Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments High school and busy work

Dd12 started her freshman year of high school last Friday. We had some trepidation about quantity of work b/c we had heard repeatedly to expect 4-5 hrs of homework/night if you are taking pre-AP classes, a # that has been repeated often over the past few days at parent orientation, freshman orientation...

So, here's the issue. Dd is not fast. She's extremely able. She scored in the mid 500s on the verbal parts of the SAT as a young 11 y/o and the upper 20s on the verbal parts of the ACT as a young 12 y/o. Her EXPLORE scores in 8th grade put her in the top 1% of the nation for 8th graders (composite) and she generally performs in the 98th-99th percentile on pretty much everything save for math which fluctuates around. Sometimes she's in the top 1/4 of the grade on a bad day, and sometimes she's in the top 5% on a good day. I can also honestly say that she is one of the best writers I've ever met in my life, a thought shared by many of her teachers in years past. She really should be in pre-AP classes level wise.

She also has to take two science classes this year if she wants to take anything but the bare minimum boring science offerings by the end of high school. Pre-AP Bio, earth systems science, and chemistry are all pre-reqs for AP Bio and pretty much everything else. She's taking pre-AP Bio & earth systems along with pre-AP English, Geometry, world history (not pre-AP), photography, PE & French 2. Classes meet sort of every other day so you don't have every class every day.

Her pre-AP bio teacher told her that they'd have 10 hrs of homework/week for that class alone. Her history teacher yesterday gave them do what amounted to major busy work IMHO. She had to hand write out the entire syllabus verbatum and bring it home for me to sign (two pages of writing). They also have a 20 question worksheet to complete that is full of questions like, "1) What is the title of the book? Publisher? List the authors of the book. How many units does the book have? Chapters?.... 5) Draw the picture from page 2-3..."

Dd takes longer than I would on this type of stuff, but I just don't see the educational purpose, honestly, and I hope that the school year isn't going to be full of her spending five hrs/night doing crud like this. Last night probably took her four to five and a half hours btwn her various classes. (I was at parent orientation for middle school, so I don't know if she took breaks.) The school seems to be counting on the kids getting more efficient to cut down the quantity, but I'm not sure.

Thoughts? I hate to go complain especially given that this is high school and she needs to be self sufficient, but she's a stressed out crying wreck already and feels like her work quality is going down hill due to her anxiety level.

Yikes. Seems to me as though there are two aspects to this:

- help your DD to have enough self-confidence to shrug off teachers apparently being idiots and pick a solution that works for her;

- analyse possible solutions in order to be able to advise and support DD.

The first is the most urgent, I'd say: can you and she brainstorm (literally - write down all ideas no matter how silly, then consider them slowly afterwards) what might have been going through the teacher's mind as she decided to set this homework? It's a good habit, I think, to bear in mind all possibilities, from "this teacher is sadistic" to "this teacher thinks that handwriting the syllabus will fix it in people's minds" to "this teacher thinks she is obliged to set n hours of homework and couldn't think of anything better this time". That might help to see the issue as a practical, rather than as an existential, problem.

As for what to do: my guess is that complaining right now may not be sensible, as this may have been an atypical week; I think I'd hold fire until I saw what the general pattern was going to be, at least. After that, if busy work continued, I'd be tempted to suggest to her that she make her own judgement of which pieces of work are worthwhile and do only those, but I know it's hard. Does the history syllabus come with learning objectives? If so, a handy sentence to write some time might be "I decided not to do this as I didn't understand how it would support me in achieving any of the learning objectives of this course."

We did a little brainstorming last night at 9 p.m. and the few options we came up with weren't acceptable to dd b/c they mostly involved dropping to lower level classes to make the work so easy that it might not take as long or dropping her photography elective for study hall. She loves photography and was really looking forward to that one (underwater photography of sirineans was her original career plan before it morphed into marine mammology.)

