Puritanical college prep & sheltering teens

[Terabith]

3 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

It does make me wonder if the College Board is going to get involved, at some point, in clarifying the point of AP itself (less an issue with DE). It seems people are conflating AP with every other high school class. That was never the intention. It was to provide access to college-level content in high schools in a standardized way.

I have many questions about this with regard to the new Virginia executive order.  I have a kid signed up for AP US history next year.  How do you teach that without teaching anything "divisive?"

[lulalu]

That isn't coddling. That book isn't appropriate for high schoolers, even if doing DE. A writing prompt like that assumes everyone has had a sexual experience. Even in university that is an inappropriate writing prompt. Again, because it assumes all have had a sexual experience and are comfortable sharing that publicly. But maybe it has been too long ago I was at University and it has all changed now. I even took anthropology classes and we did a lot of looking at gender roles, nothing such as this was ever in one of my books. 

Sexual experiences are private. I don't even share with my closest friends. It doesn't involve anyone else other than the two consenting persons involved (exceptions obviously where violations have occurred). 

Parents might be overly involved in helping children with school work, projects, applications, etc. I have noticed a lot of parents not requiring children to do chores, and kids then have no clue how to cook, clean laundry and so forth. But this isn't a new trend, it has been happening since around the beginning of the 80s. 

[Sneezyone]

Just now, Terabith said:

I have many questions about this with regard to the new Virginia executive order.  I have a kid signed up for AP US history next year.  How do you teach that without teaching anything "divisive?"

Same. DS will be doing it under this regime too and I have all of the questions. I also question how that will impact IB classes that are governed by an international rubric. We're not yet sure which way DS will go.

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, lulalu said:

That isn't coddling. That book isn't appropriate for high schoolers, even if doing DE. A writing prompt like that assumes everyone has had a sexual experience. Even in university that is an inappropriate writing prompt. Again, because it assumes all have had a sexual experience and are comfortable sharing that publicly. But maybe it has been too long ago I was at University and it has all changed now. I even took anthropology classes and we did a lot of looking at gender roles, nothing such as this was ever in one of my books. 

Sexual experiences are private. I don't even share with my closest friends. It doesn't involve anyone else other than the two consenting persons involved (exceptions obviously where violations have occurred). 

Parents might be overly involved in helping children with school work, projects, applications, etc. I have noticed a lot of parents not requiring children to do chores, and kids then have no clue how to cook, clean laundry and so forth. But this isn't a new trend, it has been happening since around the beginning of the 80s. 

Rest easy. The prompts you're complaining about were never assigned. EVER.

[Murphy101]

1 minute ago, Sneezyone said:

Colleges exist to question everything. Everything.

Not really. Colleges exist to impart knowledge and to study.  They cannot do that without a basic framework of how a community of very diverse people  are going to function together.  Do colleges exist to question whether it’s okay to rape a classmate? Do colleges exist to question if it’s okay for a professor to have sex with his students or give them an F because of their skin color?

[ktgrok]

3 minutes ago, lulalu said:

That isn't coddling. That book isn't appropriate for high schoolers, even if doing DE. A writing prompt like that assumes everyone has had a sexual experience. Even in university that is an inappropriate writing prompt. Again, because it assumes all have had a sexual experience and are comfortable sharing that publicly. But maybe it has been too long ago I was at University and it has all changed now. I even took anthropology classes and we did a lot of looking at gender roles, nothing such as this was ever in one of my books. 

Sexual experiences are private. I don't even share with my closest friends. It doesn't involve anyone else other than the two consenting persons involved (exceptions obviously where violations have occurred). 

Parents might be overly involved in helping children with school work, projects, applications, etc. I have noticed a lot of parents not requiring children to do chores, and kids then have no clue how to cook, clean laundry and so forth. But this isn't a new trend, it has been happening since around the beginning of the 80s. 

Except those prompts were never assigned. Nor, for all we know, were they ever assigned in a college classroom. 

People are not freaking out that their kid had to write about a sexual experience. They are freaking out that their child might maybe have accidentally turned to the wrong page and seen that such a writing prompt exists in a book. At that point, I do not see what the fuss is over. Their kids likely see worse on highway billboards. 

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, Murphy101 said:

Not really. Colleges exist to impart knowledge and to study.  They cannot do that without a basic framework of how a community of very diverse people  are going to function together.  Do colleges exist to question whether it’s okay to rape a classmate? Do colleges exist to question if it’s okay for a professor to have sex with his students or give them an F because of their skin color?

