Discussion of "More Advanced Work" as a trend

[Nscribe]

GGardner quote from the NY Times Admissions article thread:

"One knee-jerk reaction to generally poor public education at all levels is the push to do "more advanced work" at every level. We want our elementary level kids to rush through learning to write and basic math, public school are pushing for (a dumbed-down version of) Algebra for many seventh graders, and high school kids are encouraged to do dual enrollment and gobs of AP classes. I suspect a lot of the basics are being skipped along the way, and these "advanced" classes are advanced in name only. "Calculus" sounds like a college-level class, but I see a lot of high school students who have taken this, and not even covered half of what a typical college Calc I class will cover. I think we should focus making sure the kids know exactly what they are supposed to know at each level, instead of pushing them to skip to some mock version of the next level."

 

The above appeared in responses to  the thread re:  NY Times Admissions reviewer commentary and really struck a chord with me.  We start Dd's next school year in a couple of weeks and as I try to work out course pacing, scope and goals, I find myself torn.  On the one hand, Dd could build a fairly impressive set of academic achievements over the next several years.  On the other, we could really strive for solid coverage with effective redundancy to build a foundation.  My heart leans strongly to a foundational approach, my head leans toward the "OMG it is crazy competitive these days...hurry to check the next shiny box." 

 

Let me give a couple of examples:  Dd never really did study of earth, space and weather in a comprehensive way.  We spent a great deal of middle school covering the far too many gaps the "debacle that was public gifted education" left us to cure.  I would love to really do a great study of these topical areas, but doing so would take time that will mean foregoing either AP Chemistry or AP Biology and leave her transcript listing coursework that hardly notes the real rigor and depth she would experience.  I would also love to let her work through Saxon Calculus and then do AOPS Precalculus and Calculus for a year to come at it all from a second perspective.  Allowing time to do so would mean foregoing some other shiny box she could check.  The pressure to go the shiny box route is heavy, demographically our area is filled with seeming overachievers (and some legit ones).  Striking a balance for us may mean adding an extra year (allowing us to do a comparative religions course, art history, music theory, study of markets/investing.....and a third foreign language along the route). 

 

I see how targeted the coursework is toward given shiny box type achievements and I do feel it often looks advanced but lacks enduring foundational value.  We dwell in the world of the 8 plus AP over highschool public schooler and yet rarely encounter ones that can really articulate a multidimensional/interdisciplinary response or engage in novel problem solving.  I wonder if it is a matter of mock versions of shiny box achievements. 

 

Just wanted to see some discussion of where the line falls.

[regentrude]

I come from a different perspective, having been educated in Germany. Much of what is considered "advanced work" in the US is standard curriculum mandatory for every college bound student, irrespective of major: even future English majors must take calculus in 11th and 12th grade, even future math majors must study two foreign languages for 6 and 10 years, respectively. The expectations are obviously different - but to me, this clearly illustrates that college bound students are capable of this level coursework.

The large difference I see is the work in the middle grades. There is very little learning happening in US middle schools; grades 5-7 have the student mainly parked and crowd controled. Just a small example: there is no reason it should take FOUR years to teach fractions if the arithmetic with integers has been properly taught in grades 1-4. Foreign language instruction could being in 5th grade. While time is wasted in US middle schools, schools elsewhere work on teaching strong foundations: math, science, foreign languages. On top of these foundations it is possible to build a more rigorous coursework in high school for the  students that are capable of pursuing such a course of study. (For numbers: about 50% of German students attend a college preparatory school from grades 5 through 12 and complete this  kind of coursework).

 

So, I really do not see a dichotomy between a solid preparation and advanced classes. But if the preparation does not happen in the middle grades, any advanced work will stand on shaky feet and is rather useless. Which is what I believe is hapening here.

[Nscribe]

Regentrude:

I agree with you about the wasted three years of middle school in the US.  I will never forget how disgusted I was when Dd's elementary teachers in a AG school kept stressing the need to prepare them for the requirements of middle school (which really meant teaching them to conform to processes largely designed to make grading and evaluation easier for middle school teachers...ex: notebooks organized in x manner).  When it really hit me just how much the content had changed from my experience, it meant pulling Dd and fundamentally reworking the foundations.  The stovepiping of content areas across all grade levels is one of my greatest beefs with the the system in the US generally.  I did not realize until I started homeschooling Dd just how valuable the more integrated and classical studies model I had experienced had been.  The science and math sequences especially bother me.  Pre-algebra, life science, pre-calculus, even Alg 1 vs Alg 2 sequencing ... all odd when your really think about it.

 

The thing I see as I am walking through AP's with Dd is a specific test and name associated with what I experienced as basic solid college prep studies long ago. 

 

Watching several students we know start and work in college over the past couple of years has prompted a great deal of pondering.  Many of them never really covered an array of good literature in high school and with the trends of the day are not finding it in college either.  They temporarily mastered various line items for threshold exams, but lack a working fluid knowledge of the sciences or maths, lack real communication skills in their foreign languages and seem to write without purpose or voice.  It concerns me that perhaps generations of this is watering down the undergraduate college experience. 

[Mom22ns]

 

The large difference I see is the work in the middle grades. There is very little learning happening in US middle schools; grades 5-7 have the student mainly parked and crowd controled. 

 

I think this is SO true! My ds actually tested to have lower math skills at the end of 5th grade than he had at the end of 4th. He learned nothing and totally wasted his year. That was the case in every subject. He got a 100% in science for the year, but learned nothing. His grades were so high because he already knew it all. I wish I had pulled him at the end of 4th. 5th was wasted and it took me a little while to get our bearings and figure out what we were doing when we pulled him a few weeks into 6th. Now his high school is very typical of American students. My dd who is 2 years younger does most curriculum a year behind ds. She isn't smarter, she just wasted a year less in public school.

 

As far as rushing your kids OP. Do what they want to do. Does your child want to study Earth Science? Does she want to take APs or start dual enrollment? What are her college goals? Is she trying to get into a very competitive university or program? I think the best thing about homeschooling high school is that you can skip some of the silly petty high school requirements that ps may have and really focus on making it fit your child. Don't worry about competitive or behind worry about making it the best possible learning experience for your dd.

[Twigs]

…  The stovepiping of content areas across all grade levels …

May I ask, what do you mean here?

[8filltheheart]

GGardner quote from the NY Times Admissions article thread:

"One knee-jerk reaction to generally poor public education at all levels is the push to do "more advanced work" at every level. We want our elementary level kids to rush through learning to write and basic math, public school are pushing for (a dumbed-down version of) Algebra for many seventh graders, and high school kids are encouraged to do dual enrollment and gobs of AP classes. I suspect a lot of the basics are being skipped along the way, and these "advanced" classes are advanced in name only. "Calculus" sounds like a college-level class, but I see a lot of high school students who have taken this, and not even covered half of what a typical college Calc I class will cover. I think we should focus making sure the kids know exactly what they are supposed to know at each level, instead of pushing them to skip to some mock version of the next level."

 

The above appeared in responses to the thread re: NY Times Admissions reviewer commentary and really struck a chord with me. We start Dd's next school year in a couple of weeks and as I try to work out course pacing, scope and goals, I find myself torn. On the one hand, Dd could build a fairly impressive set of academic achievements over the next several years. On the other, we could really strive for solid coverage with effective redundancy to build a foundation. My heart leans strongly to a foundational approach, my head leans toward the "OMG it is crazy competitive these days...hurry to check the next shiny box."

 

Let me give a couple of examples: Dd never really did study of earth, space and weather in a comprehensive way. We spent a great deal of middle school covering the far too many gaps the "debacle that was public gifted education" left us to cure. I would love to really do a great study of these topical areas, but doing so would take time that will mean foregoing either AP Chemistry or AP Biology and leave her transcript listing coursework that hardly notes the real rigor and depth she would experience. I would also love to let her work through Saxon Calculus and then do AOPS Precalculus and Calculus for a year to come at it all from a second perspective. Allowing time to do so would mean foregoing some other shiny box she could check. The pressure to go the shiny box route is heavy, demographically our area is filled with seeming overachievers (and some legit ones). Striking a balance for us may mean adding an extra year (allowing us to do a comparative religions course, art history, music theory, study of markets/investing.....and a third foreign language along the route).

 

I see how targeted the coursework is toward given shiny box type achievements and I do feel it often looks advanced but lacks enduring foundational value. We dwell in the world of the 8 plus AP over highschool public schooler and yet rarely encounter ones that can really articulate a multidimensional/interdisciplinary response or engage in novel problem solving. I wonder if it is a matter of mock versions of shiny box achievements.

 

Just wanted to see some discussion of where the line falls.

Does the decision have to either or/all or nothing/only check boxing or only interests?

 

I don't see things so complicatedly. My kids have certain core subjects they have to take and many of them are completely flexible within that subject (lit and history are pretty wide open as to how we fulfill them w/the exception of an American history credit aT some pt in high school.)

 

They have lots of freedom to specialize their focus.

 

Fwiw, I am not a huge fan of APs. But neither am I a fan of CC classes (every CC my kids have taken general ed classes at has been subpar academically.). We have been blessed to have always lived near enough to a university for my kids to take important core classes at an advanced level at a university vs. lots of APs or CC classes. My kids have taken a combo of all 3.....each the combo that best suits their specific educational needs, learning styles, objectives.

 

Also, the admission criteria that meet my kids needs match their learning styles and objectives. I would never have considered a competitive school for our oldest dd who threw up on her way to take standardized tests. She took no APs. She applied to avg LAC colleges and was accepted at all of them with scholarship $ and only had avg scores. Those schools would be a horrible fit for our ds that has already finished all math required for an engineering degree and did so as an 11th grader. He is too strong of a student to thrive there.

 

Who is your dd? What does she want/need? She needs to know herself and make decisions accordingly. (I let my kids make these decisions, not me. I offer insight and suggestions and push them if need be to understand what it takes to meet their goals/objectives; but I do not make their goals and objectives for them.)

[Nscribe]

May I ask, what do you mean here?

