saw
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Posts posted by saw
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I'm divorced, but I don't think you'd want the parenting plan we have, because I have the kids almost all the time, and their dad sees them for a few hours maybe once every few months (he lives close by). A (male) friend of mine, however, has been divorced for ages, three kids, and he has always alternated weeks -- kids with mom one week, kids with him another week. In the summers and longer holidays when the kids were small, the mom would take the kids during the day when he was working but he would pay her as otherwise it would have been paying for sitters etc. He's told me that although he would prefer more time with the kids, the advantage to this is that, when he is with the kids, he is there for them 100 per cent. When it's not his week, that's his time to focus on work and do things for himself. The downside is that it is a bit disruptive for the kids, but I think that would depend on the personality/ages of the kids and the location etc.
He's a good guy and a great dad, from what I can see, and clearly has great respect for his ex as a parent.
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I never changed my name so after I got divorced I didn't have to do anything. Had I changed my name, I would have changed back either to my maiden name or possibly my mother's maiden name. I don't care for xdh's family and feel an anti-connection to them, so would have wanted to distance myself from them. I have however always liked my mother's maiden name and am closer to that side of the family than to my father's. It would have been a nice opportunity to make a fresh start.
Sorry to hear about the divorce -- I hope you get through it without too much difficulty. I'm two years post-divorce (next week I think) and am in a much much much better place now than I was for years pre-divorce. I hope you will find a similar peace.
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I went with no basis. DD has one other in her class year -- her identical twin. Seems a bit unfair to compare the two of them, especially since only one is applying this year and the other will be next year.
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Thanks all for the info! The application is nearly done, just needs a little bit of tweaking. It should be ready by October 16 -- of course in my addled mind I had this idea that it is 15 October or she is doomed. I seem to have lost all my common sense when it comes to the Common App. October 16 should be just fine. Argh.
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DD is applying ED to her first-choice school, and we've been given advice by an independent college counselor to have the application done and sent by 15 October. The deadline on the college's website is 1 November; however, the college starts making files for the applications on 15 October. Is there really an "advantage" or another good reason to have everything in by the 15th? I'm slightly confused (actually, I'm generally confused about this whole college application thing as I feel it "snuck" up on me!). I think dd can get the application in on time but I would like to know what the effect of turning the app in early is if anyone has any experience with this.
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Quite a few people on this board have kids doing early college in some form. I've learned a great deal from their posts and from their sharing the thought process that went into the decision to have the child do early college. I've had two kids in school who were accelerated by two years, so the thought of early college has occupied me for the last six years. I've learned from this board and from irl conversations. I myself did a form of early college when I split my senior year of high school between high school and college.
Honestly, I just don't think that your situation is as unusual as you may think it is.
I don't really get why it's a big deal to have your kid do early college and then get accepted to law school. I think many posters here have children who are capable of this. Look, if that is what works for you, super. But please don't assume that just because people on this board have chosen a different path for their children (and with their children's input), that that means their children were not capable of early college and law school. My 16 yo dds have secondary school leaving exam scores that are so high that they have the right to attend the university of their choice in any subject, including medicine and law. These universities are in the world top 100. They chose to wait, but not because they are in any way unequal to the task. We've had great advice from this board and irl, and I think you are perhaps putting people off by using words like "expert" and phrases like "extremely rare", which I believe suggests that you are underestimating the depth and breadth of the experience of the folks on this board.
Interesting. I do believe my experience, while not exactly unique, is nonetheless extremely rare.
How many others on this board have had their kids do early college?
How many posters have done it for more than one kid?
How many posters on this board have kids who do early college then get accepted to law school?
Certainly, when I was homeschooling and finding my way among the various options, I would have LOVED to have someone like myself give me advice.
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UConn has a higher Connecticut Bar Pass Rate than Yale. As for other bar exams, I don't know:
High Pass Rate on State Bar Exam
for UConn Law School Graduates
by David Bauman
Law graduates from the UConn School of Law achieved the highest percentage among graduates of the state’s three law schools passing the Connecticut bar exam this year, according to the State Bar Examining Committee.
July bar results released last week by the Hartford-based committee show that 94 percent of the 109 UConn law graduates taking the state bar exam for the first time passed – the school’s highest pass rate ever.