I did tell her that she will still get into college if she gets some Bs on her report cards, but she really wants to maintain straight As so I doubt that she'll intentionally blow off some assignments for sleep. We've had parents tell us that their kids are up until 2 a.m. doing homework at times. Given that they get up around 5:30 to get ready for school, that just isn't acceptable to me and I do want dd to have a social life and be able to participate in clubs, etc.

Thank you for the ideas, though, and we will continue to brainstorm! Part of this is that dd did have a 504 in the past and we are meeting w/ her counselor next week to discuss that and I am wondering if there are any accommodations that we can reasonably ask for that aren't "give her less work."

Of course, if she does that, the teacher may give her a poor grade, and this will at least slightly reduce her change of getting into a "good" college. How much time a teen should spend playing the college admissions game vs. actually getting an education is an interesting question.

If the mother complains to the administration, either on her own or together with other parents, about poor teaching, she may be branded as a troublemaker, and her daughter may get poor college recommendations from teachers. One needs to know the mindset of the teachers and administrators to judge the severity of this risk.

First, as a grad of a very tough HS program, I can sympathize.

Next, Hang in there!!!

Consider this quote.


Third, there are no easy problems left to solve in the world. Everything left is complex, time consuming, and requires extensive record keeping, and working with a team of people to get things done. BS and make work is a part of life. As a giftie, you will work most of your life with less capable and imaginative people and you WILL have to teach them and then motivate them to do the work. There is no way out of this!! You will get no where until you accept this fact. Period.

In this regard, the AP program at the school is well respected and has been in place for a long time. Tens of thousands od kids have been through it. The school and teachers were honest with you.

You will not make changes to it. Accept it. The hard work at the beginning is part of the "plebe" process to shock people into either getting into the groove or washing them out. There will be MUCH harder work to come. And then there will be college.

Fourth, see this as an opportunity for growth in writing skills, time management, patience, and persistence. Don't over think what you need to do and do not read too much into what you are asked to do. Just do it. Strip your schedule down to make it happen. And then come up with ways to do it faster and better. Most people are defeated in projects because they cannot work fast and accurately.

When I was in HS, I moved from an average district into the 10th grade in a very highly ranked honors AP program with a very tight knit group of very bright and competitive kids. After years of skating by and doing my own thing, I suddenly had to work hard. I was still the smartest kid in the room, but that meant nothing. Nothing. By Christmas I was fine and had developed some routines, but the first two months were painful.

So here are my thoughts.

1. Give up perfection. Some assignments cannot be perfect. Get them done and move on.
2. Schedule. Schedule. Schedule. Get a planner like Covey franklin. Take a class on how to use it. Then, keep a monthly schedule that gets updated a couple of times a week. Keep a weekly schedule that gets updated twice a day. Go over the daily schedule in the morning.
3. For each assignment - list what needs to be done, how long each part will take, what you need to do each part, then monitor your progress as you go so as not to be surprise.
4. Prioritize and stay ahead. Assign a few hours a day to study and fill those hours with work - even if it is reading ahead and doing problems for next week.
5. Use the weekend properly. Plan to study for six hours on Sunday.
6. Have a good place to study in the house with enough room for friends to come over and do a study group.
7. Form a study group that meets regularly. Suffering together will help.
8. Don't panic. Don't overreact. Take one day at a time. Wars are won by a series of small victories.

Trust me. All the other families are reacting like this. You will look back on this and laugh.

Your DD can do the work and thrive once she accepts it and focuses on what needs to be done and no longer takes counsel with her fears.


The key to not working to 2 am is to have a schedule and to fill each day with significant effort. Most of the time that I had to study past 10 pm was when I did not stick to a daily schedule or did not work on Sunday. There were some exceptions and I did pull all nighters about once a month but that was because I wanted to get 100% on something.

I forgot to add that there are ways to help - my mom and grandmother helped by typing my papers or other stuff that needed to be typed. They also proofed my stuff.

