other people are working from a different list of issues - proximity to family, needing to stay in-state for kids to finish college. And, in the end all that recruiting would do is expand the number of seats at one school - it still wouldn't increase the total number of seats unless the lower prestige school can now find somebody to fill the vacated position so that they don't lose instructor capacity.

I would agree if the parent was pushing the kid to continue in the sport and the kid didn't want to or was halfheartedly doing the activity. But, in this case the kid wants to do the sport. Not being great at something is not the same as not putting in effort. If a kid is frustrated by coming in last or lack of playing time then they will quit. If, as somebody mentioned above, the kid is happy to play JV all the way through 12th grade then I don't see any reason to have them quit. I do agree that there is often a high barrier to participating in youth sports for teens. Locally, there is a basketball league that takes everybody, sorts them by age and ability, and the has games. It's great for kids who like basketball but would never make their high school team (and there are tons of young kids who participate). Some churches and rec centers have open gym nights where teens and adults can just play ball. But in this specific instance, this kid has an activity that he wants to particpate in and he doesn't seem to be having a bad experience. He may do a month of practice at the new place and decide that it's a poor fit, too intense, or too time consuming. At that point, he could quit without being angry at the parents, knowing that he gave it a try. .

On the driving front...is there a driving school nearby? Learning to drive can be fine with parents, but can also create conflict. A lot of local kids go to one of 2 driving schools. They have 4-5 days of classroom instruction and then a certain number of hours of road instruction. Maybe a classroom setting would help with the anxiety about the test since it's taught more like school?

One of my kids does martial arts, and while kid was young when we started it will always have a special place in my heart for being one of the few activities that I've seen where they really want everybody to come, and progress from where you started is your goal. The amazing man who owns our dojo didn't start until he was in high school and they happily take out of shape or very fit people of all ages. It's very much an 'if you can't run, just keep walking' kind of place, although they always push students to keep improving in an 'iron sharpens iron' mentality, so the good can become very good. Tennis and golf lessons are offered for older people. But, even for rec sports, a lot of organizations act like if you haven't started by age 7 you might as well not even try.