Stovepiping refers to segregating each subject distinctly and indicates treating them as distinct disciplines that do not operate cooperatively or share a common understanding or bodies of knowledge (the term is often used to describe government agencies which perform the same or substantially similar functions but don't communicate with one another and thus miss important opportunities and/or each repeats tasks of the other creating redundancy without effective connectedness and communication-think FBI and CIA both investigating the same individual without sharing resources/information).  We tend to do this far more in the US than in other cultures in our instruction of math, sciences and cross disciplinary composition.  Think about the way phases of matter often are addressed in Biology, Chemistry and Physics in several chapters in each, and yet a solid understanding taught effectively once and showing the application in each arena might save substantial time in each content area to delve into other more domain specific areas.

[Nscribe]

Does the decision have to either or/all or nothing/only check boxing or only interests?

 

I don't see things so complicatedly. My kids have certain core subjects they have to take and many of them are completely flexible within that subject (lit and history are pretty wide open as to how we fulfill them w/the exception of an American history credit aT some pt in high school.)

 

...

Who is your dd? What does she want/need? She needs to know herself and make decisions accordingly. (I let my kids make these decisions, not me. I offer insight and suggestions and push them if need be to understand what it takes to meet their goals/objectives; but I do not make their goals and objectives for them.)

Dd wants to do it all and it will be a life issue for her to maintain balance. 

 

My question in posting is more directed at thinking about the way GGardner addressed the trend toward doing more advanced work as a "solution" to the less than stellar performance of students in the system.  We have more routes to completing higher level work for more students and yet colleges have to remediate basic skills far more often.  I wonder if the ever increasing standards that indicate "ability" and "achievement" wind up actually narrowing knowledge and skill development.

 

In the past five years we have seen a real trend locally to normalize the expectation of college achievement in high school (on site dual enrollments/increase in AP expectations).  Is this actually producing more competency? 

[at the beach]

I come from a different perspective, having been educated in Germany. Much of what is considered "advanced work" in the US is standard curriculum mandatory for every college bound student, irrespective of major: even future English majors must take calculus in 11th and 12th grade, even future math majors must study two foreign languages for 6 and 10 years, respectively. The expectations are obviously different - but to me, this clearly illustrates that college bound students are capable of this level coursework.

The large difference I see is the work in the middle grades. There is very little learning happening in US middle schools; grades 5-7 have the student mainly parked and crowd controled. Just a small example: there is no reason it should take FOUR years to teach fractions if the arithmetic with integers has been properly taught in grades 1-4. Foreign language instruction could being in 5th grade. While time is wasted in US middle schools, schools elsewhere work on teaching strong foundations: math, science, foreign languages. On top of these foundations it is possible to build a more rigorous coursework in high school for the students that are capable of pursuing such a course of study. (For numbers: about 50% of German students attend a college preparatory school from grades 5 through 12 and complete this kind of coursework).

 

So, I really do not see a dichotomy between a solid preparation and advanced classes. But if the preparation does not happen in the middle grades, any advanced work will stand on shaky feet and is rather useless. Which is what I believe is hapening here.

In Germany, as you state, only about half the kids are in the college bound track. If 50% are in Gymnasium, it is important to know how the other half of the children are being educated when discussing overall educational systems IMO. The OP quoted a statement regarding public education "at all levels." The US education system is flawed, no doubt. But I am not sure it is helpful to compare part of one system with the whole of another. JMO.

http://www.dw.de/new-report-reveals-shocking-state-of-german-education-system/a-5691043

[regentrude]

In Germany, as you state, only about half the kids are in the college bound track. If 50% are in Gymnasium, it is important to know how the other half of the children are being educated when discussing overall educational systems IMO. The OP quoted a statement regarding public education "at all levels." The US education system is flawed, no doubt. But I am not sure it is helpful to compare part of one system with the whole of another.

But the question was about pushing advanced work through AP courses. I doubt more than 50% of students in the US are participating in this advanced content. The issue was advanced content vs lacking foundation, and I am firmly convinced that the reason for the lacking foundation is the abysmal middle school.

 

The sole purpose of my post was to show that college bound students are definitely capable of what is considered "advanced" in the US, if they receive a good foundation in the middle grades. If same age peers elsewhere can do it it must mean that college bound teens are developmentally able; hence the problem must be one of lacking foundation/school structure, but not one of intrinsic intellgence or maturity. That's all I was saying.

 

ETA: If you want to compare to non-college bound students in Germany:  right now, the US middle school level is barely at, or below, what those kids are taught. And they will not be expected to study at advanced level.

It might be that the best, or even the only, way to accomplish a solid foundation during the middle grades that prepares capable students for advanced courswork, is differentiated education, either in the classroom, or through tracking.

[8filltheheart]

Dd wants to do it all and it will be a life issue for her to maintain balance.

 

My question in posting is more directed at thinking about the way GGardner addressed the trend toward doing more advanced work as a "solution" to the less than stellar performance of students in the system. We have more routes to completing higher level work for more students and yet colleges have to remediate basic skills far more often. I wonder if the ever increasing standards that indicate "ability" and "achievement" wind up actually narrowing knowledge and skill development.

 

In the past five years we have seen a real trend locally to normalize the expectation of college achievement in high school (on site dual enrollments/increase in AP expectations). Is this actually producing more competency?

Gotcha. I don't think in those terms bc other than acknowledging what is possible via public education (regardless of positive or negative outcomes), I pretty much ignore the ps system.

 

As far as your comments, I think you can generalize poor outcomes and poor performance due to rapid acceleration. There are lots of 1s and 2s on APs by kids who make As in the classroom. (One of the reasons many colleges are becoming leery of AP classes replacing their core college classes.). Many universities, avg public ones included, not just top tier, specifically state they won't accept dual enrollment credit taught on a high school campus by a high school teacher (can't remember exactly how it is worded, but I called an admissions office asking for clarification and that is what she explained to me. Apparently it is common practice in some areas and they have witnessed too many struggling students as a result.)

 

That said, there are lots of highly successful, hard-working, high achieving students coming out of ps as well. There are plenty of 4s and 5s on APs by students taking very large lists of them. There are students that need far more challenge and opportunity than they are being given.

 

The trend is becoming more and more fictionalized that everyone is able to achieve an equal outcome and therefore more and more taking the same path regardless of what actually best meets the needs of the individual. Grade inflation, poor quality teachers, quantifying real learning via bubble tests, thinking in terms of testing out of classes to save $ as more important than the actual course and learning, needlessly requiring degrees for employment that don't require degrees but act as a filter/screening process.......there are so many issues that have destroyed the educational system that I don't think it is easy to pin it down to any simple factor (though if I had to pick just one, standardized bubble tests would be my first pick and I think via common core our system is just going to become sicker due to teaching to strictly bubble tests outcomes as the holy grail.)

 

Either way, I pretty much ignore the system and just focus on my individual kids. My way has many flaws as well, but I know my kids are better off than if they had received institutionalized educations.

 

Eta: I think Regentrude is probably right about middle school as well. But I think it even more complicated than that. Reducing lit to pop fiction, composition to mostly student voice, grammar as non-existant, too broad a focus vs solid basics.......the list is atrociously long, matching the quality of American ed. :p

[Pawz4me]

The large difference I see is the work in the middle grades. There is very little learning happening in US middle schools; grades 5-7 have the student mainly parked and crowd controled.

 

 

I think this is SO true! My ds actually tested to have lower math skills at the end of 5th grade than he had at the end of 4th. He learned nothing and totally wasted his year. That was the case in every subject. He got a 100% in science for the year, but learned nothing. His grades were so high because he already knew it all. I wish I had pulled him at the end of 4th. 5th was wasted and it took me a little while to get our bearings and figure out what we were doing when we pulled him a few weeks into 6th. Now his high school is very typical of American students. My dd who is 2 years younger does most curriculum a year behind ds. She isn't smarter, she just wasted a year less in public school.

 

We pulled our kids out of PS after oldest finished fourth grade.  We couldn't put our finger on a particular problem(s), but DH and I realized that something was happening to the kids in our community once they hit middle school.  We didn't know (and still don't) if it was the age/hormones, if the teachers at the middle school weren't quite up to the same quality as the ones in the elementary and high schools, if it was the administration (the principal was a teacher I'd had in high school and was NOT impressed by) or what.  But we knew w/o a doubt we didn't want our kids stagnating when they hit middle school.

 

Oldest DS decided he wanted to go back to PS for high school, and we were okay with that.  And he's flourished.  But in honors and particularly AP classes.  He found the few "regular" classes he had to take to be horrendously boring.  And while he is a pretty smart kid (currently his GPA puts him 9th in a class of around 300), I really think the difference was that the kids he was on par with in elementary school missed out on something during the middle grades that DS got at home, even though I don't feel that what we did was particularly rigorous.

 

Likewise, youngest DS is going to our county's early college high school.  He had to take the Accuplacer, and the early college teachers seemed very impressed by his scores.  They bump the minimum score for college entrance down ten points for the high school kids, but DS scored very well even for a high school senior or adult -- almost 100% on the critical reading and sentence skills portions (they won't do math until next year).  Many of the kids entering from public schools are having to be tutored and take the test again just to achieve the minimum score needed.  Again, I don't think it's because DS is particularly smart or because we did anything particularly spectacular at home.  My gut instinct tells me it's something that happens (or maybe doesn't happen would be a better choice of words) in middle school.

[regentrude]

We pulled our kids out of PS after oldest finished fourth grade.  We couldn't put our finger on a particular problem(s), but DH and I realized that something was happening to the kids in our community once they hit middle school.  We didn't know (and still don't) if it was the age/hormones, if the teachers at the middle school weren't quite up to the same quality as the ones in the elementary and high schools, if it was the administration (the principal was a teacher I'd had in high school and was NOT impressed by) or what.  But we knew w/o a doubt we didn't want our kids stagnating when they hit middle school.

You did the smart thing. I knew parents were complaining about the middle school in our townd, but I did not know any better and had DD attend 5th and the beginnning of 6th grade and watched her not learn anything before I got desparate and pulled her out. I wish I had known about homeschooling earlier. My biggest regret is not having pulled them after 4th grade.