Yes, they do. Do they/should they permit those practices? Absolutely not. Have they regularly and routinely investigated and pushed the envelope in defining what it means to give consent? Discriminate? Fraternize? YES!

[Pam in CT]

re evolving role of AP courses

10 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

It does make me wonder if the College Board is going to get involved, at some point, in clarifying the point of AP itself (less an issue with DE). It seems people are conflating AP with every other high school class. That was never the intention. It was to provide access to college-level content in high schools in a standardized way.

Honestly I think for top-tier private universities it's become even narrower than that: the AP designation just means "strong preparation for college level content."  None of the private universities my kids went to offered actual course credit for high school APs; just placement and/or waiving of gen ed requirements. 

But, the same schools do expect strong applicants to demonstrate "academic rigor" in their HS program, and not-availing of AP offerings if the school has them, signals slackership. 

FWIW, my youngest went to Choate, which definitely considers itself "rigorous" but has completely eliminated AP courses because as an institution they don't believe in "teaching to the test."  (Somewhat ironically for this thread, they believe in a different pedagogical model: teachers should have discretion on what they teach and how.)

[Sneezyone]

Just now, Pam in CT said:

re evolving role of AP courses

Honestly I think for top-tier private universities it's become even narrower than that: the AP designation just means "strong preparation for college level content."  None of the private universities my kids went to offered actual course credit for high school APs; just placement and/or waiving of gen ed requirements. 

But, the same schools do expect strong applicants to demonstrate "academic rigor" in their HS program, and not-availing of AP offerings if the school has them, signals slackership. 

FWIW, my youngest went to Choate, which definitely considers itself "rigorous" but has completely eliminated AP courses because as an institution they don't believe in "teaching to the test."  (Somewhat ironically for this thread, they believe in a different pedagogical model: teachers should have discretion on what they teach and how.)

True that. 25 years ago, USC didn't give a pass to any student with less than a 5 on English or calculus. I imagine that has spread. If AP comes to be viewed as yet another weak offering tho, that's supremely unhelpful. It's, in part, why DS is so keen to do IB. It's a time suck but he sees value in the international accreditation.

[Faith-manor]

18 minutes ago, Terabith said:

I have many questions about this with regard to the new Virginia executive order.  I have a kid signed up for AP US history next year.  How do you teach that without teaching anything "divisive?"

I think you have to pretend there was no history except 1950's Leave it to Beaver, and let everyone fail the exam. I don't know any way to NOT violate that stupid law.

 

Edited February 15, 2022 by Faith-manor

[Sneezyone]

16 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

I think you have to pretend there was no history except 1950's Leave it to Beaver, ANF let everyone fail the exam. I don't know any way to NOT violate that stupid law.

 

Fortunately, it's not a law. Our zoned school is ignoring the EO entirely and the principal is committed to accurate history. He has the teachers' backs.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Sneezyone

[Faith-manor]

14 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

At that point, I do not see what the fuss is over. Their kids likely see worse on highway billboards. 

No joke! The Deja Vu place used to have a billboard on I-75 near Flint that was quite the eye popper. Thankfully, they must have run out of advertising money because it is no longer there.

 

[Faith-manor]

14 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Fortunately, it's not a law. Our zoned school is ignoring it entirely and the principal is committed to accurate history. He has the teachers' backs.

Glad to hear that. I am still trying to figure out how the proposed legislation in Florida is supposed to work with AP and DE World History. 

Like I said. The mass exodus in education will continue until there isn't even the pretense of engaging with academics, just large warehouses of minors for the purposes of providing babysitting for working parents. I mean, one could teach math. Math would be so easy to keep devoid of controversy and "divisiveness". But so many parents hate math and don't think their darlings should have to learn algebra or geometry or word problems or......so I am not sure what could be offered at the high school level. Maybe a whole year of 'Introduction to Making Change at the 7-11".

[Sneezyone]

3 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Glad to hear that. I am still trying to figure out how the proposed legislation in Florida is supposed to work with AP and DE World History. 

Like I said. The mass exodus in education will continue until there isn't even the pretense of engaging with academics, just large warehouses of minors for the purposes of providing babysitting for working parents. I mean, one could teach math. Math would be so easy to keep devoid of controversy and "divisiveness". But so many parents hate math and don't think their darlings should have to learn algebra or geometry or word problems or......so I am not sure what could be offered at the high school level. Maybe a whole year of 'Introduction to Making Change at the 7-11".