I took numerous AP courses in high school (Bio, Chem, Physics, Literacy...) and I absolutely did not have this much work in terms of sheer quantity. I do realize that was over 20 yrs ago, but still I fear that we, as a nation, are moving toward valuing high output of stuff over high level work. If we are aiming to weed out deep thinking, creative kids who can't write fast enough or draw fast enough to recreate copious amounts of work that has already been done in favor of kids who are not highly able but can work fast doing things that don't require the ability to write well, make connections, etc., I don't think that bodes well for us as a society.

In my dd's instance, the learning goes down as the quantity goes up. She has great work ethic, but slow speed. Her anxiety rises as she is pushed to barrel through things like copying textbooks such that she stops absorbing the information. Her masterpieces come not from all nighters and high pressure to produce fast, but when given space and time to allow her brain to work the way it does -- connecting things and coming to wonderfully in depth insights.

I say what I did above in regard to this comment. I think that you are right here, but I don't think that teaching teens to do massive quantities of work necessarily helps in this arena. Dd is detail oriented, she works hard, and she is good at solving complex problems. Her slower way of approaching things works well in a field where you have to be methodical and not make rash decisions. It may take her longer to get there, but when she does, she is almost always right in her analysis and sees things that others don't.

Then there's the college game.

Do you want to get a good education or do you want to get into a good Law School/Med School/Dental School, ect.

My girls have a ways to go before high school, but I agree. The sheer volume of homework one of DDs was given in first grade was enough to keep us from asking for more challenging material for her. Admittedly, I was one of those kids who works really quickly, but I barely had any homework until college. I want my kids to have time for other activities besides school and homework.

IMHO, this is crazy. My dds took numerous AP classes in HS and did very well, and they did NOT require this number of hours of busywork. I disagree that this is necessary, or good prep for life.
I certainly don't find any value in copying out the syllabus by hand, or in filling out questions about the book. That isn't treating the students respectfully, or intelligently. I'm pretty shocked that you've heard repeatedly that students need to do 4-5 hours of homework a night. My dd18 took almost all AP classes (her HS offered all except Latin) and she scored a string of 5s. She was in a competitive show choir and had a social life. She did NOT work for that many hours a night. Frankly, how could she on nights when show choir or spring musical met for 3 or 4 hours?
I do agree with all the suggestions. We were lucky that dd18 is very organized and a very fast writer - she also didn't waste time on Facebook or texting friends while she was doing homework (and she generally worked/studied alone because other kids weren't as focused).
Truly, this seems crazy. Our district has a homework policy. Are there any recommendations at all in your district? Do the counselors/principal go along with this 4-5 hour idea?
I also don't think I'd complain immediately, but I would keep it open as an option. Your dd is in high school, yes, and she's very smart, yes, but she's still a kid. There's a reason she's not considered an adult, isn't living away at college, etc.. She still needs parental support and back up!
If parents don't speak up about this craziness, it will only get worse. I am NOT anti-homework, but I'm anti-silly busywork.
Yes, your dd should have to work hard, but this is overkill. Honestly, another reason to have the parent step in is because I think the teachers are less likely to view your dd negatively if you go in as the parent and say, "she is so concerned with doing well in this class and she would stay up all night, but I am concerned."
IMHO, there is no reason to ever pull an all-nighter in HS. Many of my dds' friends did it, but I think if you're prepared and work steadily, you should never be required to stay up all night. I know it happens, but I disagree. I think it's usually due to poor planning on the part of the student, or crazy, unrealistic demands on the part of the teacher.
Theresa

Under the 504 you *can* ask for reduced quantity of work when a smaller volume of output will adequately demonstrate mastery,(i.e., 10 hardest homework problems vs. all 30) and you can ask for accommodations, such as allowing keyboarding for all written work, including note-taking, or having alternate assessment formats (for example, a quiz over the syllabus contents vs. having to do copywork), that may significantly increase speed, reduce the processing demands that interfere with creativity and thought, and lessen the fatigue component. Even things like having extended deadlines or extra time for timed or output-intensive work and assessments might be a viable option. ("Extra time" might mean she gets assignments early or is allowed to turn them in later, depending on the nature of the assignment - obviously, getting the assignment early won't help if the material needed to complete it successfully hasn't yet been taught.) Would an extended day study period (coming in early or staying late in a quiet area) be helpful?