 

For our school, the problem were not the teachers. They were dedicated and trying hard. The problems were the huge disparities in ability between students in one classroom, a system that rewards teachers and schools only for effort made in teaching the low performing students, and a general culture of low expectations and mediocrity.

[Twigs]

Stovepiping refers to segregating each subject distinctly and indicates treating them as distinct disciplines that do not operate cooperatively or share a common understanding or bodies of knowledge (the term is often used to describe government agencies which perform the same or substantially similar functions but don't communicate with one another and thus miss important opportunities and/or each repeats tasks of the other creating redundancy without effective connectedness and communication-think FBI and CIA both investigating the same individual without sharing resources/information).  We tend to do this far more in the US than in other cultures in our instruction of math, sciences and cross disciplinary composition.  Think about the way phases of matter often are addressed in Biology, Chemistry and Physics in several chapters in each, and yet a solid understanding taught effectively once and showing the application in each arena might save substantial time in each content area to delve into other more domain specific areas.

Nscribe,

Thanks for writing such a detailed explanation.

[Nscribe]

My biggest regret is not having pulled them after 4th grade.

My biggest regret is not having pulled DD after K.  In retrospect, the one year of K would have given her all she could benefit from learning.  The discovery math in elementary was so poorly guided...it created a five year span of kids who needed serious remediation, spelling programs were changed from year to year in a search for the right one and it shows in the cohort as high schoolers.  Grammar was largely abandoned in favor of teaching whole language reading and writing skills, again poor delivery resulted in poor ultimate skill development.  We spent two years of homeschool solidifying basic skills while allowing the vertical advancement Dd needed.  This took time away from being able to relish some of the opportunities homeschool otherwise would have allowed.  I would so love to take a mulligan on those lost five years.

 

In our local area it is widely acknowledged policies adopted to reform elementary in the years between @ 2003 and 2009 created a mess.  That in turn made an already muddled middle even less effective, more process oriented and filled with remediation instead of content rich base formation.  Thus, they had to do what I had to do at home but found it far harder to accomplish because of the issues with mass instruction.  I talk with AP teachers who are seeing these kids now and they tell me they are very challenged to do the same with this cohort they were able to do with earlier ones.

 

You and I tend to agree on the devastating impact of a US stance in education that fails to differentiate instruction to address varying needs based on ability.

[Nscribe]

The trend is becoming more and more fictionalized that everyone is able to achieve an equal outcome and therefore more and more taking the same path regardless of what actually best meets the needs of the individual.

....

Eta: I think Regentrude is probably right about middle school as well. But I think it even more complicated than that. Reducing lit to pop fiction, composition to mostly student voice, grammar as non-existant, too broad a focus vs solid basics.......the list is atrociously long, matching the quality of American ed. :p

:iagree:

[regentrude]

I find it interesting that in Germany 50% are on the college prep track, where in the US the percent of seats in my area for AP/CC is about 25%.

 

I would assume that in the US, only students who actually want to go to college will go to the trouble of taking AP or dual enrollment classes - whereas the coursework corresponding to this level happens as mandatory upper grade classwork in the regular high school all the students in Germany who are on the college prep track.

 

The 50% is roughly the percentage of students attending a college prep high school track (Gymnasium), but it is not the percentage of student that will actually go to univeristy. It is very difficult to compare percentages for college attendance between the US and Germany: For one thing, many degrees that would require "college" in the US are taught  in Germany through apprenticeships, vocational training, or institutions without a college designation (to be a beautician, you'd do an apprenticeship and vocational training, not go to a "college of cosmetology). Second, many fields that require no college degree in the US have a mandatory tertiary education requirement in Germany (for example, you can not be a daycare teacher without a degree in early childhood education).

Third, some fields that would require college in the US do not even require the college prep high school in Germany (for example, you can go to nursing school with just the 10 year regular high school diploma.)

Also, a portion of the students completing the college prep high school in Germany plan to get an apprenticeship; banks and offices prefer students with the college prep diploma, even though no college is necesssary for  the position.

So, very hard to compare.

 

[JumpyTheFrog]

(for example, you can not be a daycare teacher without a degree in early childhood education).

 

Does this mean that daycare workers in Germany are higher quality than the average ones in the US? I get the distinct impression a high percent of American daycare workers are people that couldn't get any better jobs, hence the low pay and high turnover.

 

It sounds like the German system makes more sense. Would I be correct in assuming you don't need a college degree to be a secretary in Germany?

[regentrude]

Does this mean that daycare workers in Germany are higher quality than the average ones in the US? I get the distinct impression a high percent of American daycare workers are people that couldn't get any better jobs, hence the low pay and high turnover.

 

Yes. You have to have graduated from high school (not college prep) and complete an early childhood education program at a dedicated institution that lasts between 2 and 4 years. You can not be employed in a daycare without this degree.

You can open a home daycare if you get a license which would involve 120 hours of class time.

 

There are different degrees, depending on whether you want to specialize in care for children under 3, for children age 3 to 6, or after care for school age children.

 

 

It sounds like the German system makes more sense. Would I be correct in assuming you don't need a college degree to be a secretary in Germany?

 

In order to be a secretary, you would have to graduate high school (but not the college prep track) and complete a three year education in being a secretary. Since there is no direct equivalent for this kind of education in the US, I do not know how I would translate the kind of school you would have to attend (Fachschule). You will not find employment unless you have completed this education and finished with a secretary degree.

 

The general model in Germany is that you have to have an education for anything that you want to work: through apprenticeship, vocational training, Fachschule, college. There is virtually no way to be employed if you did not get any kind of vocational education after high school. There is a three year education post high school to get a diploma as a retail salesperson!

But it should also be noted that the non-college prep high school ends after 10th grade with a recognized diploma, so instead of sitting in school for two more years, students will receive a trageted education in their choosen field, be it salesperson, daycare teacher, or car mechanic.

 

While the US model of "learning on the job" creates more flexibility and can more easily respond to changes, the German model of vocational training for almost all students produces a better educated work force. There are pros and cons for each.

[Murphy101]

sigh

 

Every time regentrude (and another person who doesn't seem to post very often anymore) posts about European education - it makes me want to move my stupid self and my under educated kids to Europe pronto. jk. Sorta. :)

 

What happens to students who can't or won't do that level of required work there, regentrude?

 

Because I'm pretty sure kids who hate math and are stubborn or have LDs are not unique to the Americas. :)

[JumpyTheFrog]

Every time regentrude (and another person who doesn't seem to post very often anymore) posts about European education - it makes me want to move my stupid self and my under educated kids to Europe pronto. jk. Sorta. :)

I feel the same way, especially when people start posting about how much less crazy college admissions are in most countries. Why can't we just have college admissions be about academics and not the rat race of outside activities? I did lots of outside activitie in high school, but I never once did anything just to look good for college. I refused to join my school's National Honor Society because they made everyone a vice president to look good on college applications.

[JumpyTheFrog]

How expensive are these vocational training programs? How do high school graduates deal with trying to figure out what career they want? Is that as big a problem there as here?

[regentrude]

What happens to students who can't or won't do that level of required work there, regentrude?

 

Because I'm pretty sure kids who hate math and are stubborn or have LDs are not unique to the Americas.

 

Those students would most likely attend the non-college preparatory high school track, graduate after 10 years with a recognized diploma (they would NOT be dropouts!) and continue their education in a vocational training or apprenticeship program.

Depending on the state, there may be another track branching off those schools that allows students who struggle very much to graduate with a 9th grade diploma. Again, they graduate and do not simply drop out. Much effort is made to channel those students into  job preparatory education programs; unfortunately, it does not work for all students. And unfortunately a certain percentage of students will drop out even out of this least demanding track.

 

Students who are initially tracked into a non-college prep school can add a three year program after 10th grade and after that take the exit exam of the college prep track which qualifies them to enter university. This is a way for "late bloomers" or students whose learning difficulties got remedied to still attend college; the sorting into tracks does NOT determine a student's future at age 10. My niece with CP attended a 10 grade school for students with disabilities, added the three year college prep program and is now studying at a university.

[regentrude]

How expensive are these vocational training programs? How do high school graduates deal with trying to figure out what career they want? Is that as big a problem there as here?

 

In Germany, vocational training is free. (As is university education, btw).

In fact, the vocational students even get paid, since the training combines theoretical instruction in a vocational school with practical instruction in a company/shop as apprentice, and the employer pays the apprentice a small wage.

 

High schools have career counseling for the upper grades. There are also government run career centers where students can go to get tested for aptitude, get information about training, and get matched with prospective employers who have training vacancies.

 We dwell in the world of the 8 plus AP over highschool public schooler and yet rarely encounter ones that can really articulate a multidimensional/interdisciplinary response or engage in novel problem solving.  I wonder if it is a matter of mock versions of shiny box achievements. 

 

Wow.  Such great discussion.  Just to put a finer point on what I was trying to say -- I think there's a lot of demand for so-called advanced classes, and there are, especially at the public high school level, a lot of classes being offered with advanced sounding names.  But, I'm not sure how advanced they are.  If AP classes are really supposed to be the equivalent of rigorous college classes, why is it common for high school freshman to take them?  A couple of the thought-to-be easier ones, Human Geography and World History, are overwhelmingly taken by freshman and sophomores (http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/program_summary_report_2012.pdf), with a pass rate around 50%.

[Arcadia]

.  If AP classes are really supposed to be the equivalent of rigorous college classes, why is it common for high school freshman to take them?

 

In my area, it is because parents compare high schools by how many AP classes are offered, especially in the recent years where community colleges are "flooded" so dual enrollment is difficult due to lack of places.

 

This part for California is also interesting

"By the end of year three, all participating schools with:

1. 0–4 AP courses will offer five or more AP courses and increase the number of students participating in new AP course offerings based on AP potential results
2. 5–8 AP courses will increase the number of students who participate in the existing AP program and will selectively add new AP courses to meet the needs of students with high AP potential in specific disciplines

...

