Parenting

The article certainly makes a lot of good points. But why does it surprise him that almost all the students come from public schools? Most students go to public schools. So statistically most of the students at such a public institution would come from public school.
Parental involvement is certainly crucial.
And it can make all the difference. But that occurs no matter what type of schooling the child has had.

My oldest attends the U.S. News & World Report second-ranked private college in the western U.S.
It is a Baptist school. It has a mix of public, private, and home-schooled kids. All are capable of doing well. All are capable of doing badly.

My son came from a mixture of private schooling and home-schooling. He is friends at school with a number of kids home-schooled all the way who display every positive characteristic the article mentions.

I work in the public school system. One of the best in my state. But I sure do come across a lot of students who would never make it at Caltech.
I do hold to the view that it is not ALL about studying and working when you are young. I think homework should be limited at night, except for maybe the last one or two years of high school.
The child has already spent seven or eight hours in school. He needs exercise, sleep, hobbies, time with family, friends, service opportunities. Oh yeah, LOL, church and personal Bible study,too. He needs time to goof off.
I realize childhood is a recent cultural invention, in many ways. But a lot about it is a good thing.
My kids have always benefitted from summer vacation about as much as the school year, but in different ways. Scout trips, camping with their dad, church mission trips, just hanging around.
A lot of life IS about work. But there is a balance.

Karen

 

I think educators and parents need the book more than children do.

My boss and I are often amazed at the sense of "entitlement" we run across in college students. If they do not show up for class or complete an assignment, they expect administration to chastise the professor for not making special allowances for them. If they do not attend required functions related to their scholarships, they become angry at the scholarship coordinator for not fixing it. If they plagerize or cheat, they "don't see what the big deal is."

We actually have taken it upon ourselves to teach responsiblity to them, because even the brightest and best show a total lack of it. They believe if they yell loud enough, long enough, at the right person, they'll get their way.

I call it "the terrible two's-adult style."

 

I think the point in the book was about parenting, directed at parents.

I see the same thing. One of the professors had a parent call him and asked him if he could watch out for her 21 year old son. He told her that he was not the student’s baby sitter.
.......</font>[/QUOTE]Depends on what you have in mind here. No, he is not the babysitter. But I thank God for the godly professors at my son's university who take a personal interest in and help their students beyond the actual class.
Often there are 15 students or less in my son's classes. Better than the 200-500 in some of my undergraduate classes.
Part of the educational problem is the nature of very large educational institutions which too easily become very impersonal.
As well as too many undergraduate classes taught by graduate students who have little or no teaching experience. The problems you address have a multitude of causes.

Karen

 

Where I am at, plagiarism is cause for dismissal.

Here too, however - we're finding that because of this, many professors are not reporting it to administration. They feel it is "too harsh."

We've made the same observations regarding students who want to learn and students who want a paper so they can get a job.

All of my college's classes are taught by full professors, but we are specifically designed to educate the gifted students. That is not to say all of the University classes are. There are colleges within the University which rely too much on TA's and GA's.

 

I think there is a third group of people. When I was in college, I started out very wide eyed and idealistic, and truly wanted to learn everything I could. By my 3rd to 4th year, I was more ready to get my piece of paper and get a job.

Joseph Botwinick

 

Joseph,

Would that put you in the "disillusioned" group?

 

I agree with you 100%. The kids think that they deserve good grades even if theyturn in an assignment half done. I wouldn't eat a half baked meal, and if I was a teacher, I wouldn't give a student a passing grade.

 

I agree with you 100%. The kids think that they deserve good grades even if they turn in an assignment half done. I wouldn't eat a half baked meal, and if I was a teacher, I wouldn't give a student a passing grade. </font>[/QUOTE]for turning in an assginment that they did half way.

 

I don't have kids, but I have friends who have kids. My honorary Nephew, Chris liked POkeman. His mom didn't. I refused to let him watch pokeman since I didn't feel it was a good influence on him. He was too interested in Pokeman.

 

I think I was more burnt out than anything. It is not hard to do when they required 165 for a BA degree, and many of the classes I was required to take were only worth one credit hour. Plus, I was also engaged my last year of college and looking forward to getting on with my life.

Joseph Botwinick

 

GB,

Actually, we will have an Associate Professor starting in the Fall. Many of our faculty are actually "borrowed" from other colleges within the University system. We have faculty apply for permission to teach with us and our students may actually be enrolled in another "college," such as Engineering, and ours.

 

I can't imagine a class of 1,000. Even the monster classes in the other college within our University system are only 350 to 500.

The largest class we offer in our college (not University, the college within the University) has 25 students in it, and we consider that "too many".

We like to give a lot of discussion and individual attention to our group. The kids have to put in a lot of extra work, but about 9 out of 10 come back saying they were their favorite classes.