I do know people with children enrolled in FL schools, high performing ones in both south Florida and the Jacksonville metro. The teachers there are trying to do what the teachers here are doing. As much as *some* parents are complaining, the vast majority with kids enrolled in these classes want rigorous, college-level, college-preparatory content. If the courses significantly change in ways that disadvantage their kids, they'll complain about that too.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Sneezyone

[prairiewindmomma]

On the making change point…I have had to help two cashiers count coins in the past year. And, literally, I had to say, “this is a nickel. It is worth five cents. We know it’s worth that because it says so here. This is a quarter. It is worth twenty five cents. The coin is stamped with quarter dollar because a dollar contains 100 cents and the quarter is worth one fourth or one quarter of 100 cents, which is twenty five cents. (Then counted coins with values.) One guy said no one had explained coins to him before in school.

Given that my daughter had 3 lessons in coins in public school, it is entirely possible that is true, and that he missed those days.

Y’all, the world is terrifying. 

Edited February 15, 2022 by prairiewindmomma

[Faith-manor]

1 minute ago, Sneezyone said:

I do know people with children enrolled in FL schools, high performing ones in both south Florida and the Jacksonville metro. The teachers there are tryin to do what the teachers here are doing in. As much as *some* parents are complaining, the vast majority with kids enrolled n these classes want rigorous, college-level, college-preparatory content. If the courses significantly change in ways that disadvantage their kids, they'll complain about that too.

Well, that is nearly always the case for high performing schools, and normally, high performing schools are backed by money, community, and influence so they can "buck the system" or the trends so much more easily than our rural, poor schools. Seriously, if legislation like that came to Michigan, my rural school district would role over, play dead, and the teachers who would have zero backing from the community would just assign Little House on the Prairie in high school English all the while continuing to look for non teaching jobs that come with health insurance benefits. This kind of crap always hits and hurts the havenots more than it does the haves. Here they would just entirely scrap all AP and DE. 

[Faith-manor]

3 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

On the making change point…I have had to help two cashiers count coins in the past year. And, literally, I had to say, “this is a nickel. It is worth five cents. We know it’s worth that because it says so here. This is a quarter. It is worth twenty five cents. The coin is stamped with quarter dollar because a dollar contains 100 cents and the quarter is worth one fourth or one quarter of 100 cents, which is twenty five cents. (Then counted coins with values.) One guy said no one had explained coins to him before in school.

Given that my daughter had 3 lessons in coins in public school, it is entirely possible that is true, and that he missed those days.

Y’all, the world is terrifying. 

Oy vey!!!

 

It is terrifying out there!!!!

[ktgrok]

6 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

On the making change point…I have had to help two cashiers count coins in the past year. And, literally, I had to say, “this is a nickel. It is worth five cents. We know it’s worth that because it says so here. This is a quarter. It is worth twenty five cents. The coin is stamped with quarter dollar because a dollar contains 100 cents and the quarter is worth one fourth or one quarter of 100 cents, which is twenty five cents. (Then counted coins with values.) One guy said no one had explained coins to him before in school.

Given that my daughter had 3 lessons in coins in public school, it is entirely possible that is true, and that he missed those days.

Y’all, the world is terrifying. 

I now feel better that my 3rd grader forgot what one type of coin was worth the other day (I forget which one, I think he got nickle and dime mixed up). 

 

[Brittany1116]

4 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

On the making change point…I have had to help two cashiers count coins in the past year. And, literally, I had to say, “this is a nickel. It is worth five cents. We know it’s worth that because it says so here. This is a quarter. It is worth twenty five cents. The coin is stamped with quarter dollar because a dollar contains 100 cents and the quarter is worth one fourth or one quarter of 100 cents, which is twenty five cents. (Then counted coins with values.) One guy said no one had explained coins to him before in school.

Given that my daughter had 3 lessons in coins in public school, it is entirely possible that is true, and that he missed those days.

Y’all, the world is terrifying. 

Similar but twice before the holidays I gave someone $20.exact coins, they punched $10.exact coins, and had to "find a manager" because they didn't know what to do. Dude. Give me $10 and pretend you punched the right key. If your drawer is wrong, it's not because of this transaction. 

