Did AP Classes cut into your kids summer of boating?

[ka4wja]

Free Agent,
We may have been typing at the same time, so I'm not sure if you saw my post (with lots of details)....so, here's a short highlight.....

Originally Posted by ka4wja

....I took mostly AP classes throughout high school....[1970's]
....And I did A LOT of school work while out cruising with my parents, but NOT much at all during the summer, except for some light reading....we cruised both during the school year AND during the summer.....

..........Yes, I did have summer reading for AP English / AP Lit (did most of it) and AP History (and I think I did have to write essays for AP Pysch as well as AP English), but there was NO summer school work for AP Physics, AP Chem, AP Bio, AP Calculus, AP Trig, AP Geometry, AP Algera, AP Sociology, AP Gov't, etc....

Read my entire post above for details, and send me a private message if you wish, and I can offer you more info/insight....


Fair winds...

John
s/v Annie Laurie

[deckofficer]

Concentrate on where their interest lies. Making X and enjoying your work sure beats making 10X and not enjoying your work.

[goboatingnow]

kids should have summers, they'll be working long enough for the rest of their lives.

Dave

[Free Agent]

Maynard Oregon Sand Dunes:


After going to the same party as Nick Nolte:

[ka4wja]

Free Agent,
Although, I answered your question quite definitively (twice), without response....this is NO big deal!!!
Som no worries!!!!

But now, I think I might just unsubscribe from this thread, if I can remember how.....
As in addition to this seeming more like a "left coast" thing, your posting about the "celebrities" reminded me of your other posts about boating with celebs.....
And, while I may be wrong here, I suspect this situation is more about image and perception than about reality.....and I'm all about reality and substance, not image....

So, if you really do wish for some real-world personal experience, please read my earlier post regarding what AP students are required to do during summer vacation, etc....if not, no worries here!!! (have fun with the celebs)


Fair winds...

John
s/v Annie Laurie

[Free Agent]

Originally Posted by ka4wja

Free Agent,
Although, I answered your question quite definitively (twice), without response....this is NO big deal!!!
Som no worries!!!!

But now, I think I might just unsubscribe from this thread, if I can remember how.....
As in addition to this seeming more like a "left coast" thing, your posting about the "celebrities" reminded me of your other posts about boating with celebs.....
And, while I may be wrong here, I suspect this situation is more about image and perception than about reality.....and I'm all about reality and substance, not image....

So, if you really do wish for some real-world personal experience, please read my earlier post regarding what AP students are required to do during summer vacation, etc....if not, no worries here!!! (have fun with the celebs)


Fair winds...

John
s/v Annie Laurie

Thank you John, I did read your advise and am just learning forum etiquette to respond to everyone.
Appreciate your take.

[Galdarol]

Originally Posted by ViribusUnitis

I took AP courses in school. Course that was a decade ago. I didn't have the level of homework that your describing. (I also didn't have the highest grades so that's probably related.) On the other hand, I did score well enough to qualify for a number of scholarships and used them to pay for about half my college expenses. I also pasted 3 failing only one of my AP tests. On that one test it was test over two semesters of material, and for what ever reason the school only had the first semester taught.

So did I. First two years my HS offered them. I didn't have the load that's being described here. Passed my tests, but didn't take a Dean's Scholarship to USC in the engineering department as my family wouldn't help. Silly me, I could have worked the rest off.

Originally Posted by ViribusUnitis

I'm doing the "work for corporate America" thing now, and there can be no question that corporations are not to be trusted. Why anyone believes that they will pay out pensions is beyond me. I know maybe 2 or 3 people that managed to get their pensions. I know probably a couple dozen that didn't get them for one reason or another. In my opinion those are not good odds. Why anyone buy's much in their employer's stocks is also beyond me. I know of only a handful of people for which it paid off, and likely a couple dozen that have been screwed by it.

