Things I never thought I’d say to my kids September 10, 2013
Posted by mareserinitatis in gifted, homeschooling, older son, teaching.Tags: classes, english, languages, older son, teaching
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There are a million things I never thought I’d say to my kids. Truth be told, I’ve avoided a lot of them. Today, however, I found myself telling the older son something I imagine would have made my 17-year-old self would cringe. Or even hurl.
The older son is taking some classes through correspondence this year, mostly English, to finish up the classes he needs for college admissions. We’ve managed to do most other things at home, but English was one thing I never bothered with because he’s an avid reader. And by avid, I mean he devours books like candy. He’s also done exceptionally well on any sort of standardized testing in this realm. I didn’t want to waste his time by pushing stuff on him when he was doing pretty well in his own right.
He got his first homework assignment back from one of the classes and was reading it over while we had some lunch. He gave me this look…the same one you get when someone tells you a joke that you can see the humor in but don’t particularly think it’s all that funny because it’s just weird. You know what look I mean.
The comments on a couple of the problems were simply horrible. As in, the teacher had rewritten his answers so that they were entirely dumbed down. It’s not that these answers were vague or wrong or anything; he chose words that made the point and his answers were succinct. The rewritten answers were long and meandering but weren’t any more clear. I called Mike and read the rewritten answers.
“You’re kidding me.”
Sadly, no.
So I found myself saying something that I know I would have never, ever believed in my own youth: “You just need to get through the class and pass it so you can go to college. College will be better.”
It makes me really sad that my son, who loves language and literature, is going to have to endure a class where he was hoping to be able to think about and discuss literary works on a really grown-up level. Sadly, it looks like he’s going to have to keep it light for his teacher. I could only reiterate that this is why I feel that high school is a waste of his time.
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Wow. That’s a real shame; being able to properly express your points, and then just having your teacher of all things force your quality down several levels just so they can cope with your standards.
Well, at least he’s only got one more year of high school left. Not much longer until he can write at his own level, hopefully.
College MIGHT be better haha, even at university this will happen. Unfortunately it is part of life, and part of the dumbing down of America.
I have to agree with ConfessionsOfAnImperfectHomeschooler – even at college he will have to endure this. As someone who has a tendency to make use of my vocabulary perhaps more than is strictly necessary, I often had to dumb down my language in written assignments, even in college.