[Danae]

1 minute ago, ktgrok said:

I now feel better that my 3rd grader forgot what one type of coin was worth the other day (I forget which one, I think he got nickle and dime mixed up). 

 

Dimes are confusing.  They’re the only ones (until you get to some of the new dollar coins) that aren’t in size order.

[Terabith]

Honestly, I have a 16 year old who doesn't know coins.  She's got memory issues, and practically speaking, it was more important that she understand how to add and subtract money to balance a checkbook/ credit card receipts than be able to make change.  

That said, I would never suggest she get a job as a cashier.  

[Melissa Louise]

3 hours ago, Bootsie said:

From what I have read, the parents are not reacting to the prompts existing in a book, they are reacting to the fact that those prompts exist in a book that was assigned to their children.  Those particular assignments may not have been required, but it is my understanding that the book was a "text" for the the class and that students each had their own copy of the book.  I have looked at the book and there appears to be about 16 words per page in the book.  So, we are not talking about students reading some explicit content buried among 100s of thousands of words in a novel.  Those prompts would literally jump off the page for any student skimming through the book.  Even if they were not assigned, it normalizes the idea that this type of content is OK for an academic setting.  What is the teacher to do if a student asks about the content of the textbook in class?  

As a college professor, I am seeing more and more students who cannot write basic sentences, much less construct a decent paragraph.  For a number of these students, I go back and check and instead of having a GOOD high school English course, they have been in dual enrollment English courses, for which they received an "A".  There is nothing that I have seen in this book of prompts that is educational.  It is one thing when there is controversial content coupled with good content from which students can learn in a textbook.  I have a difficult time seeing how the questionable content is balanced with good, meaningful content in this case. How does this text contribute to learning? Are there better materials to reach that goal? 

That's because the text is written for a general audience, 18+. It's for individuals or peer groups interested in creative writing, who want easy writing 'starters'. In that context, it's fine. 

I'd be surprised to see a book of writing prompts like this assigned in college. I'm not sure that the purpose - an impetus to write/constraints to encourage writing - is not better met in other ways.

One of my writing mentees is currently studying creative writing at university, and her 'prompts', such as they are, are other pieces of assigned literature + genre writing. Constraints occur as requested forms, features and lengths. 

 

 

 

[SKL]

4 hours ago, Murphy101 said:

In the cases where I have seen “DE” inside the high school, the bottom line is they do not have any teachers to teach “upper level” anything anymore at many high schools. There are no calculus or physics teachers.  So they outsource it and to make parents feel better, they partner with the local community college to get it taught and give the kid college credit.

That is not the case in my local school district.  They offer AP sciences, and math through honors/AP caclulus at least.

I didn't ask the school's rationale, but I suspect DE largely fills a need for blue collar families to get an affordable start on higher education.  I think it also might help keep kids in school after they socially/emotionally outgrow the traditional high school experience.

[SKL]

3 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

LOL, I was just thinking that I have one adult child who as a teen, would have looked at all 600 prompts if they had been in p.s., and would have pulled out the just right one to " push my buttons", even if it was never assigned or discussed, and would have hinted that they had to write about it even if that was not true. I learned quickly to deal rather like "Mr. Spock" with that kid. I am so glad that one matured out of that characteristic. 

Yeah, I hear this kind of stuff because my kids become aware of it and tell me.  And most likely they become aware because other kids told them.

Just because I'm not reading every word of their curriculum materials does not mean I don't have a right to be concerned about what my kids tell me goes down at school.

[Sneezyone]

23 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

That's because the text is written for a general audience, 18+. It's for individuals or peer groups interested in creative writing, who want easy writing 'starters'. In that context, it's fine. 

I'd be surprised to see a book of writing prompts like this assigned in college. I'm not sure that the purpose - an impetus to write/constraints to encourage writing - is not better met in other ways.

One of my writing mentees is currently studying creative writing at university, and her 'prompts', such as they are, are other pieces of assigned literature + genre writing. Constraints occur as requested forms, features and lengths. 

My DD will turn 18 this October, at the beginning of her senior year of high school. She's an average ELA student and doesn't love books, reading or history. She is not a HSP. This book of prompts would be entirely appropriate for her honors ELA class this year and next. I wouldn't expect AP/DE students in this area to need prompts b/c they should be able to come up with their own creative ideas with fewer guidelines. That said, not all AP/DE classes are the same. Some students need more support.