Brainstorm other ideas with your child, with the Special Ed. coordinator, and, if available, the professional who diagnosed her disabilities, about what accommodations and modifications might help her access the curriculum without encountering undue barriers. Right now, requiring her to do this kind of educationally unnecessary high-output low-content work is presenting a significant barrier to her participation in the program.

Somewhat OT--Austin, when did you graduate from high school? I took a pretty full AP/honors load at one of the most competitive and highly ranked high schools in my highly populated northeastern state and it was not like this. I graduated in 1990, though, so it was a while ago.

I feel like I hear a LOT about the crazy expectations for honors/AP track kids in HS these days, and I do wonder when and how the culture changed.

Apparently they are on board with it b/c the counselor is the one who has said this repeatedly and the assistant principal confirmed that in the parent orientation although he said that it varied from kid to kid. It isn't just the kids saying this although the upperclassman who showed her group around on the first day did tell her that you "can't" take more than one AP class or you won't be able to do any clubs or anything outside of school.

Yes, and reality is that she is 12 years old. I don't think that she is less prepared to be in 9th grade than a 14 y/o, though, and I don't want to keep bringing up her age b/c it will make it appear that way or like we are asking for special accommodations b/c she is younger, which really isn't the case. I don't think that this quantity of work would be any more reasonable for her in a year or two.

Thank you all for your ideas, BTW!

Me too . I've been told that AP hasn't changed a ton in that time, though, which is why I have such an issue with this. AP never was meant to be about quantity. IB, on the other hand, I've heard has always had a greater focus on quantity, which is why we never felt like it would be a good fit for dd in high school.

I took a full AP/honors load at what was, at the time, the most highly ranked school in my state, and participated in dance, chorus, and science research and competitions, and I still had plenty of time to just hang out with my friends and go sailing and play D&D on the weekends, and I made 5s on my AP exams. I graduated...well, let's just say, even earlier than you, ultramarina. My AP courses actually had a lighter load in terms of the volume of work required than the regular track college prep classes at my high school, but higher expectations in terms of depth of understanding, analysis of the material, and quality of work products. They were much more like college courses than high school courses in this respect - which is, after all, what they are supposed to be.

My eldest is in 8th grade. He's had a lot of busy work so far this year. Example: a large, intricately done 4-hour coloring sheet that teaches about primary and secondary colors. It's a simple coloring job: use primary colors in quadrant 1. Use secondaries in quadrant 2. Mix them to see what happens in quadrant 3. Etc. This assignment requires nothing more challenging than choosing a colored pencil. But there are so many sections to color, it is literally a four-hour job.

He had a math assignment that required him to write essays about "math myths." He had to pick three; one myth was that there's no such thing as a "mathy mind." DH snorted and said, "This isn't math!" But it shows pretty clearly that the teacher doesn't understand about math talent.

They started preparing for standardized tests today. The tests are given in May.

I don't really know what can be done about this kind of thing in the short term. Given that it's just a single component of a basically broken education system, it's hard to see a way to fix it without re-evaluating the overall goals of our school system and how to achieve them. For some schools, the goal is to get the kids to pass the tests. For others, it's to get the kids into IVY LEAGUE SCHOOLS. Either way, the game they have to play is awful in some ways.

Hard work is important. Persistence is important. But by manufacturing goals that lack substance and greater meaning, I fear that we're maximizing the hard work without really teaching the whole point of persistence.

Early 1980s.

I still read and did other things on my own. I also held down a part time job. I'd do my homework then stay up until 1 am or later reading or programming. I also played sports.

Here is what I recall.

In Humanities we had 50 vocab words a week with the words given to us on Monday and a test on Friday. We read one book a week in that class. I was constantly reading. We had one essay due every Monday that had to use half the vocab words from the week before on the historical topic.

Our calculus teacher had a MS in Math. She spent the first 10 minutes lecturing, worked a problem or two, then we worked on homework the rest of the class. Every other day was new material. One of the problems was always a proof. I always had to work an hour a night.