By comparison, 92 percent of Yale graduates passed the exam the first time. At Quinnipiac University’s School of Law, 76 percent of graduates passed.
The overall pass rate for UConn Law School graduates in July 2004 was 93 percent (118 took the exam), an improvement of 4 percentage points over the previous year.
“I am very pleased to announce that our students performed admirably on the July bar. The 94 percent first-time pass rate and 93 percent overall pass rate are truly outstanding,†said Nell Jessup Newton, dean of the Law School. The exam, which is required for licensure as an attorney, serves as a good indicator of the quality of the Law School’s instructional program, she added.
The bar exam is taken twice a year – in February and July. Across the state, 666 people took the exam for the first time in July, with 553 (83 percent) passing, the Bar Examining Committee reported.
In more populated states such as New York, thousands of people take the bar exam. In Connecticut, 234 students from law schools based in the state were first-time takers of the exam in July, the balance being law students from around the country taking the test in order to be licensed to practice law in the state.
This older notice was the only one I could find on the Internet after a short search. However, it is the same every year. I welcome your trying to find more recent information.
My understanding is that you're citing this statistic as proof that UConn is an excellent law school that has statistics that on occasion equal Yale's. I don't know much about UConn Law, but I think that this particular statistic is misleading. I don't know what percentage of Yale's graduates take the CT bar, but I doubt that the percentage (or number) is equal to that of UConn's. Yale's site refers only to the statistics for the NY bar and the CA bar, which covers well more than 50 per cent of the school's graduates. I think therefore that the number of students taking the CT bar from Yale is not a good sample as the number may well vary. Look for example at the pass rates for the Feb 2012 bar:
Additionally, for the February 2012 administration of the bar exam, the following pass rates apply for graduates of the following Committee-approved law schools:
Law School Pass Rate University of Connecticut School of Law 67% Quinnipiac School of Law 54% Yale University School of Law 100% University of Massachusetts School of Law – Dartmouth 3% Massachusetts School of Law48%
(http://www.lawyeredu.org/connecticut.html)
One could cite this statistic to support the view that UConn is not doing all that well, but I think that would be unfair as this number is heavily dependent on the number of students taking the bar at that point. For all I know it could have been dozens of UConn students and one Yale student, which would prove exactly nothing. I realize this is a silly point to quibble about, but I don't think the education one gets at UConn would be the equivalent of the education one gets at Yale. Not that a UConn-educated lawyer could not do as well as one from Yale, or that a Yale-educated lawyer will necessarily be a good lawyer, of course. Just that on average, Yale beats UConn.
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Sorry, this fact confuses me. Do you mean that a greater percentage of UConn Law graduates pass the CT bar than Yale Law grads do? Or do you mean a greater percentage of UConn Law grads pass the CT bar than Yale Law grads pass whatever the corresponding bar exam is (because most Yale Law grads aren't taking the CT bar, I think). I find it quite surprising that Yale's bar pass rate would be lower than a school that is ranked significantly lower.
It's Connecticut Bar Exam pass rate exceeds that of Yale or any other school. -
Finally, the moment my ds enters full time, he will focus in math and math only. No more violin or mandarin, both of which are passions of his but both of which always fall to the bottom of his priorities when there is math to do. For him, delaying full time entrance allows him to be a fuller person. Interested to hear your comments on this.
Ruth in NZ
This is a driving factor in our decision to delay dds' college entrance as well. We maxed out the high school requirements, but despite this they graduated two years early. Where we live, this could go directly to a top university (they get in automatically on the basis of their leaving exam scores). For dds this would have meant going straight into medical school/engineering school a few weeks after their 16th birthday. They are both, however, passionate about other subjects as well. DD2 loves music and is taking two years at a regular school on a choral scholarship where she sings in the only choir of its kind in this country. Once she goes to medical school, she will carry this love and knowledge and experience of music with her, through school and through her life as a doctor/researcher. I'm glad she has the opportunity to develop this interest now and to this degree. It would not be possible if she were to go straight to university now. DD1 has a similar situation, where she is now spending a year in a different country, learning a different language. It's not necessary for her to do this but it will certainly be helpful to her in her career and, most importantly to me right now, she's having a great time with none of the pressure of university. We consciously decided not to do early college and the girls are glad they're not doing it. Situations differ, I agree, and what works for us will not work for others. JMHO, YMMV.