1 minute ago, SKL said:

Yeah, I hear this kind of stuff because my kids become aware of it and tell me.  And most likely they become aware because other kids told them.

Just because I'm not reading every word of their curriculum materials does not mean I don't have a right to be concerned about what my kids tell me goes down at school.

OF COURSE we have a right to be concerned. That doesn't mean people are right to flame the teacher for student scuttlebutt or should leap out of their seats to back up everything kids say. This is clearly a case of overly sensitive people trying to make everyone else live by their rules.

[Kassia]

22 minutes ago, SKL said:

  I think it also might help keep kids in school after they socially/emotionally outgrow the traditional high school experience.

But this only works when DE is held on the actual college campus and not in the high school.  Otherwise it's just another high school class and the students are still dealing with the same drama, pep rallies, immaturity, etc.  My kids loved their DE experiences but they never took the classes at the high school - it wouldn't have worked for them there because that's what they wanted to escape.  

[Sneezyone]

2 minutes ago, Kassia said:

But this only works when DE is held on the actual college campus and not in the high school.  Otherwise it's just another high school class and the students are still dealing with the same drama, pep rallies, immaturity, etc.  My kids loved their DE experiences but they never took the classes at the high school - it wouldn't have worked for them there because that's what they wanted to escape.  

It might work if it were actually held at a college/to the college level and not a sanitized version of college-level work. That's not possible tho if parents are intent on making "college in the high school" programs G-rated. 

Edited February 15, 2022 by Sneezyone

[GracieJane]

I wrote exactly zero personal essays in my IB literature and writing classes because my teachers thankfully understood that teenagers aren’t interesting enough in their life experiences to warrant navel-gazing pages of narrative. We wrote about The Crucible and Waiting for Godot and House of Spirits, because those things are worth writing about.

[SKL]

2 hours ago, sassenach said:

 

I totally agree with both of you. There's a spectrum of sexual content and there's a line somewhere in there. I said "deeply" because it's hard to articulate where that line is. I guess that's why you'll always find someone who is upset. My line would be in having to view or write about explicitly sexual content. I didn't encounter anything in my nursing education that my kids haven't encountered or discussed in their public high school educations. Again, it's California, so things may be discussed at a high school level here that wouldn't be in other places. Abortion, pregnancy, rape, gender, and sexual orientation are all on the table at the high school level here. 

Another way to think about it ... or, where I'm seeing the line here ... is whether we're talking "adult" as in the maturity level of a serious traditional college student, or whether we're talking "adult" as in "adult bookstore." 

I have no problem with high school-aged teens being exposed to the former (given parental permission).  I think it's a real stretch to say that I should have expected the latter when I attended / sent my kids to a freshman college English class.  And if I did, as a teen on an actual college campus, I could vote with my feet (among other options) ... something teens on a high school campus can't do without consequences.

[prairiewindmomma]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

Honestly, I have a 16 year old who doesn't know coins.  She's got memory issues, and practically speaking, it was more important that she understand how to add and subtract money to balance a checkbook/ credit card receipts than be able to make change.  

That said, I would never suggest she get a job as a cashier.  

I have got a kid with a math disability, so I understand prioritization. We spent several years working on coins. They can be hard, but yes, some careers should be avoided if you don’t understand coins, clocks, or measures.

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, GracieJane said:

I wrote exactly zero personal essays in my IB literature and writing classes because my teachers thankfully understood that teenagers aren’t interesting enough in their life experiences to warrant navel-gazing pages of narrative. We wrote about The Crucible and Waiting for Godot and House of Spirits, because those things are worth writing about.

TBH - none of those books resonated with me and I'd have never made it through HS reading them. We read Waiting for Godot in the 6th grade class that Mr. Federico (of infamy) taught.

[GracieJane]

2 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

TBH - none of those books resonated with me and I'd have never made it through HS reading them. We read Waiting for Godot in the 6th grade class that Mr. Federico (of infamy) taught.

It’s okay to not like any of them. But teenagers would be better off writing about the history of a phone book than about themselves, they spend enough time meditating on themselves in social media as it is.

[Sneezyone]

11 minutes ago, GracieJane said:

It’s okay to not like any of them. But teenagers would be better off writing about the history of a phone book than about themselves, they spend enough time meditating on themselves in social media as it is.