Chemistry and physics were no different. Both teachers had majored in their subject in college. Everyone feared the physics teacher - and with good reason. Those two classes were 30 minutes to an hour each night.

Right there, four core classes - 3 to five hours a night. Now add in band or journalism or yearbook or Latin or sports and it was a full load. Some of the kids had dance or music or non-school sanctioned sports outside of school, too.

I'd leave school at 3:15, walk to a local restaurant, sit in the back studying until 6, walk home, eat, then study until 8, then I'd be free to do what ever I wanted, usually reading or programming until 1 am. I also studied during lunch, eating first, then spending my time in the next class prior to it starting, studying.

In 10th grade we started with about 30 kids on the honors track and out of that group only 14 stuck with it through to their senior year.

My senior year I met a number of kids from elite NYC public schools while on a class trip to DC and when we compared our schools, I felt we were on par in terms of course material and workload.

Talking to friends with kids in the Plano school district here and looking over their AP homework, I do not see anything different from what I did almost 30 years ago. The pacing and intro of the material is the same. Ditto in Humanities, etc. Looking at the top private schools, its the same.

One difference is that nowadays the top graduating seniors spend a lot of time at Chinese or other enrichment schools from K onwards along with a lot of time at private prep academies. I am beginning to think the statistical anomalies are due to hard work rather than countless hours self tutoring at the library. But this mirrors the experience of the top athletes who also spend a lot time practicing on their own or going to camps.

Has anyone read Outliers? He outlines how you need to do 10,000 hours of whatever to become an expert- an expert violinist, an expert computer programmer. Hard work = excellence. I think being gifted is somewhat overrated, in the sense that it isn't enough over the long haul!

We've discussed Outliers several times (not trying to stop anyone doing so again, just saying...)
'Outliers', anyone reading it?? (thread has 11 pages as I type)
Outliers, Tiger Moms, and Nature (7 pages)
and another related thread
Achievement vs Intelligence (4 pages)

I've always heard that you need about 5 to 10 years to become an expert.

However, you have to do the right kinds of work and receive the right kinds of training and feedback. Without an appropriate mentor and appropriate feedback, you aren't going to become an expert in anything.

I would think that being gifted would certainly increase the speed with which you can internalize the appropriate feedback and move forward.

Sorry, I just saw this and it is timely. I still can't see the times/dates when people posted things; it still reads as a random string of #s on the top right of the post -- most irritating!

On topic, though, things are not getting any better and I am fairly concerned w/ dd. She's crying non-stop, writing depressing poetry, and generally highly depressed. The accommodation she gets from her 504 is extra time if needed, but turning things in late will just cause stuff to pile up and make it no less manageable.

From what I see, the issues are as follows:

1) She works for at least 5 hrs every night and that much or more each day on the weekend. She isn't goofing off and is working as quickly as she can. This leaves her with no freetime to see friends, read, watch TV, play with the dogs, or do virtually anything. She is also very tired b/c she's getting to bed too late. Last night it was 10:30 or so by the time she got to bed and she's up at 5:30. She worked pretty straight through from the time she got home (3:30) until she went to bed. She didn't even have time to shower.

2) Some of the work remains pointless IMHO. Her social studies class continues to assign coloring projects that take hours upon hours and are graded harshly if they aren't super detailed, if any white is left showing on the page around the colored pencil...

3) She has some group projects that have aversely affected her grades. For instance, in English, she's gotten A+s on all individual work but the two group projects entailed the other kids not doing the work at all and/or doing it totally wrong (did you know that Democrats were the cause of slavery due to their belief in big government and that slavery ended 20 yrs before the Civil War began?). She's had to re-do their work and has gotten low Bs on the two things that involved turning in stuff that was partially done by other kids. This has her grade for that class at a B+ -- I know it's not bad, but she's upset and it's just adding to her homework load to be picking up the pieces for other kids.