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In NYC you would eventually have the option of Hunter, Stuy and Bronx Science for (public) high school. High COL but great resources.
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My understanding is that it is not a "settled" issue and that opinions vary among Native American/Indians. The language used on the website of Indian Country Today may be of interest, as this is a publication by/for Native Americans/Indians: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/
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Why does she want to be in the gifted program? As an adult I can see why, but I'm wondering what it is about the program that attracts your dd? Is it that her friends go, or that they do cool stuff? I"m just thinking that there may be a way to address the need that does not require the gifted program per se.
I'm also wondering about the connection between getting good grades and the getting in to the gifted program. While I'm firmly in the camp of just because you're gifted doesn't mean you can slack off on your work, I do get that really bright kids have a hard time with work that isn't challenging or interesting to them at their level. My understanding is that gifted programs are set up in part to address this disconnect, so that admission should not be based on getting grades but on ability, to catch the bright children who are failing because they are not motivated. This wouldn't apply in your and your dd's case because you're obviously so on top of this issue, but it may be a way to open a discussion with the people running the program. If your dd is in the program and motivated by the challenge, it may affect her regular schoolwork in a positive way.
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I spoke briefly with the teacher again, and he was super-apologetic. He had even written a note explaining why he'd suggested the book (he's read another book by the same author and assumed this was more of the same). He was so nice. I am not used to this sort of reaction from a school! I've had various children in 11 different schools over the years and this is one stands out as being respectful and considerate toward the parents. It's going to take me a while to get used to being treated like a reasonable adult and not an annoying interference! It's a lovely change for the better.
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Because parents are afraid to challenge a book's appropriateness for a particular classroom in today's culture of calling every challenged book a "Banned Book"?
I'm afraid that in this particular school it would be because the parents are not aware of what the kids are reading and are not going to question the school because the school is supposed to know best. It's a school drawing from an area that is underpriviliged and from families that don't have many books at home because I think quite a few of them are principally concerned with making ends meet. The headteacher wants to open the school to students half an hour earlier every day to give the kids access to the school library to encourage them to read. In our case, that wouldn't be helpful as ds has so many books at home to choose from, but when I thought about this initiative, it reminded me that my world is different from the worlds of many (not all) of the parents at this school. The school does exceedingly well in terms of value added, I have to say.
I'll probably send the headteacher a quick non-accusatory email. I didn't see her this morning.
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I had a brief chat with D's teacher at drop-off this morning, told him the book is intended for children 12+ and that the ending is about kids being g@ssed and could he give D another book. I think he was a bit taken aback but just said, oh okay fine. So that's done. I hope there's no fall-out, and I'll make doubly sure to monitor his reading books.
I was also concerned to discover that DS is no longer able to subtract 12 from 20. At all. Random guessing. He could do this easily a couple of year ago, but whenever school teaches him some new method, he tries to apply it and gets confused unless it's taught really really well. He then forgets that he actually can do math/use his brain because he's so focused on the appropriate method. There are 32 children in the classroom and we live in an area where there are many underprivileged and undereducated families, so the only surprising thing is that his school is as good as it is. So I guess I"m back to afterschooling seriously once again! Off to dig up the older dcs' afterschooling books.....
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It's no excuse, but maybe the teacher hasn't read it.
I think he has ... ds says the teacher told him to read it because the author is one of his (teacher's) favorites. Apparently DS is supposed to read his reading book in class in the mornings and then write about it in his reading journal, so it's not like he can just take the book and then ignore it. I've had concerns before because the books DS brings home are not often what I would consider good literature (Dahl excepted) but are generally quite light. I'm not thrilled about the choice of reading but I'm not too bothered either because DS has access to so many books at home that he will be exposed to good literature in any event. This goes too far though. Argh, I hate school conflict. That was the lovely thing about homeschooling dds -- no more school conflict!
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8 yo DS came home today with the book The Boy in the Striped Pajamas for his reading book. First I thought he had taken it out of the school library without anyone paying attention. As it turns out, his teacher (young guy in his 20s and quite new to teaching I think) picked it out for him from the 3d grade classroom reading shelves and told him to read it! Poor DS was trying to get out (yet another) Roald Dahl to read when the teacher made him take TBSP. I've been flipping through it and am not impressed, plus the reading age that is suggested is 12+. School isn't doing any sort of unit on WWII that would provide context. Argh. DS is not particularly mature or otherwise capable of handling this sort of topic without lots of explanation (plus he's adopted so anything that involves parental loss needs to be handled sensitively).