We disagree but that's ok. It's not about  not 'liking' them. They had zero impact/resonance. I think self-reflection is an important part of making intentional decisions about who they are and want to be. SM isn't a significant part of either of my kids' lives and I don't see that as a substitute for deep dives. It's VERY superficial.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Sneezyone

[SKL]

17 minutes ago, Kassia said:

But this only works when DE is held on the actual college campus and not in the high school.  Otherwise it's just another high school class and the students are still dealing with the same drama, pep rallies, immaturity, etc.  My kids loved their DE experiences but they never took the classes at the high school - it wouldn't have worked for them there because that's what they wanted to escape.  

Maybe, but at least they are getting college credit for it.  Though you do make a good point.  I'm not sure whether I'd have done it.  I was lucky to have a regional campus of a state college 12 miles away from my rural town ... it was the only college experience my family could afford.  I did need the use of a car to get there, which not every teen has.  If my only other choice was to quit school and get a waitressing job, I probably would have sucked it up and done college on the high school campus.  Maybe.  😛

[Man I hated high school.]

[SKL]

21 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

It might work if it were actually held at a college/to the college level and not a sanitized version of college-level work. That's not possible tho if parents are intent on making "college in the high school" programs G-rated. 

See now this is taking it to the other extreme.  There's a lot of space between G rated and X rated.

[Danae]

3 hours ago, Bootsie said:

The existence of writing prompts is standard academic fair and uncontroversial.  That does not mean that any and all writing prompts are uncontroversial.  I disagree that a teacher is accountable only for the pages in a book that they specifically assign, especially for high school students.  If the book is assigned and in the possession of students, the content of the book has been given to students and the idea that the content is appropriate for the audience is being communicated.  

I’ve been pondering the idea of using appropriate parts of a book that also has inappropriate parts.  I think what you’ve written above is clearly true if it were, say, a book of short stories where the content actually in the book would be inappropriate for the students to read. In this case, though, the objectionable part would be asking the students to use the prompts, not just seeing them.  
 

I think, though, that as a teacher I would say upfront that the book was not written for students and has some prompts that ask personal questions that would be inappropriate as assignments and we won’t be using those.  Or just provide a list when the book is handed out of which prompts will be used.  Because I wouldn’t want a student to be worried that they might be part of a later assignment.

[Sneezyone]

6 minutes ago, SKL said:

[Man I hated high school.]

Me too. There were some fun moments but everything about it was killing time. I lived only to tweak my jerk-hole teachers' noses and make them eat their words/assumptions about me.

 

4 minutes ago, SKL said:

See now this is taking it to the other extreme.  There's a lot of space between G rated and X rated.

Is there? Is there really? I'm not seeing that in the debates on offer. There are parents who are comfy only with Bambi and those who are OK with Braveheart.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Sneezyone

[SKL]

Also, am I the only person who is wondering why the schools / universities / taxpayers are wasting money providing every student in English 101 with a book of X00 writing prompts?  What a stupid waste of resources.

The idea that questioning these things is preventing young people from getting educated is ridiculous IMO.

I did say in my first post that the protestors went way overboard ... but at the same time, let's be honest.  Issuing this book to students was stupid.

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, SKL said:

Also, am I the only person who is wondering why the schools / universities / taxpayers are wasting money providing every student in English 101 with a book of X00 writing prompts?  What a stupid waste of resources.

The idea that questioning these things is preventing young people from getting educated is ridiculous IMO.

I did say in my first post that the protestors went way overboard ... but at the same time, let's be honest.  Issuing this book to students was stupid.

Agreed. Copying pages or retyping the prompts would have been just as effective and less provocative.

[SKL]

3 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Is there? Is there really? I'm not seeing that in the debates on offer. There are parents who are comfy only with Bambi and those who are OK with Braveheart.

Yes, I think the vast majority of the people you aren't hearing are not screaming because they are OK with PG-13 and even R for high school kids (assuming the teacher handles them maturely).

[Sneezyone]

Just now, SKL said:

Yes, I think the vast majority of the people you aren't hearing are not screaming because they are OK with PG-13 and even R for high school kids (assuming the teacher handles them maturely).

I'd like to think you're correct. Our area isn't far behind NoVa on the cray-cray scale so I'm wary. HSP seem to dominate the debate WRT appropriateness.