In partnership with DonorsChoose.org and the Innovate Foundation, the College Board will provide financial support to assist participating schools in obtaining the essential elements needed to establish and expand Advanced Placement courses. This includes:

1. Full-tuition scholarships for schools to send targeted AP teachers to attend an Advanced Placement Summer Institute (APSI), which is a four-to-five day intensive subject-specific professional development workshop providing teachers with an overview of the curriculum, structure and content of specific AP courses. Attention is devoted not only to the development of curriculum but also to teaching strategies and the relationship of the course to the AP Exam.
2. Help from the College Board, DonorsChoose.org and the Innovate Foundation in funding and acquiring college text books and materials such as science-lab equipment and graphing calculators.

Ultimately, the College Board is aiming to provide teachers with the tools needed to build a strong AP foundation for students." (Source California Advanced Placement Expansion Program)

 

 

I feel the same way, especially when people start posting about how much less crazy college admissions are in most countries. Why can't we just have college admissions be about academics and not the rat race of outside activities?

 

It is more or less purely academic back home.  Maybe I'll apply for dual citizenship for my American born younger when the time comes.

No letter of recommendation needed too. Just purely academic results.

 

[Murphy101]

Those students would most likely attend the non-college preparatory high school track, graduate after 10 years with a recognized diploma (they would NOT be dropouts!) and continue their education in a vocational training or apprenticeship program.

Depending on the state, there may be another track branching off those schools that allows students who struggle very much to graduate with a 9th grade diploma.

Sooo.

 

What happens when a student graduates with a 9th grade diploma at .. What is that there? Age 13-15? .. Where do they go and who pays for it?

 

I think a huge issue with that in the states is that parents are financially and legally responsible for just about every thing until age 18. Is that the case there as well? How much does family background or situation or demographics in general influence options there?

[rdj2027]

Martha,

 

said 9th grader would typically enter a three year apprenticeship in a trade.  The cost of apprenticeships plus the the salary are paid for by the company.  Sometimes the student goes on at school.  My brother did not do well in school and hated it.  He graduated after 9th grade but at the age of 15 found out that what he wanted to do was not possible with that diploma.  He decided that maybe school did serve some purpose, buckled down, added the 10th grade and did well.  He entered his apprenticeship and finished three years later with distinction and best apprentice in his field in his state.  After that he attended a specialized school in his field for another two years and has been working ever since.

 

Here in the US he would have been in special ed and most likely a drop-out.  

 

Apprenticeships are usually done locally and the students live at home.  Every once in a while a child decides to learn something where there are only a few companies so the student has to move there.  Sometimes the employer offers housing, sometimes children stay with someone (family, friend) and in rare cases they are on their own.

 

Parents are financially responsible until the student either finishes his apprenticeship or his course of study at a university.  If the child decides to do nothing after the age of 18, parents are absolved from their obligation to support.  Generally speaking yes, parents are responsible for children under the age of 18.  Universities do not charge tuition and most students are eligible for support through the government plus parental obligation is tied to income and other factors.  

 

Family background and demographics influence the educational path quite a bit.  However, education is free and open to anyone so it is the family's and student's responsibility to make something out of it.  

 

Children of immigrants do not often attend a gymnasium for a number of reasons (particularly girls from mid-eastern or African countries are a rare find), children from working class families also have a harder time both due to family influence as well as perception by teachers and resulting lower grades. 

[regentrude]

What happens when a student graduates with a 9th grade diploma at .. What is that there? Age 13-15? .. Where do they go and who pays for it?

 

I think a huge issue with that in the states is that parents are financially and legally responsible for just about every thing until age 18. Is that the case there as well? How much does family background or situation or demographics in general influence options there?

 

Actually, the students would likely be at least 16 (schooling starts at age 6 or 7), and often older, because such a severely struggling student would almost certainly have failed one or multiple grades and been forced to repeat. They also fall under the compulsory education law which requires twelve years, independent of student's actual age; of those, only 9 or 10 have to be full time in school, afterwards vocational school satisfies the mandatory education requirements.

As I wrote in another post, education is free in Germany: vocational schools and universities are paid for by the taxpayer.

 

The students are still legally minors until age 18, so parents are financially responsible. They are also held responsible as long as students remain in school/college.

Since apprenticeships, however, pay a small wage, the students would have a limited financial independence. College students receive state stipends if the parental income is not sufficient.

 

Family background does influence educational outcomes, and there is still debate why exactly that is, since in many states the decision whether a child goes into the college prep school track is made solely by the parents, or through absolute grade cutofffs, and only in very few states through teacher recommendation (which is where one could see potential for discrimination), and since tertiary education is free, so that the financial situation of the family plays a very small role compared to the US .The cultural and educational background of the family plays a deciding role, IMO, whether education is valued, how the kids are parented, etc... but of course, some things are not politically correct to state. Kids from immigrant families whose families actively discourage them from learning German and who socialize exclusively with similar immigrants are the most disadvantaged with respect to education. This is strikingly different from what I have experienced in the US, because here, immigrants typically see themselves as Americans and make sure their children learn English.

[Murphy101]

This is very interesting to me, Regentrude, thanks for answering my questions.

 

I knew a German foreign exchange student for a semester in high school in 1989. She was visiting at my house when news hit that the Berlin wall was coming down. Which of course meant the poor girl spent considerable time answering what I think were probably very insensitive and unPC questions at my family dinner table. *blush* I come from a German family that talks loudly and frequently about politics and just about anything else at the dinner table.

 

Anyways... C was 16 and having a rather rough time with her host family and our education system. The host family was religious and C was not particularly. Our school system felt very pointless and confining to her. (Ha! That's how we became friends. We shared that sentiment.) She was 16 and really shocked at how limited the education options were for 16 year olds and how they were not treated much different than 14 year olds. According to her, in many ways 16 yr olds in West Germany were treated more like our 18 year olds. She said 18 was usually still the age majority, but it was normal for them to attend trades and university and not normal to still be plodding through anything like our high schools unless they needed remedial education for some reason. She was very frustrated and said she honestly didn't know how American students didn't go nuts. Curfews and really strict protective of girls style of her host family (an elderly couple) caused a lot of problems and she ended up switching families bc her parents felt she wasn't getting a chance to actually blend into American culture and the host family Basicly treated her like a loose liberal out of control girl.

 

Interesting to see how much of what I learned from her seems accurate. My teachers tried to act like she was full of poo. I guess bc they felt insulted by her responses to their questions. But she always seemed to be trying to answer honestly and nicely to me, which isn't particularly easy sometimes.

[regentrude]

 C was 16 and having a rather rough time with her host family and our education system. The host family was religious and C was not particularly. Our school system felt very pointless and confining to her. (Ha! That's how we became friends. We shared that sentiment.) She was 16 and really shocked at how limited the education options were for 16 year olds and how they were not treated much different than 14 year olds. According to her, in many ways 16 yr olds in West Germany were treated more like our 18 year olds. She said 18 was usually still the age majority, but it was normal for them to attend trades and university and not normal to still be plodding through anything like our high schools unless they needed remedial education for some reason. She was very frustrated and said she honestly didn't know how American students didn't go nuts. Curfews and really strict protective of girls style of her host family (an elderly couple) caused a lot of problems and she ended up switching families bc her parents felt she wasn't getting a chance to actually blend into American culture and the host family Basicly treated her like a loose liberal out of control girl.

 

Yes, yes, and yes.

One of the biggest differences aside from academics is the attitude towards students. Public schools in the US are so incredibly restrictive with respect to student behavior: 6th graders going to the bathroom as an entire class together with a teacher, non-stop supervision through adults even at high school level. It's like prison. Compared to that, German 1st graders are deemed capable of spending the 10-15 minute recess between periods (there is a recess between EACH set of periods!) unsupervised in the classroom, eating or going to the bathroom if necessary without a teacher walking them there; heck, they are deemed old enough to walk themselves to and from school! It was eye opening for my kids when we went on sabbatical, coming from US schools and seeing how much freedom the kids had in German schools.

Teenagers travel unaccompanied, use public transit, visit different countries on their own. My DD briefly considered joining an organized trip with choir from the US to Europe and decided against it because the supervision and rules would drive her nuts. (If she lived back home, she'd simply travel on her own, YKWIM?) OTOH, I was talking to a friend who accompanied a university sponsored trip to Europe, and she was astounded by the immaturity and dependence of the adult college students they took: they had to be reminded to eat breakfast, to pack their metro passes, had no clue how to navigate a city, and would have been absolutely incapable of traveling solo. I wonder to what degree the overprotectiveness and constant adult supervision creates this....

[FaithManor]

Gotcha. I don't think in those terms bc other than acknowledging what is possible via public education (regardless of positive or negative outcomes), I pretty much ignore the ps system.

 

As far as your comments, I think you can generalize poor outcomes and poor performance due to rapid acceleration. There are lots of 1s and 2s on APs by kids who make As in the classroom. (One of the reasons many colleges are becoming leery of AP classes replacing their core college classes.). Many universities, avg public ones included, not just top tier, specifically state they won't accept dual enrollment credit taught on a high school campus by a high school teacher (can't remember exactly how it is worded, but I called an admissions office asking for clarification and that is what she explained to me. Apparently it is common practice in some areas and they have witnessed too many struggling students as a result.)

 

That said, there are lots of highly successful, hard-working, high achieving students coming out of ps as well. There are plenty of 4s and 5s on APs by students taking very large lists of them. There are students that need far more challenge and opportunity than they are being given.

 

The trend is becoming more and more fictionalized that everyone is able to achieve an equal outcome and therefore more and more taking the same path regardless of what actually best meets the needs of the individual. Grade inflation, poor quality teachers, quantifying real learning via bubble tests, thinking in terms of testing out of classes to save $ as more important than the actual course and learning, needlessly requiring degrees for employment that don't require degrees but act as a filter/screening process.......there are so many issues that have destroyed the educational system that I don't think it is easy to pin it down to any simple factor (though if I had to pick just one, standardized bubble tests would be my first pick and I think via common core our system is just going to become sicker due to teaching to strictly bubble tests outcomes as the holy grail.)