Well, I've been quite happy with the school up until now, so I guess it's time. Off to write a (hopefully) tactful note to the teacher telling him that DS will not be reading this and would he please suggest books that are age-appropriate.
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What I'm finding is that, for professional jobs in my field, there is a mismatch between jobseekers, recruiters and company HR. If you don't tick all the boxes with your cv the recruiter/HR won't even consider it. I've spoken with several people in my situation who've said the same thing. The two interviews I've had in six months of looking came first from a recruiter with whom I had a connection (so she was motivated to help me) and second with a major investment bank for a job for which I am qualified (maybe not the best qualified, but qualified enough to interview). The only reason I got the interview at the investment bank is that the hiring MD sent her secretary to retrieve submitted cvs from HR and screen them herself. I never would have gotten the interview if HR had vetted my cv first. It irritates me because it suggests that there is are major inefficiencies in the system that are preventing many qualified individuals (not just me but many more qualified individuals) from finding quality work with firms who are looking for them but are often relying on the recruiters.
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For movie night tonight I picked The Perfect Game, for a 16 yo, 13 yo and 8 yo. I liked it and the kids did too, especially the two who have a clue about baseball. It's so hard though to pick for this age range!
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Very musical. She's in college studying music. That's really been her niche. It's something she's good at but something that makes her feel good, too.
Even more interesting. I have this theory that ds's auditory processing has helped him in his music. He's been more or less professional singing for a while and is on a pre-professional track musically. I have always wondered whether the fact that he seems to hear everything without processing like you're supposed to means that he hears "more" of the music. He could, for instance, pick out the different notes of five notes played together, when he was eight, with no specific training. It's annoying when he cannot hear the different between me and the tv, but it's sure useful when you can hear all the different parts of a SATB arrangement and stick to your own. So maybe your dd is one more bit of evidence for my hypothesis.
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My dd's auditory processing eval report points to something like an inter-hemispheric issue. She also showed up as having a left dominant ear, and she has wonky middle ear refexes that show the auditory signals are not travelling correctly through the brain. She has the symptoms of dyspraxia but not severe enough to warrant a label. Her np testing also showed some visual processing weakness issues that made the np want to refer us to the covd optometrist who does VT but we had already gone. She's got sensory stuff going on, too, that I had missed for many years. I just thought she was sensitive. All of this points to brain disorganization, but she's bright and has done very well. I always think it's from the read alouds and the music we consistently pushed/encouraged.
I think we may be right where saw is. A lot of stuff but not really bad enough for a label. When we did the online Asperger's quiz, I realized a lot about her processing for the first time. But she doesn't have the social issues that would ever qualify her for an ASD dx. Not one specialist ever brought that up as a possibility.
We were living abroad in her early years so her language experience was different from a lot of others. I felt reading went slow but she didn't have a lot of English in her environment. We did phonics but not using an intense, thorough program. She read very slowly and painstakingly with readers, with me becoming very frustrated. Once we moved to the US and she went to ps where they relied on sight reading, her reading took off that winter. She was seven and a half. I always thought it was sight reading (a la Freed). But I honestly don't know if it was the sight reading because she could have been experiencing the benefit of being in an English speaking environment. By then it had been eight months.
My dd never had a phonological problem and actually learns well through listening, despite the CAPD. Nothing is ever simple.
Quite a few similarities to my ds here, interesting! I find it interesting that your dd's issues would tick some of the Asperger's boxes -- my ds has the exact same. No one would ever give him the dx, but there are some things about him that are exactly what you read about.
We were also living abroad when ds started learning to read. It went slowly at first and then improved radically even though his language environment stayed the same.
Is your DD very musical?
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So you're saying the phonological disorder was so severe they said give up on OG and go sight? I don't know much (actually nothing) about the subtypes of CAPD. What are the consequences of inter-hemispheric? And they found that with the audiologist exam or something else like an MRI?