Public pensions won't be around much longer either. See California's missing pension money in the Google.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by Free Agent

Daughter had AP classes and it seemed like she had school work all summer vacation long.
Brutal.

She'd be doing school work between pulls on the wakeboard, and would bust it out in the boat when beached at the sandbars.

Wondering if it was just her school, or do all AP classes require hours of daily school work during summer vacation?

Now our 12 year old is entering AP classes from a top rated school and we're not looking forward to that academic grind if it's a re-peat of our daughters experiences.
He has a head for it, but a kid needs a vacation too don't they?

Any tips, tales or takes?

My opinion is that we're going to end up with a lot of very smart kids who know how to learn but no longer want to learn. The current emphasis on homework is particularly oppressive, and GOOD research shows that homework has virtually no effect on achievement. That's the truth. AP classes are a little different because if the student does well (3 or higher on the national tests) it counts as college credit, but there is more to life than getting into Harvard or Stanford.

I also worry that we will have a bunch of kids who didn't have time to learn a musical instrument, or take an art class and find out that they could excel at pottery, or have time for the track team, etc.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by jrambo316

Pretty common to have summer reading assignments.

Isn't it funny, though ... I *didn't* have homework or reading assignments over the summer. Somehow I can walk and chew gum at the same time, have written a book, and have a master's degree.

How did I EVER manage that without the school telling me what to learn over the summer? I'll never know. I must be some kind of freak.

[sarafina]

Boy, do I have opinions...

As a preface; My daughter is a freshman in college. She graduated from high school last year from the second rated AP Test high school in the world. Yes, they trade honours with a school in Russia most years for which will be tops. This is a school that is CRAZY for AP classes.

And our girl took one. An AP Spanish class, since she had been in a Spanish bilingual program since kindergarten. She loved the class and aced the test, but she had a much better grounding in language study than her peers.

In general the AP classes were a misery for the kids. In some cases it was parents flogging it, sometimes it was the kids themselves that were self driven. Occasionally there was an achiever who seemed to sail effortlessly thru the AP classes, but that was a rarity.

At the end of the day mostly these kids got a bit of credit for an intro college class and didn't have to take the basic course.

Many colleges no longer use the AP tests and the Sat scores as such heavy weights in the college application lottery. We actively discouraged her from loading herself down with crazy AP course loads.

Those of her friends who did don't seem to have been much advantaged by the addition of the AP scores to their C.V.s.

Summer reading was the norm, but loads of school work was not. Typically the teacher would have a reading list for the summer before the class started, but not assign much, maybe just a paper on the reading, to be turned in at the beginning of term.

And I have no idea what kind of curriculum has a 12 year old taking AP. Freshmen have no business in AP classes in my opinion.

I would look long and hard at your kid's school and the real value of taking the AP classes and decide with out being influenced by the school on what is right for your kids.

Good luck ; -)

[capn_billl]

Originally Posted by Rakuflames

My opinion is that we're going to end up with a lot of very smart kids who know how to learn but no longer want to learn. The current emphasis on homework is particularly oppressive, and GOOD research shows that homework has virtually no effect on achievement. That's the truth. AP classes are a little different because if the student does well (3 or higher on the national tests) it counts as college credit, but there is more to life than getting into Harvard or Stanford.

I also worry that we will have a bunch of kids who didn't have time to learn a musical instrument, or take an art class and find out that they could excel at pottery, or have time for the track team, etc.

I agree volume doesn't make up for lack of quality. My own personal experience, and my kids is the AP classes weren't harder, and didn't have more facts taught, just more volume to learn the same material. The only thing the kids learn is how to be a good beaurocrat.

[Doodles]

Originally Posted by Rakuflames

My opinion is that we're going to end up with a lot of very smart kids who know how to learn but no longer want to learn. The current emphasis on homework is particularly oppressive, and GOOD research shows that homework has virtually no effect on achievement. That's the truth. AP classes are a little different because if the student does well (3 or higher on the national tests) it counts as college credit, but there is more to life than getting into Harvard or Stanford.