 

Either way, I pretty much ignore the system and just focus on my individual kids. My way has many flaws as well, but I know my kids are better off than if they had received institutionalized educations.

 

Eta: I think Regentrude is probably right about middle school as well. But I think it even more complicated than that. Reducing lit to pop fiction, composition to mostly student voice, grammar as non-existant, too broad a focus vs solid basics.......the list is atrociously long, matching the quality of American ed. :p

This, thank you!!!!

 

It's a list of horrors perpetuated as education here. Yes, middle school is abysmal and non-preparatory, but that is just one aspect of all that is wrong.

 

I guess we've been homeschooling neo-classically with an emphasis in math and science for so long (dd only went to a brick and mortar school for Kindergarten, 5th-7th grades, eldest ds just for kindergarten, the other two never attended) that I have not had to embrace the situation where we can't have our cake and eat it too. Do we have gaps here and there? Probably! It's not possible to teach everything...the body of knowledge available is too great for every high school student to KNOW everything. But, the gaps aren't chasms or grand canyons in learning. Instead, they are things that could EASILY be learned in the future because the kids know how to learn and have a work ethic that matches that training. So, we are able to have a solid core and specialize too, covering a variety of electives, as well as meaningful extra-curriculars. However, I'm willing to admit that this is because we have not had to remediate basic skills, we've not had to undo damage.

 

This probably colors my perspective quite a bit. When I see a thread like this, my immediate thought is "well of course we could have AP world History and AP chemistry, and study geology, and English Literature and Composition, and Latin, and Algebra 2, and Icelandic," and all of it at a pretty rigorous level. But, my kids do not have any learning disabilities, nor were they in the American education system long enough to cause problems...dd's time in brick and mortar wasn't even at a PS, it was at a K-8 Lutheran school styled after the neo-classical education movement, so while we did remediate a little in mathematics, and a little in writing, the reality was truly no harm no foul academically...now don't talk to me about bullying or the occasional teacher incompetance, THAT we did have!

 

All I can say OP is that I think that if the deficits and amount of remediation you need to do are not too great, you can do both. It doesn't have to be an either or. However, it will take careful planning, time management, possibly be teacher intensive, and definitely require an enthusiastic student. The earth science/geology doesn't have to be studied at an AP type level in order to be worthy of credit. You could get a decent text, or a lot of topical books, combine that with the Great Courses Lectures on these subjects, complete the guidebook AND add some writing assignments, and take the opportunity to teach excellent notetaking skills. Make a well organized/structured notebook part of the grade, and then create your own semester final exam - forget doing lots of busywork, quizzes, etc. You'll have to work through it with her in order to be able to make that exam yourself, but it's definitely doable. If she loves the material, it's something that she could specialize in by completing some MIT opencourseware freshman level material for non-majors, and if there is time, follow it with an introductory course for majors. MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Yale, etc. many of them are making a stout body of resources available online. Fortunately for homeschoolers in 2013, there is a plethora of options available to allow us to be flexible meeting the needs of our individual students..something that our homeschooling "mothers and fathers" of the 70's and 80's oft times did not have at their disposal.

[at the beach]

But the question was about pushing advanced work through AP courses. I doubt more than 50% of students in the US are participating in this advanced content. The issue was advanced content vs lacking foundation, and I am firmly convinced that the reason for the lacking foundation is the abysmal middle school.

 

The sole purpose of my post was to show that college bound students are definitely capable of what is considered "advanced" in the US, if they receive a good foundation in the middle grades. If same age peers elsewhere can do it it must mean that college bound teens are developmentally able; hence the problem must be one of lacking foundation/school structure, but not one of intrinsic intellgence or maturity. That's all I was saying.

 

ETA: If you want to compare to non-college bound students in Germany: right now, the US middle school level is barely at, or below, what those kids are taught. And they will not be expected to study at advanced level.

It might be that the best, or even the only, way to accomplish a solid foundation during the middle grades that prepares capable students for advanced courswork, is differentiated education, either in the classroom, or through tracking.

In the OP, the quote also mentioned elementary education, and that is an area where I have seen a lot of pushing. Schools seem to expect more and more developmentally inappropriate things from very young children, thinking this will help them be competitive later. Children's developmental readiness and natural variations in readiness do not seem to be respected. When my younger two were in school (which was quite a few years ago), there was a lot of emphasis on pushing more academics and taking away unstructured time at school. My children's recess was 15 minutes and lunch was 15 minutes. My slow eater never got to finish most of her lunch. From what I have seen, our middle grades are burdened with a lot of homework but most of it looks like busywork to me. As for kids participating in AP classes, even if there are significant numbers of students in them (which I doubt), all one needs to do is look at the score distributions to see for most of the exams a low % of students are earning 4s and 5s, so many kids are not prepared for these exams even if they are in the advanced courses.

[Renaissance Mom]

I just want to chime in for a moment.  There are definite pros and cons to both the American system and the German system of education.  I grew up in the upper Midwest and attended public schools.  I spent most of a year in Germany on a work exchange program right after high school and then spent several years teaching intensive German language classes in Germany every spring and every fall to American students going on similar exchange programs.  I ultimately earned my degree from a public land grant university here, but did have the good fortune to have been awarded a full ride scholarship to a German university for a year.  (Yes, it was tuition-free, but the scholarship covered travel, food, housing, books, insurance, etc.)  I matriculated as a regular student, since I passed all the required Germany language exams they administered to international students.  In other words, I had no restrictions on the types of classes I took and was not required to take German-as-a-foreign-language classes while enrolled.  While finishing up my degree back in the States, I lived in an international student co-op where I was one of the rare US students.  There were many German students among those I lived and studied with at the university.  I mention all this to demonstrate that I did have experience with both US and German post-high school education systems.

 

The biggest difference I noticed was the clarity of expectations by professors.  In the US, my professors provided reasonably clear expectations of what they expected students to accomplish and learn in each class.  (Overall learning goals, number of papers, exams, required resources, optional resources, etc.)  Sometimes that bar was higher than others, but at least the expectations were clear.  In my classes at the German university, things were less clear.  Yes, the students had a great deal more flexibility and independence.  The professor may or may not have some sort of text.  I thought that was fine.  They may or may not have a stash of photocopied articles or resources in a library or resource center.  Availability was unpredictable.  Truthfully, the students were expected to ferret out what they needed to know.  That in itself if OK, but every student formed their own opinion of what was to be investigated.  Then, it wasn't always clear if the professor would agree or not.  I had one international agricultural economics professor who was an excellent lecturer.  He loosely used a text he had written, demonstrated what he taught in lectures, encouraged students to ask questions at the end of the lectures.  I learned a lot.  I had another international ag econ professor who had no text, but expected us to follow up from his lectures and investigate things we had questions about.  He rarely had time to talk with students.  His photocopied resources were rarely in the office or were rarely complete.  His lectures followed rabbit trails so most of us weren't sure what was core and what was ancillary.  He was kind enough to give me an oral final exam so that the university could record that I completed the course before I left the country and it could transfer back to my home university.  It was an entertaining final -- he didn't ask about a single thing he had lectured on or about a single thing covered in any extra discovery trails the students followed.  He spent most of the time telling me that Americans couldn't understand international ag econ because we had such a large ag economy.  Then he asked a bunch of esoteric questions about US ag policy -- some of which I could intelligently discuss and some of which I couldn't.  Whether his mission was to determine if I paid attention to what was going on within his discipline or if I could think for myself, I never determined.  I passed and earned the course.  But to this day I'm still confused as to what I was supposed to take away.  I did have delightful professors with interactive classes in literature, statistics, and other international agriculture classes.  They all transferred back to my home university with no problem. 

 

My takeaway message was that the education any student at that German university received was only as good as what the individual student made of it.  That can be a very good thing for some students.  Of course there will always be those students who sort of coast through anything they do.  That's true here, too.  But I did see a substantial middle chunk of students who were capable and motivated to work hard, but needed more direction.  They were the ones who did work hard and never seemed to get anywhere.  The many German students who studied at my home university in the US often commented that they always knew where they stood in their US classes and knew what they had to do in order to pass or earn a certain grade.  They could determine if more hard work was needed or if, perhaps, a different course (or even different area of study) was needed.  They didn't have to wait until the end of a semester or end of a year to find out if their work was going to "count."

 

There is a place for many different approaches to education.  I worked for many years in the US headquarters of a large German multinational firm.  We had to manage our US business based on what the managers in Germany established as our goals.  We were also the training ground for many mid-level German executives who needed international experience before continuing up the ladder back in global headquarters in Germany.  For me, it was interesting to note the differences between how the German managers approached things vs. how same-level US managers approached things.  Although there was a great deal of variety, as a rule German managers expected very little free thinking and creativity in problem solving.  They expected us to take their decisions or opinions at face value and implement.  US managers viewed their roles as taking the goals from management and finding creative and competitive ways to implement them in the US marketplace.  So I had to wonder how much of that was related to their university educations?  The US managers seemingly had more guidance or specific direction during their university years, but perhaps that gradually weaned them and grew them so that they could then naturally build on those things and think independently and were open to continually learning and adapting.  The German managers had grown accustomed to having to navigate their university courses on their own with variable and somewhat unpredictable results.  So they entered the work force convinced that they knew what they needed to and that those under them ought to just comply.  (Again, I apologize for what are gross exaggerations and blanket statements.  I'm just playing some "what-if" thinking games.)

 

So there are definite pros and cons to any educational system.  I have always been fairly impressed with the German educational models and processes up through "high school" (in whatever form).  Based on my experience in both university models and in the business world, I know that there is no one perfect university model to suit a wide variety of learners.

 

I did not intend to bash anyone or any country.  I'm just offering my own experiences and observations to say that sometimes we get that "grass is greener" thing going when we think about educating our kids. 