Right now ds' visual doesn't seem to support sight words. At least not so far. Or I'm doing something wrong. I guess I could try harder. He again today couldn't pull from his brain the dot pattern for 9. He could derive it, but there's not that image in his brain. His writing is looking better. (which to my mind means something is clicking or coming with visual memory or development or something)
I taught him, we weren't in an area where there were any experts to help us. I was going with a combination of sight/phonics, which worked well for my older dcs (learn the Dolch words in combination with straight phonics). Reading went much more quickly with sight words. When he did Lindamood Bell one summer in the US, they worked with him on visualizing words to help him learn to spell. For example, instead of just studying the words or copying them out, he would be asked to "see" them in his head and then manipulate them in his mind by changing the colors or the size of the letters. It worked great for him. This spring he was close to failing Greek and in two weeks with one or two hours a day of this particular approach I was able to get him from failng to excelling, just by having him approach the words in a different way (his problem was that he couldn't write/spell the words, Greek grammar was okay).
The inter-hemispheric seemed obvious given his test results, and were borne out later by testing for vision processing disorder and the fact that he has trouble with the midliine. He also has dysgraphia. He's one of these kids who has lots of weird things but no one "big" diagnosis that can explain everything. The interhemispheric dysfunction is the one thing that is common to all his issues and explains everything.
I think you just have to try different approaches to see what clicks. The more you know about the way your dc's brain functions, the easier it will be to do that. Try a kinetic approach, or a Montessori style tactile approach with feeling and moving the letters around so you write before you read. If the writing is going well, maybe that's your opening to unlock the rest.
One thing that I personally think helped ds but for which I have no evidence is listening to audiobooks. I think that helped him linked the auditory input with the visual image created in his head. No evidence for this whatsoever, but he's listened to audiobooks almost every night for the last decade or so.
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My now 13yo DS has a diagnosis of CAPD, also a diagnosis of phonological disorder. So learning to read phonetically just wasn't going to happen. I taught him using sight words (the Ladybird series of books helped a lot), he did some Lindamood Bell and also Tomatis, both of which seem to have helped a lot, especially Lindamood Bell. His subtype of CAPD appears to be inter-hemispheric, which corresponds to his other "issues." He does appear to have dyslexia but I'm still a bit suspicious he may have stealth dyslexia. His spelling continues to be a bit "off" and I'm not sure he knows his phonics very well at all, but he reads just fine.
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Thanks! I'm so glad everything is going so well! How old are your other children? We're hoping to adopt a child between the ages of our 2 youngest, and I think that's unusual... Another question, in no particular order...do you think it would be do-able for 1 adult to travel alone? Would that just be crazy to try?
Other kids are 8 years older and 5 years older, eldest two are girls (twins) then a boy. We were quite specific about wanting a boy, to balance the girls, and to have a biggish age gap. My bio three are very very bright and we didn't want to set up the possibility that an adopted child would feel like he needed to compete or wasn't good enough. We were also clear about wanting cleft lip/cleft palate, because my brother was born with cl/cp and I wanted to be able to say to DS, hey you're just like your uncle. China was also a choice because my family has a connection to Asia.
I would worry about the competition between an adopted child who may have delays/issues and a bio child who has been nurtured well since birth if they are close in age. In our case, however, we didn't get what we expected -- DS needed NO therapy with the exception of six months of speech, was advanced in fine and gross motor and displays exceptional musical talent. So be prepared for everything -- I was prepared for one end of the spectrum of possibilities and got smacked with the other!
Be careful with your agency. Ours sounded lovely on paper and in emails. When it came down to being helpful in-country and in times of crisis (and believe me there will be times of crisis!) they were useless. There is a Yahoo group (or was) that allows you to post questions about agencies and get answers from people who have used them.
Check out Love Without Boundaries too. They're a good organisation, not an adoption agency. They have some lovely children up for adoption and can give you info on the agencies the children are with.
Expecting others to travel long distances to a birthday party?
in The Chat Board
Posted
I think it depends on what a "usual" drive is where you are. We often travel an hour to get to lessons or similar, but that's just because of where we live. I wouldn't be thrilled about a 9 a.m. start but maybe that has to do with the nature of the party? I remember once DS was invited to a paintballing party at a venue located far from us, and I think the times were set by the facility. He ended up staying the night at his friend's house because that made it easier. I hope Hobbes has a great time at the party!