First Laugh. Rolling Over. Crawling. Walking. Reading. Kindergarten... SAT's.
How we got from the Kindergarten milestone to the SAT's, I don't quite remember, but here we are. Dillon took his test yesterday with 40,000 other 11th graders across the country.
He's a bright kid, so I was feeling pretty confident about it all until I saw a story on The Today Show Friday morning about parents who are hiring SAT tutors for their kids. The kids are getting tutored twice a week and taking a practice test once a week.
I think Dillon got a lecture or two on the SAT at school.
They made it sound as if this was a necessary for getting into college. Any college. Not just the Ivy League.
I started to wonder. Am I doing right by him by not buying him study guides and hiring tutors and making him sit down once a week for a practice test? Should I have required him to attend every extra-curricular SAT practice session offered by the school?
I've been thinking about it for 3 days now and I don't think so. Adding all those extra commitments would have also added stress on an already stretched-thin kid. He's in Honors classes and AP classes, and since January, had wrestling practice every day from 2:30 until I picked him up at 6:40 each night with 1 or 2 nights a week devoted to meets. Many nights he stays up past midnight studying only to rise at 6am and start all over again.
I think the SAT tutor is indicative of our over-scheduled society. Because my kids aren't signed up for a different activity each day of the week and don't play an instrument or two, because they aren't involved in scouts and art lessons, I have been made to feel like I'm breeding mediocrity by depriving them of every possible opportunity.
I have often been asked, upon meeting a new mom, "What does your child do?" That question always sends me reeling. What does that mean, "What does your child do?" They're kids. They go to school and do their chores, they hang out with their friends and turn in homework. They have, at one time or another, usually not consecutively, been signed up for Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, soccer, ballet, flag football, swimming, basketball, karate, diving, jazz dance, football, gymnastics, chorus, CCD, drama club, guitar lessons, wrestling and art club. But they haven't zeroed in on any one activity and usually haven't been gone more than one night a week, except for Dillon's high school sports. I want them to have a good time, and learn new things, but I also want them to have time to just Be. Just be a kid and listen to music and climb trees with their friends. I want them to ride bikes and play hackey sack and go to the park after school. I'm not saying that kids shouldn't be in extra-curricular activities. If a child falls in love with a sport and actually wants to play every day after school, I think that's great. I think that child will learn how to use his or her time wisely and the sport will actually be a positive influence on their childhood experience. I'm talking about those kids who are signed up for 4 or 5 activities during the school year and then from 9-5 during the summer. When do these kids have time to be kids?
This is an issue that's been in the news for years now, but I don't see us making any progress. Good grades are no longer "good enough". Kids are exhausted. And they're stressed. And they don't have enough time to enjoy just being a kid. And now the problem has extended to the SAT and college search. It seems as though parents to the right and to the left of me are trying to out-do one another through their kids.
And I have to wonder. Where will it stop?
9 comments:
I don't know what to say besides AMEN! If I could that would be in bold, 36 point type!!!!! Please, please publish this somewhere, everywhere!!! Thank you for making me less alone!
Speaking of mediocrity - excuse grammar and diction in above comment - too many hours in car..brain (and feet) are numb and tingly!
Kids are much too overscheduled. It's one of the reasons I liked my drop in care job at the YMCA. We were a "free play" care. No philosophy, no set activities. If a kid wants to sit and stare at teh sand for half an hour, I say go on ahead. When I student taught, we had kids who were so busy with "activities" their parents were writing notes to please excuse them from doing their homework.
This was a huge issue with my Japanese junior high students too. The Japanese did away with Saturday school because they found the kids were so overscheduled and spent so much time in supervised activities, they could make decisions for themselves. When I would ask my kids what they would do during a given vacation, 8 out of 10 said "sleep". Very sad.
These overschedule people are the same ones who have to get their kids into the "right" preschool or they'll never make it into Harvard. Yeesh.
When I was in high school, I had a job 2x a week, totally a little under 10 hours a week. I also had Peer Leadership, which was a decent time commitment.
So that being said, I would have hated feeling forced to do something more. I'm a kid. I don't have to have something to 'do' all the time.
Also, I never took any SAT class or anything. Or studied. I got an 1190 the first time, then improved by 100 the next time, making it 1290. I'm not upset with that at all. Could I have done better? Maybe. But then I'd be spending all my time in class, which is just a little too much.
Finally. I hate our grading system. A lot. But that's another whole post in and of itself.
Yay to Paige.
I totally agree with you. And it not only stresses out the kids, it can really lay a whopper on mom and dad too.
I dont know if it's the same where you are, but here in the UK when SATS were first brought in they were supposed to be a way of checking that the teachers had covered everything they were supposed to cover in the curriculum at each appropriate stage. A way of checking what had been taught. Not a test for the kids - an exam to 'pass' or 'fail' - but a way of checking that everything in a subject had been covered to the appropriate level.
So how come tutors, practice tests and study guides? What's the point of all that?
And that question, "What does your child do?" Unbelievable! S/he sleeps, eats, plays, works, learns, .... lives!
You are so right about kids being over-scheduled! Thank goodness some people seem able to keep a sense of proportion and retain a healthy scepticism about it all!
Yeah, it's not going to stop. I no shit have a mother in my daughter's class right now who competes with me over which over our daughters WEIGHS LESS. That's healthy.
My daughter was told she should take either the ACT or SAT this year by the math program she is in. They could not believe that she had not taken one of them yet. She is in eighth grade. We intentionally did not send her for testing when she was younger because we thought it was silly to start that business at a young age. I think it tends to be a bragging rite for parents more than anything else.
Parents need to realize that it is all right to say "no" when their child asks to join one more thing. For some reason parents think because it is enrichment that makes it okay to indulge their child. This leaves children not knowing how to just hang out at home without being entertained by t.v., videos etc.
Thanks for firing me up!
Wow! great job.. Don't you just love the springtime. can't wait to see all your flowers. your tulips are just beautiful.. Where's a picture of your bird girl? Does she have flowers? xoxox
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