 

 

[regentrude]

 

The biggest difference I noticed was the clarity of expectations by professors.  In the US, my professors provided reasonably clear expectations of what they expected students to accomplish and learn in each class.  (Overall learning goals, number of papers, exams, required resources, optional resources, etc.)  Sometimes that bar was higher than others, but at least the expectations were clear.  In my classes at the German university, things were less clear.  Yes, the students had a great deal more flexibility and independence.  The professor may or may not have some sort of text.  I thought that was fine.  They may or may not have a stash of photocopied articles or resources in a library or resource center.  Availability was unpredictable.  Truthfully, the students were expected to ferret out what they needed to know.  That in itself if OK, but every student formed their own opinion of what was to be investigated.  Then, it wasn't always clear if the professor would agree or not.

 

I completely agree with this assessment. The structure of the university education is completely different. In the US, there is definitely more structure, more hand holding, more worries about retention and student satisfaction, whereas in Germany, students are largely responsible for their own success and nobody bothers coaxing underperforming students along.

 

 

  I had one international agricultural economics professor who was an excellent lecturer.  He loosely used a text he had written, demonstrated what he taught in lectures, encouraged students to ask questions at the end of the lectures.  I learned a lot.  I had another international ag econ professor who had no text, but expected us to follow up from his lectures and investigate things we had questions about.  He rarely had time to talk with students.  His photocopied resources were rarely in the office or were rarely complete.  His lectures followed rabbit trails so most of us weren't sure what was core and what was ancillary.  He was kind enough to give me an oral final exam so that the university could record that I completed the course before I left the country and it could transfer back to my home university.  It was an entertaining final -- he didn't ask about a single thing he had lectured on or about a single thing covered in any extra discovery trails the students followed. 

This is something specific to field and school and instructor and does not, IMO, allow fro generalization, In my studies, expectations were extremely clear and instructors very organized (and no, there were no assigned readings or textbooks; the prof recommended a handful of books, and you had to decide where to supplement with reading, where to go deeper etc. The successful student put ina  lot of extra, non required work.

 

 

My takeaway message was that the education any student at that German university received was only as good as what the individual student made of it.  That can be a very good thing for some students.  Of course there will always be those students who sort of coast through anything they do.  That's true here, too.  But I did see a substantial middle chunk of students who were capable and motivated to work hard, but needed more direction.  They were the ones who did work hard and never seemed to get anywhere.  The many German students who studied at my home university in the US often commented that they always knew where they stood in their US classes and knew what they had to do in order to pass or earn a certain grade.  They could determine if more hard work was needed or if, perhaps, a different course (or even different area of study) was needed.  They didn't have to wait until the end of a semester or end of a year to find out if their work was going to "count."are

 

Yes, that is completely true. The entire approach is that, in Germany, students are considered adults capable of figuring out what they need to do, whereas in the US, students are considered adolescents in need of guidance, on many levels, not just academically ( for example, a mandatory dorm requirement with behavioral rules would not be accepted at any Germany university, people would find the notion ridiculous.)

As an instructor at a US college, I am appalled that we have to give "incentives" for doing homework and reading in form of points, since I come from the mindset that a student should simply do the assigned work without being checked up on. In Germany there are no grades during the semester for quizzes and homework and little assignments; the grade is determined by a final examination at the end of the course. Actually, the only three grades on my final university transcript were the results of the three comprehensive oral exams over five semesters of math, six semesters of theoretical, and six semesters of experimental physics. In contrast, the system here encourages short term learning and purging at the end of the semester, with little or no long term retention.

 

I think one reason for the structure of the German university system is also that very little has changed in the setup over the last hundred years: the structures are virtually the same as they were when only 10% of students attended a university. Structures (or lack thereof) in which the  top 10% of students, who are ambitious and organized, succeed will not be suitable if university attendance is extended downwards to 30 percent of all high school students.

It should, however, also be noted that the university education lasted for five years and was not comparable to a US college degree:  students attended for five years (4.5 for some degrees), spent their 5th year on research and wrote a thesis, and finished with a "Diploma" that would be comparable to a Masters degree. So, the "target audience" for a university education was somewhat different from the one for a US bachelors degree.

(With the Bologna changes and the attempt to make degrees portable across Europe, universities have switched to 3 year bachelor degrees and a separate masters program, and the quality of education has decreased dramatically compared to the old system. I would never dream of sending my kids to a German university now.)

 

 

So there are definite pros and cons to any educational system.  I have always been fairly impressed with the German educational models and processes up through "high school" (in whatever form).  Based on my experience in both university models and in the business world, I know that there is no one perfect university model to suit a wide variety of learners.

 

That would be my assessment as well. The strength of the German educational system is clearly through high school. I am not impressed by the universities, which is why my children will attend US unis, even though we could send them to Germany for free.

My main criticism with the German university system stems from the fact that the Abitur, the college prep high school exit exam, serves as entrance to any university and major (except for a few majors with restricted admission). Consequently, schools can not develop a hierarchy of "good, selective" and "average, less selective" schools. Classes are overfilled, because the school can not turn away students who passed the exam. The only way to reduce student numbers to the amount that can actually be taught with the rooms and manpower available is through weed-out courses in the first semesters.

The system would be greatly improved if schools were allowed to choose whom they want to admit. I see the biggest strength of the US university system in its diversity: the wide variety of levels means that there will be an appropriate college for every kind of student.

I just wish the same differentiation extended into secondary education as well.

[FaithManor]

Yes, yes, and yes.

One of the biggest differences aside from academics is the attitude towards students. Public schools in the US are so incredibly restrictive with respect to student behavior: 6th graders going to the bathroom as an entire class together with a teacher, non-stop supervision through adults even at high school level. It's like prison. Compared to that, German 1st graders are deemed capable of spending the 10-15 minute recess between periods (there is a recess between EACH set of periods!) unsupervised in the classroom, eating or going to the bathroom if necessary without a teacher walking them there; heck, they are deemed old enough to walk themselves to and from school! It was eye opening for my kids when we went on sabbatical, coming from US schools and seeing how much freedom the kids had in German schools.

Teenagers travel unaccompanied, use public transit, visit different countries on their own. My DD briefly considered joining an organized trip with choir from the US to Europe and decided against it because the supervision and rules would drive her nuts. (If she lived back home, she'd simply travel on her own, YKWIM?) OTOH, I was talking to a friend who accompanied a university sponsored trip to Europe, and she was astounded by the immaturity and dependence of the adult college students they took: they had to be reminded to eat breakfast, to pack their metro passes, had no clue how to navigate a city, and would have been absolutely incapable of traveling solo. I wonder to what degree the overprotectiveness and constant adult supervision creates this....

I agree that this is a huge problem.

 

Schools here are rather prison like, they do not foster independence, and the parents many times tend to mirror this trend at home. Most of the teens we know have absolutely no skills for independence. It's scary!

 

One of the best "gifts" I think we've given our rocket team is to teach them independent thinking, as well as group work, balancing those two, and some life skills they aren't getting around here. They've learned to purchase tickets for public transport, follow the maps and schedules, etc. in Washington D.C., and when they compete, we adults are nothing more than specators while they have to navigate a very adult type engineering world in which they interact on a higher plane with NASA engineers, Raytheon executives, NAR officlals, etc. It's growing their confidence. We would literaly be comfortable taking them to D.C. now, and turning them loose at the train station saying, "Observe the buddy system... do not travel alone...but, you don't all have to stay together. See what you'd like to see, and we'll be here at the station to pick you up at X o'clock. We would be confident that barring some unforseen accident, which can happen to anyone, anywhere, they would be a well mannered bunch of students who either tour the monuments, or hit the museums, or take a White House tour, or whatever without us and manage the train, the taxi, the bus, etc. without us. We think it would be great for them! However, 4-H leadership and the other parents would be livid. 4-H leadership would not be against the concept because they really do have a goal of fostering adult life skills and independence. But, their liability from the parents would be astronomical. So, we have to be content with the fact that they could do it if the opportunity were available, but that they won't be allowed to do it.

 

I know several adult, married couples who would like to travel but refuse to...they are scared of the unknowns; they are worried they won't be able to get around a city, or figure out a bus schedule, or....it's nuts. They think we are super geniuses because we can operate outside this community's comfort zone. They are raising kids who are afraid to go away to college, or venture more than 100 miles from home. It's very, very sad. We've been accused of being elitist because we do travel, and the rocket team kids, while extremely popular in this county, are considered to be on some level of wizardy that "regular kids" can never aspire too. Sigh....this stuff makes my head spin.

[Murphy101]

Yes, yes, and yes.

One of the biggest differences aside from academics is the attitude towards students. Public schools in the US are so incredibly restrictive with respect to student behavior: 6th graders going to the bathroom as an entire class together with a teacher, non-stop supervision through adults even at high school level. It's like prison. Compared to that, German 1st graders are deemed capable of spending the 10-15 minute recess between periods (there is a recess between EACH set of periods!) unsupervised in the classroom, eating or going to the bathroom if necessary without a teacher walking them there; heck, they are deemed old enough to walk themselves to and from school! It was eye opening for my kids when we went on sabbatical, coming from US schools and seeing how much freedom the kids had in German schools.

Teenagers travel unaccompanied, use public transit, visit different countries on their own. My DD briefly considered joining an organized trip with choir from the US to Europe and decided against it because the supervision and rules would drive her nuts. (If she lived back home, she'd simply travel on her own, YKWIM?) OTOH, I was talking to a friend who accompanied a university sponsored trip to Europe, and she was astounded by the immaturity and dependence of the adult college students they took: they had to be reminded to eat breakfast, to pack their metro passes, had no clue how to navigate a city, and would have been absolutely incapable of traveling solo. I wonder to what degree the overprotectiveness and constant adult supervision creates this....

Yes, exactly why she and I became friends. I was the only "neglected" kid she knew. ;) As in, I worked full time and pretty much did anything I wanted or didn't want to do at my own discretion. My parents just didn't think of 16 as a child. At all. And they cared even less about the the school's opinion of how they should parent. If I came home, great. If not, they presumed that was fine too. In an age before cell phones to constantly check in on kids. I was often frustrated by the immaturity of my classmates. They weren't dumb. They just literally had no concept of how to go about things.