I also worry that we will have a bunch of kids who didn't have time to learn a musical instrument, or take an art class and find out that they could excel at pottery, or have time for the track team, etc.

I think it's more like we're getting a lot of kids who are very "educated" but don't know how to learn. They know how to take test and give answers back but no critical thinking abilities, no creativity. And the comment about Harvard and Stanford is spot on. Not that they aren't great and open doors but there are tons of others that will do just as good a job. "Image" is not really everything we're told it is.

Kids need a lot more art, music and such, things that develop the right-side of their brains as well.

[Bash]

I taught at the secondary level for seven years before becoming a college professor, and taught a limited amount of AP courses. I personally found those classes oppressive, because you spent the better part of a year preparing students to take a test. With the AP program, we've replaced student-centered learning with test-centered learning.

When I was in high school, an AP course was designed to challenge seniors in the one area of study where they were strongest by giving them the opportunity to delve more deeply into that subject. Today, however, college-bound students are led to feel that they won't be accepted into a good school unless they test out with 4s and 5s in at least a half-dozen different AP exams. What that means is they have to retain a great deal of content, often at the expense of depth.

The college where I currently teach has decided that we would no longer exempt students from core classes if they had AP credit in similar courses. We had discovered, for example, that kids with high marks in AP English were not performing as well on college essays as the students who went through our frosh composition classes. This was especially true of students who had taken AP courses as sophomores. While they might be capable of writing the perfect AP essay, they were not engaging in the type of critical thinking that we felt was appropriate for collegiate freshmen.

As a teacher, my greatest joy lies in fostering intellectual curiosity among my students by engaging them in an educational experience that challenges them to develop news ways of thinking about a subject. As an AP teacher, I never really had time to do that. The test was always looming.

[Doodles]

Originally Posted by Bash

I taught at the secondary level for seven years before becoming a college professor, and taught a limited amount of AP courses. I personally found those classes oppressive, because you spent the better part of a year preparing students to take a test. With the AP program, we've replaced student-centered learning with test-centered learning.

When I was in high school, an AP course was designed to challenge seniors in the one area of study where they were strongest by giving them the opportunity to delve more deeply into that subject. Today, however, college-bound students are led to feel that they won't be accepted into a good school unless they test out with 4s and 5s in at least a half-dozen different AP exams. What that means is they have to retain a great deal of content, often at the expense of depth.

The college where I currently teach has decided that we would no longer exempt students from core classes if they had AP credit in similar courses. We had discovered, for example, that kids with high marks in AP English were not performing as well on college essays as the students who went through our frosh composition classes. This was especially true of students who had taken AP courses as sophomores. While they might be capable of writing the perfect AP essay, they were not engaging in the type of critical thinking that we felt was appropriate for collegiate freshmen.

As a teacher, my greatest joy lies in fostering intellectual curiosity among my students by engaging them in an educational experience that challenges them to develop news ways of thinking about a subject. As an AP teacher, I never really had time to do that. The test was always looming.

Great to hear from someone with on the ground experience. What you've said certainily confirms many of my suspicions. I hope the OP takes it to heart.

[David_Old_Jersey]

I only read this thread because I wondered why it got so long......

...zero knowledge of US education system and requirements, I only post to say that my first impression was that the Homework was not actually aimed at the child - but at the parents!

Why? the Parents are those with the money (or failing that are those who push for a school to do "more"). What better way to keep a punter happy than for the child to be seen to be doing stuff (and school no good for that) - don't matter what it is, the goal is a happy Punter. Child learns more stuff, that's nice - child loses a chunk of childhood, well that's just a cost of business . yer never know they may one day get a slightly better car from p/xing their childhood .

I will admit that the above may be unfair / innacurate / whatever - just thought I would share as it just simply smelled of a BS approach that employed elsewhere does work. A Happy Punter = Kerching .