interesting

[soccervark]

I go this from my mom. Personal experience at UCLA and also knowing people who have siblings still in high school or people who are teaching in high school etc leads me to believe this is a huge problem. I'm not saying the "traditional" factors for poor classwork aren't also present, but I'd definately agree that they aren't the only things.

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Comments

[soccervark]

i agree that it is not the only answer to the problem. the article mentioned the other theories (eg, class size and lack of money) and didn't touch on them because the have been analyzed for years. and that's the point of the article, is that there is obviously something else we need to think about because what we've thought of before hasn't helped. i also agree that both parents working shouldn't necesarily mean that kids have no discipline. i'm kinda wondering (and this is all wondering, no evidence) if there is a cycle, like our parents were super disciplined and so in turn they try to not discipline as much, and then we will discipline more because we wish we had it or something like that. a sort of generational thing. this is obviously a very complex problem with lots of different parts, and the parts aren't the same for each kid, which is part of it all being complicated. i guess one reason i agree with the article comes from my mom's programs. she's worked for over 25 years, starting with gang kids in la and moving on to the more affluent schools where "they don't have kids who do poorly (yeah becuase they kick them out, but that's a differnt topic), that tend to be the ones who don't do well. why don't they do well? lots of reason, sure. but the ones that are able to turn around and do well do so because they aren't given a choice. things aren't made easier for them, they are told that this is what they have to do (and often in the case of the kids in her programs, the choice is do well or go to juvi or something like that). and there are plenty who still don't do well, but the ones who do don't say "thanks for being nice to me", they say "thanks for believing in me and thanks for kicking butt". not making it easier, but making them do better.