[FaithManor]

It really is as bad as Martha describes. On Tuesday of last week, I worked at the quilt store for a couple of hours and one of our regular customers, an adjunct college professor at out closest university, regaled us with stories of last year's freshman class. She actually had this happen on the third day of class, 18 year old raises hand, professor calls on her, and this is what she said, "I am feeling very, very sick. Can I have permission to go to the restroom?" Good gravy! Really, you can vote for the President of the United States, drive a car, get a job, pay taxes, and get married without parental permission but you are afraid you can't use the restroom when sick???? Of course, it wasn't the dear girl's fault. Her high school had a zero tolerance policy for restroom breaks during class periods, no exceptions unless you actually did vomit in front of the teacher, or had serious blood oozing from a wound or something. Saturday detention and an F for the day was your reward for running to the bathroom before it was too late. So, the poor thing thought her grades in class would be in danger for doing so.

 

Thus, our customer ended up announcing to the entire class that it was not her job to police personal issues and body fluids so please feel free to make those judgment calls for youself, but exercise the sense to leave as least disruptively as possible under the circumstances...no one will track you down and demand a written excuse from the doctor! She said there was NOTICEABLE relief on the faces of these students.

 

Prison. That's what our schools have become, agents of punitive judgment for the crime of being human.

 

I know a number of high schoolers who do not drink anything from the time they wake up until they get home from school because there are only two sets of bathrooms in a building that houses 1000 students, only 7 minutes between classes, and a line for the restroom. Zero tolerance policies mean detention and F's for being late for class because the line at the bathroom is so long. They live in a perpetual state of dehydration during the school week. Additionally, I know three young ladies who have classes at opposite ends of the building, back to back, so that there isn't time to deal with their periods without being late to class. They had to get doctors' notes in order to get permission to be late to class so they could handle their monthly. Seriously! This should be illegal, unconstitutional, immoral, ........I can think of a million terms and none of them are positive. You talk about dehumanizing half of the student population!!!

 

The local jailhouse is kinder to their inmates than the local school. Then we wonder why kids snap, take guns to school, and commit atrocities. This nation actively contributes to causing unconscienable stress levels and emotional/mental instability in the students.

 

I weep for children in our local PS.

 

So, it's no wonder that they get their first jobs, head to college, sign up for vo-tech, etc. and can't handle it. The world they've been raised in is so bizarrely different from reality on the outside, that they can hardly cope. It doesn't occur to them that they are expected to think for themselves or take care of themselves. They've never been allowed to do that before.

 

This may not be specifically germaine to the topic of the OP, but it is part and parcel of a system that includes her concerns and perpetuates the problem.

[Laura Corin]

 

As an instructor at a US college, I am appalled that we have to give "incentives" for doing homework and reading in form of points, since I come from the mindset that a student should simply do the assigned work without being checked up on. In Germany there are no grades during the semester for quizzes and homework and little assignments; the grade is determined by a final examination at the end of the course. Actually, the only three grades on my final university transcript were the results of the three comprehensive oral exams over five semesters of math, six semesters of theoretical, and six semesters of experimental physics. In contrast, the system here encourages short term learning and purging at the end of the semester, with little or no long term retention.

 

 

 

For comparison, when I was at a (non-elite) university in the UK, we had to turn up to tutorials and hand in essays so as not to be thrown out.  The only grades that mattered, however, resulted from final exams at the end of three years.  We were expected to keep notes, study as we went along and - when the time came - synthesise those three years in order to pass the exams.  The essay that tipped the balance to give me the good mark that I finally received came from some thought I had put into a rhetorical question posed in a lecture in my first year.  I put a star against it in my lecture notes and developed an answer over the succeeding years.  I don't remember ever being given printed notes to study from - we had lectures and reading lists.  Everything else was our business.

 

These days, UK universities vary in the amount of weight put into final exams vs. course work, but the more traditional ones still work a similar system to the above.  

 

L

[Nscribe]

Regentrude:  How does it work for those who might be more apt in the arts? 

[Wildcat]

I ended up writing a tome, but I'll let it stand. This is a topic near and dear to my heart.

 

Schools here are rather prison like, they do not foster independence, and the parents many times tend to mirror this trend at home. Most of the teens we know have absolutely no skills for independence. It's scary!

 

One of the best "gifts" I think we've given our rocket team is to teach them independent thinking, as well as group work, balancing those two, and some life skills they aren't getting around here.

 

:iagree:  We just got back from dropping ds off at uni on Saturday (*sniff*). He had to check-in to get parking passes and 'move in marching orders'. Dh, dd, and I stayed at the hotel and he drove to campus to check-in and get the info. When he got back to the hotel, he said out of the hundreds of kids there, he was the only one who was obviously alone; everyone else had parentS there. I asked him if he felt strange/left out/abandoned or like an adult. He said he felt like an adult and found it odd that there weren't more students there by themselves. It was simply a check-in process!

 

The entire move-in process was eye-opening, as well. Umpteen events for *parents* to attend on the DAY OF MOVE IN! BBQ, dessert social, and even a *breakfast* the next day! Really? We helped ds move in, took him to lunch and Wal-Mart for last minute items, helped him set those up, then we left. 

 

It really is as bad as Martha describes. On Tuesday of last week, I worked at the quilt store for a couple of hours and one of our regular customers, an adjunct college professor at out closest university, regaled us with stories of last year's freshman class. She actually had this happen on the third day of class, 18 year old raises hand, professor calls on her, and this is what she said, "I am feeling very, very sick. Can I have permission to go to the restroom?" Good gravy! Really, you can vote for the President of the United States, drive a car, get a job, pay taxes, and get married without parental permission but you are afraid you can't use the restroom when sick???? Of course, it wasn't the dear girl's fault. Her high school had a zero tolerance policy for restroom breaks during class periods, no exceptions unless you actually did vomit in front of the teacher, or had serious blood oozing from a wound or something. Saturday detention and an F for the day was your reward for running to the bathroom before it was too late. So, the poor thing thought her grades in class would be in danger for doing so.

 

Thus, our customer ended up announcing to the entire class that it was not her job to police personal issues and body fluids so please feel free to make those judgment calls for youself, but exercise the sense to leave as least disruptively as possible under the circumstances...no one will track you down and demand a written excuse from the doctor! She said there was NOTICEABLE relief on the faces of these students.

 

Prison. That's what our schools have become, agents of punitive judgment for the crime of being human.

 

I know a number of high schoolers who do not drink anything from the time they wake up until they get home from school because there are only two sets of bathrooms in a building that houses 1000 students, only 7 minutes between classes, and a line for the restroom. Zero tolerance policies mean detention and F's for being late for class because the line at the bathroom is so long. They live in a perpetual state of dehydration during the school week. Additionally, I know three young ladies who have classes at opposite ends of the building, back to back, so that there isn't time to deal with their periods without being late to class. They had to get doctors' notes in order to get permission to be late to class so they could handle their monthly. Seriously! This should be illegal, unconstitutional, immoral, ........I can think of a million terms and none of them are positive. You talk about dehumanizing half of the student population!!!

 

The local jailhouse is kinder to their inmates than the local school. Then we wonder why kids snap, take guns to school, and commit atrocities. This nation actively contributes to causing unconscienable stress levels and emotional/mental instability in the students.

 

I weep for children in our local PS.

 

So, it's no wonder that they get their first jobs, head to college, sign up for vo-tech, etc. and can't handle it. The world they've been raised in is so bizarrely different from reality on the outside, that they can hardly cope. It doesn't occur to them that they are expected to think for themselves or take care of themselves. They've never been allowed to do that before.

 

This may not be specifically germaine to the topic of the OP, but it is part and parcel of a system that includes her concerns and perpetuates the problem.

 

:iagree: *Like like like like* Will the powers that be *ever* realize what 'they' are doing to our kids? Seriously.

 

Back when I was in high school (graduated in '87) all I ever heard about was how college was different and that they treated you as an adult, etc, so I was excited to go and get out of "jail".  I was sick and tired of not drinking so I didn't have to pee, not being able to take my cramp meds, (Advil was all I needed, so a doctor's note wasn't available) not being able to TALK at lunch, and of having to have my skirt length measured to be sure it wasn't too short (public school). We also weren't allowed to wear shorts of any kind--- in the deep south! 

 

I was *SO* disgusted when I got to college and my very first class the prof took attendance and said attendance would be taken before each class (and after each break for those two hour classes that had 10 minute breaks) and if we missed more than three classes, it was an automatic FAIL. ???? I wanted to quit right then and there. Not only was I having to take more science and history classes (I was a business major and business classes made up a teeny part of my overall course list), but they were keeping tabs on me? I thought I was in college... I was there to learn a specific skill and I was paying lots of money to do that, so why wasn't I being treated as an adult? I was already working full time, had my own apartment, and paid my own bills. If I didn't go to class, it was on ME to learn the material.

 

I hated my entire college experience--- it was too similar to high school. :glare:

 

One would think that with our education system the way it is, that someone would look at the successful systems in other countries to see what they are doing and model after that. My 8 y/o nephew in the French school system has freedoms that most 15 y/o here don't have.

 

I firmly believe that all these rules and coddling have created a culture of perpetual/adult children. My kids are STRANGE among their peers (even other homeschoolers) because of the freedoms they have/had and how we treat them. We figured that if just over 100 years ago 16 y/o were married and had families, there is nothing preventing 16 y/o today from handling adult responsibilites. I'm not talking about getting married, but we knew one family who wouldn't let their 17y/o cross the busy street to collect their mail. At the same time, our 16 y/o had a driver's license, and was driving 40 miles one way along curvy country roads w/o cell signal to get to an event.

 

To stay relatively on topic, pushing advanced topics at an earlier age won't matter if the kids are being raised in a jail-like environment. They are not computers with data ports. IMO (and my dh's), part of being ready for the advanced academics is, in part, relative to the maturity of the student (LD's not withstanding) and by holding back the ability to mature because of all the rules imposed on them, the academics aren't able to take hold. I can't seem to say that more eloquently, but I hope my point is understood.