[Library Momma]

4 hours ago, Pam in CT said:

K, so I just prowled the CT Department of Education offerings, and there seem to be two different state-funded programs that get college-level content to high school students, neither of which are called "dual enrollment."

• "Early College Experience" - In this program, flagship UConn comes into selected high school campuses -- the university sends *its* instructors to a total of 160 identified partner high schools who teach a total of 201 identified courses.  University-hired teachers, physical high school building, all HS students.  The high schools seem to have to go through some series of qualification hoops to become eligible as a "partner."
• "College Career Pathways" -- in this one, individual high school kids go onto 4 year state college / community college / state vocational & tech campuses and are able to take qualified courses (more than 100, but not open-ended selection).

Tuition is free but transportation is not, so a school like @MEmama  's would have to arrange for a school minibus or something if it were using the CCP program as their main Advanced Calculus offering.  (Education funding in CT is different in a zillion ways from most other states.)

 

Those two programs are open to any student/ high school that wants to qualify to use them.  There are some other programs targeted particularly to vocational training, performing arts, and GATE.

The ECE classes my children have recently taken in high school are almost identical to the DE classes I took in high school when I graduated in 1987.  The classes are taught in the high school by teachers that had to be trained and certified specifically to teach them  The materials, tests, quizzes, assignments and finals mirror those taught in that same class on campus.  That is how a college like UCONN would award credit for the class and why other colleges would accept the transfer credits.

CCP is something that usually applies to students attending vocational high schools and I believe involves community colleges.  

 

[Pam in CT]

I guess my take is, wanting OTOH "college level" luster/ credit, while OTO insisting on "parental rights" to ensure content is "appropriate" for younger age groups... seems like demanding to eat the cake and still have it too.

So, agreeing with this...

36 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

It might work if it were actually held at a college/to the college level and not a sanitized version of college-level work. That's not possible tho if parents are intent on making "college in the high school" programs G-rated. 

while also with this.

14 minutes ago, SKL said:

See now this is taking it to the other extreme.  There's a lot of space between G rated and X rated.

In the particular OP example... the assigned work was within that space.

The Outrage was around unassigned prompts in a resource book. That, sure, didn't need to go home to kids, the planned prompts could have been retyped or a reassuring insert could have been provided that said "the following X rated content will not be used" or, whatever.

Or, parents could have held back the Outrage to stuff actually assigned.  Particularly given that their darlings were in a class that putatively was "college level."

 

6 minutes ago, SKL said:

Yes, I think the vast majority of the people you aren't hearing are not screaming because they are OK with PG-13 and even R for high school kids (assuming the teacher handles them maturely).

I hope you're right.  The idea of a "vast majority" of people we "aren't hearing" because they're "not screaming" at PG-13 and R materials is... modestly... reassuring. 

Only modestly because, again, if courses are pitched as "college level" then PG-13 and R is *exactly* what they should be. 

 

My concern is that Outrage about curricular content really does appear to have become an another engine to weaken and defund education, particularly in schools with diverse populations. Which in the long haul is only going to make our problems worse.

[Kassia]

56 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

It might work if it were actually held at a college/to the college level and not a sanitized version of college-level work. That's not possible tho if parents are intent on making "college in the high school" programs G-rated. 

This wouldn't have worked for my kids or any of the ones who choose DE because they hate the high school experience.  My kids who chose DE would have done anything to avoid being in a high school classroom - they just didn't connect with other high school students, they hated the inefficiency of sitting in class all day and then going home to hours of homework, and they didn't like the social parts of high school (sports, pep rallies, assemblies, dances, etc.).  They would have been miserable.  

 

 

36 minutes ago, SKL said:

Maybe, but at least they are getting college credit for it.  Though you do make a good point.  I'm not sure whether I'd have done it.  I was lucky to have a regional campus of a state college 12 miles away from my rural town ... it was the only college experience my family could afford.  I did need the use of a car to get there, which not every teen has.  If my only other choice was to quit school and get a waitressing job, I probably would have sucked it up and done college on the high school campus.  Maybe.  😛

[Man I hated high school.]

We also live near a regional campus of a state college.  Dd attended that university and cc - she had lots of class options and it was great for her.  But my two kids who chose DE felt the same way as you did about taking classes at the high school campus.  It wasn't about the college credit for my kids - it was for the experience.  The college credit was the icing on the cake.  They had mostly fantastic professors and liked being with older students.