 

 

 

[Nscribe]

 

To stay relatively on topic, pushing advanced topics at an earlier age won't matter if the kids are being raised in a jail-like environment. They are not computers with data ports. IMO (and my dh's), part of being ready for the advanced academics is, in part, relative to the maturity of the student (LD's not withstanding) and by holding back the ability to mature because of all the rules imposed on them, the academics aren't able to take hold. I can't seem to say that more eloquently, but I hope my point is understood.

Maybe that is it....thinking.  I just keep coming back to the idea that so many of the teens I am seeing who are doing lots of AP's or IB are not presenting as well learned and articulate.  It is almost like they cram for the test all year and then it all pours out of them without leaving the ability to apply concepts to novel problems, speak with applicable analogies to describe a process or concept and so forth.  Maybe what I am observing is more a matter of lack of having to encounter real life problem solving and adaptation and thus a developed sense of putting the advanced content into a broader perspective.

[regentrude]

Regentrude:  How does it work for those who might be more apt in the arts? 

 

There are specialized high schools for students with special talents in the arts; they start in grade 5, and admission is by entrance exam.

As far as I am informed, the students still complete the regular college prep high school curriculum and finish with the Abitur, in addition to a stronger art/music education; I am not sure if any of the curriculum requirements are waived.

 

Admission to an Art college or a conservatory is by portfolio/audition. Nominally the passing of the Abitur is required, but if the applicant is of exceptional talent the requirement can be waived at the discretion of the school.

 

[Catwoman]

Maybe that is it....thinking. I just keep coming back to the idea that so many of the teens I am seeing who are doing lots of AP's or IB are not presenting as well learned and articulate. It is almost like they cram for the test all year and then it all pours out of them without leaving the ability to apply concepts to novel problems, speak with applicable analogies to describe a process or concept and so forth. Maybe what I am observing is more a matter of lack of having to encounter real life problem solving and adaptation and thus a developed sense of putting the advanced content into a broader perspective.

I can't help but wonder if a big part of the reason why the kids don't seem to be able to apply what they are learning might be because they are being pressured so heavily to take so many incredibly rigorous courses for the sole purpose of padding their college applications or so their parents will have bragging rights, yet the kids have no real interest at all in the subjects they are being forced to take.

 

I know a few parents whose entire existence seems to hinge on being able to brag about how advanced their kids' school subjects are, yet if you ask the kids how they like school, they say they hate it and they're sick of studying all the time.

 

I think there needs to be some sort of happy medium between challenging a kid and overwhelming him. And I also think that parents need to realize that just because their kid is capable of learning advanced concepts, it doesn't mean that it's always 100% necessary that he do so in every single subject.

[regentrude]

I was *SO* disgusted when I got to college and my very first class the prof took attendance and said attendance would be taken before each class (and after each break for those two hour classes that had 10 minute breaks) and if we missed more than three classes, it was an automatic FAIL. ???? I wanted to quit right then and there. Not only was I having to take more science and history classes (I was a business major and business classes made up a teeny part of my overall course list), but they were keeping tabs on me? I thought I was in college... I was there to learn a specific skill and I was paying lots of money to do that, so why wasn't I being treated as an adult?

 

Why? BECAUSE the students are paying lots of money!

Colleges care about student retention, because retention and graduation rates are significant factors for the desirability of a college which translates directly into applications, student numbers, tuition revenue.

Professors are under pressure not to fail too many students. I would very much like to put the responsibility on the students and just spend my time and energy teaching, but the admission wants professors to make sure that "no student is left behind". Part of this is  giving them "incentives" to attend class, in form of pop quizzes or attendance points or dropping students for too many missed assignments.We have to use an electronic alert system to notify students that they have been missing class and failing exams - as if the student did not know that he did not show up or fail the exam which has been graded and returned to him and has grades posted online.

None of this is treating the students as adults, but since high school has conditioned students to expect hand holding, the statistics show that passing rates and retention benefit from these measures - so the admission "encourages" instructors to employ those tools. Trust me, most profs would rather be left alone to just....teach.

 

[Laura Corin]

 

 

Why? BECAUSE the students are paying lots of money!

Colleges care about student retention, because retention and graduation rates are significant factors for the desirability of a college which translates directly into applications, student numbers, tuition revenue.

Professors are under pressure not to fail too many students. I would very much like to put the responsibility on the students and just spend my time and energy teaching, but the admission wants professors to make sure that "no student is left behind". Part of this is  giving them "incentives" to attend class, in form of pop quizzes or attendance points or dropping students for too many missed assignments.We have to use an electronic alert system to notify students that they have been missing class and failing exams - as if the student did not know that he did not show up or fail the exam which has been graded and returned to him and has grades posted online.

None of this is treating the students as adults, but since high school has conditioned students to expect hand holding, the statistics show that passing rates and retention benefit from these measures - so the admission "encourages" instructors to employ those tools. Trust me, most profs would rather be left alone to just....teach.

 

 

I think that this is key.  Since England introduced fees, I hear (anecdotally) of much more hand-holding.  I suspect that this is the commercial imperative talking.

 

L

[Nscribe]

 Part of this is  giving them "incentives" to attend class, in form of pop quizzes or attendance points or dropping students for too many missed assignments.We have to use an electronic alert system to notify students that they have been missing class and failing exams - as if the student did not know that he did not show up or fail the exam which has been graded and returned to him and has grades posted online.

 

4 more years of high school...no wonder so many parents seem to push to go ahead and have their kids start college younger. 

 

I think I recall you saying you wind up with a good number of students who never took Physics in high school.  Do you notice of much of a difference in those who do and whether they took AP or Honors or some other classification?

[regentrude]

I think I recall you saying you wind up with a good number of students who never took Physics in high school.  Do you notice of much of a difference in those who do and whether they took AP or Honors or some other classification?

 

I have not done a systematic analysis of my data. My impression is that it does not matter too much. There are several reasons:

1. I teach the material without assuming any prior exposure to physics; my class is designed so that students without any background can succeed. (I have to, because a third of my class had no physics in high school.) They will do fine if they just put in the required work.

2. I teach classes for science majors, so the students who take my course are not students who actively avoided physics because they were not science minded, but whose schools often did not offer physics.

3. Students with prior physics courses in high school have often been poorly taught. They arrive with a hodgepodge of completely unsystematic problem solving that takes a few weeks to unlearn. Honestly, I'd rather have a student who knows nothing than one who has formed bad habits I have to wean him from. Also, physics courses are sometimes not taught by qualified teachers. One student told me her class was taught by the biology teacher who skipped the unit on angular momentum because, as she told her students, she could not understand the material.

Students who had prior courses and do well usually tell me that they had teachers they considered excellent.t

4. Attitude. This is not a problem with all students, but with some. Students with no prior physics are humble and scared; they know they don't know anything and are willing to be taught. Sometimes I encounter students with prior physics who have the attitude "Why should I be here since I know it already!". Problem is, of course, they don't really know it, not at this level. But it is difficult to convince them otherwise; usually it takes at least a low score on an exam to convince them that, maybe, they really do not know it all.

 

Now with actual AP, the situation is slightly different. The students who took AP Physics C and got a good score get credit and do not take my course at all. Some students passed the AP B exam, did well, but need calculus based physics; they have an excellent preparation and do very well. Some students took AP C but never took the exam; I had two of  those last semester and they both did very well.

 

So, my feeling is that bad prior physics is no better and often even worse than no prior physics, whereas good prior physics is a definite advantage.

[FaithManor]

 

 

 

I

I firmly believe that all these rules and coddling have created a culture of perpetual/adult children. My kids are STRANGE among their peers (even other homeschoolers) because of the freedoms they have/had and how we treat them. We figured that if just over 100 years ago 16 y/o were married and had families, there is nothing preventing 16 y/o today from handling adult responsibilites. I'm not talking about getting married, but we knew one family who wouldn't let their 17y/o cross the busy street to collect their mail. At the same time, our 16 y/o had a driver's license, and was driving 40 miles one way along curvy country roads w/o cell signal to get to an event.

 

To stay relatively on topic, pushing advanced topics at an earlier age won't matter if the kids are being raised in a jail-like environment. They are not computers with data ports. IMO (and my dh's), part of being ready for the advanced academics is, in part, relative to the maturity of the student (LD's not withstanding) and by holding back the ability to mature because of all the rules imposed on them, the academics aren't able to take hold. I can't seem to say that more eloquently, but I hope my point is understood.

Bingo!!!! One can not expect a student to tackle and mature topic, study it, internalize it, think critically about it, and articulate mature thoughts about it IF THEY AREN'T MATURE! :banghead:  The brain has to be ready for it, and this culture does just about everything possible to keep students immature and ill-prepared.

 

We end up with 8 year olds in 18 year old bodies. It's nuts!

 

Infancy extended into pre-school, pre-school extended into elementary school, elementary school extended into high school, and the whole darn time the kids are treated worse than many criminals. Yep, we've got that! Come to America, put your kids in school and watch them be socially conditioned to accept illiteracy, incompetancy, and the loss of basic liberties. The worst thing is that this "extended childhood" is nothing more than a living hell for many students.

 

Oh boy, I'm getting extra cynical. I had better shut up before my head explodes.

[JumpyTheFrog]

Infancy extended into pre-school, pre-school extended into elementary school, elementary school extended into high school, and the whole darn time the kids are treated worse than many criminals.

My oldest is seven. In what ways do you see pre-school extended into elementary school? How can those of us in the earlier stages of the parenting game make sure we don't fall into this cultural trap? I have already read Joanne Calderwood's book "The Self-Propelled Advantage," although that is mostly about academics.

 

I'm sure I'm not the only one reading this thread that needs practical idea for the under ten age group. When I think about people I see, they either don't supervise their kids enough (like the moms at the pool who are off reading while their three year old "swims" in 3-4 deep water) or they give their kid adult responsibilities but even less freedom than average, all while getting upset over this extended adolescence (the patriarchal crowd I used to go to church with). I see a weird mix of people who expect their 1st graders to keep the two year old from drowning in the pond on the one hand, to those who would be seriously upset if their adult child ever went on a single date.