[MEmama]

11 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

My concern is that Outrage about curricular content really does appear to have become an another engine to weaken and defund education, particularly in schools with diverse populations. Which in the long haul is only going to make our problems worse.

THIS. There is zero doubt this make believe outrage— make believe because again *it never happened*— is formulated by design, in the same fashion as CRT— another thing that *doesn't exist* in any public high school yet has a certain population in a frothing frenzy, as an effort to devalue teachers and education as a whole. It is a coordinated effort, and sadly it’s working on too many people. 

[Sneezyone]

25 minutes ago, Kassia said:

This wouldn't have worked for my kids or any of the ones who choose DE because they hate the high school experience.  My kids who chose DE would have done anything to avoid being in a high school classroom - they just didn't connect with other high school students, they hated the inefficiency of sitting in class all day and then going home to hours of homework, and they didn't like the social parts of high school (sports, pep rallies, assemblies, dances, etc.).  They would have been miserable.  

 

 

We also live near a regional campus of a state college.  Dd attended that university and cc - she had lots of class options and it was great for her.  But my two kids who chose DE felt the same way as you did about taking classes at the high school campus.  It wasn't about the college credit for my kids - it was for the experience.  The college credit was the icing on the cake.  They had mostly fantastic professors and liked being with older students.

That’s why I said at a college or to a college level. I don’t think the location should determine the rigor of the course.

[Faith-manor]

1 hour ago, GracieJane said:

I wrote exactly zero personal essays in my IB literature and writing classes because my teachers thankfully understood that teenagers aren’t interesting enough in their life experiences to warrant navel-gazing pages of narrative. We wrote about The Crucible and Waiting for Godot and House of Spirits, because those things are worth writing about.

You.win.the.internet!!!!! 😂😂😂😂😂 And you are not wrong!

[Faith-manor]

4 hours ago, Pam in CT said:

re evolving role of AP courses

Honestly I think for top-tier private universities it's become even narrower than that: the AP designation just means "strong preparation for college level content."  None of the private universities my kids went to offered actual course credit for high school APs; just placement and/or waiving of gen ed requirements. 

But, the same schools do expect strong applicants to demonstrate "academic rigor" in their HS program, and not-availing of AP offerings if the school has them, signals slackership. 

FWIW, my youngest went to Choate, which definitely considers itself "rigorous" but has completely eliminated AP courses because as an institution they don't believe in "teaching to the test."  (Somewhat ironically for this thread, they believe in a different pedagogical model: teachers should have discretion on what they teach and how.)

This. At my youngest son's school there is no awarding of credits for AP in math, English, or sciences, only history, foreign language, and electives. They use their own math and writing placement test to determine placement. They do use them for some merit money determinations. So having DE, AP, or both makes one more likely to be offered merit aid. It does not shorten one's time to graduation. But college classes taken at another college or university were eligible for transfer for credit. This college also does not allow CLEP either.

[Kassia]

53 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

That’s why I said at a college or to a college level. I don’t think the location should determine the rigor of the course.

Right, but it's still held at the high school so it's an entirely different environment (and schedule) than it would be at a college.  The rigor of the course isn't the issue here - there's AP for that - it's being in a high school environment vs. a college one for students who are ready to move on from high school.

Dd started DE at 13.  We met with her first professor before she started (she started with Spanish, which she already knew and we needed to know what class she should start with).  He said he would never want to teach at the high school campus because it's just too much like high school - dealing with parents (this was his biggest concern), the interruptions that come with high school, etc.  He just didn't see how it would work equivalent to being on the college campus.

 

[Sneezyone]

29 minutes ago, Kassia said:

Right, but it's still held at the high school so it's an entirely different environment (and schedule) than it would be at a college.  The rigor of the course isn't the issue here - there's AP for that - it's being in a high school environment vs. a college one for students who are ready to move on from high school.

Dd started DE at 13.  We met with her first professor before she started (she started with Spanish, which she already knew and we needed to know what class she should start with).  He said he would never want to teach at the high school campus because it's just too much like high school - dealing with parents (this was his biggest concern), the interruptions that come with high school, etc.  He just didn't see how it would work equivalent to being on the college campus.

 

AP/DE are supposed to be equivalent wrt coursework and rigor tho. If they’re not, b/c the location of the class prevents the tackling of challenging concepts (b/c parents object) that’s a loss for a lot more than highly sensitive kids/families.

Edited February 16, 2022 by Sneezyone