This sounds like good reason to be concerned. Does she have a therapist or is there someone she could get an evaluation with? This is stuff to take seriously.

It sounds kind of adjustment disorderish. Probably caused by the significant stress, which means that the stress needs to be reduced.

I do take it fairly seriously b/c I was seriously depressed in my teen years and wound up missing part of my senior year spending time in the hospital for a suicide attempt. I don't want to wind up there.

My gut feeling is that if the environment changed, her outlook would significantly improve. I hate to be a problem this early in the semester, but I have left a msg for her counselor. I don't know what more they can do but the few options I can come up with are --

* reduce the amount of work; for instance not making her do all three copies of the history assignment (rough draft #1 plus coloring, rough draft #2 plus coloring, final draft plus coloring -- none of this can be typed or photocopied; the pictures have to be redrawn and recolored over and over).

* take her out and have her do something like an online high school and supplemental courses @ the community college.

* have her repeat a year of 8th grade somewhere else so the work is so easy that she can coast for a bit.

I'm hesitant on the last one b/c she is so advanced academically (she's consistently in the 99th percentile in most areas as compared to grade peers) and the fit socially has been tremendously better post-skip.

Honestly, none of this work is too hard for her. She doesn't feel like she's learned much at this point and is actually finding Geometry quite easy (math is usually her weakest subject). It is quantity that is the issue not difficulty. Of course, things may get more challenging as the year goes on.

Sorry to hear that Cricket. That sounds like busywork for sure.

Colouring in at her age for homework in anything is beyond ridiculous. At this stage, I would be writing a letter to the teaacher who assigned it, copied to the principal, saying that it's the cause of great stress to your DD because of the time it takes, and that because you can't see educational value commensurate with that time, she will not be doing such work in future. Maybe the other kids' low performance in group work is partly a sign that they too are suffering from this? At any rate, I bet you aren't the only parent feeling angry about this.

At our top-ranked local public high school, they say there is supposedly 3 hours per night per AP class! Some of the Tiger Mom kids take 3 AP classes at a time. AP classes here are weighted as a "5" (if you get an A), whereas regular classes are weighted as a "4" for an A.
The average GPA of accepted students to a UC school last year was 4.20 on a 4.00 GPA scale. How can that be??? Maybe part of what you are seeing is that she is young for her grade, with grade skips, and she is not able to keep up right now with the busywork that comes with these higher level course?

The course w/ the most homework, though, is her world history class and that is the one where she is not taking pre-AP. 9th grade only offers pre-AP not AP and I don't think that you get the extra GPA point for pre-AP. She's taking pre-AP in English and Bio and is also taking the 10th grade science class (that one isn't available in pre-AP, thankfully!).

One conversation we're going to have tonight is that her bio grade is suffering significantly b/c the history class is taking up so much time that she hasn't had time to study for the one quiz they had and forgot to bring an assignment with her to class b/c she had the due date down wrong so that one garnered a really low grade b/c she rushed and tried to replicate it in a few mins at the begining of class. She really needs to get her grade up in that class.

I'd just stop doing the coloring in history and deal with the lower grades for turning in black and white pencil drawings and redirect my attn to bio. If she gets some Bs or Cs in history, she has enough of a cushion to hopefully keep that grade at least at an A- (its an A+ now).

I will have to keep that in mind for my DD when she's older. I've been pretty appalled at what people are describing as "pre-AP" workload.

I graduated in the early 1990s from a school that offered no AP classes, petitioned the school board to take 7 (or maybe 8? I forget) classes in a 6-period day, and got into an Ivy League college, where I had no issue with the workload. And other than preparation for speech competitions, I don't remember having any homework at all. Maybe a couple of calculus problems, but for the most part, the assignment was on the board at the start of class, and I could have it done by the end of class.

It's not clear to me why you'd spend an hour in class every day + 3 hours of homework a night for 180 school days (720 hours), in order to get the same amount of knowledge you could reasonably expect to get from a 3-credit-hour college class (60 minutes of class per credit, plus 2 hours of out-of-class work per hour, times 3 credits, times 16 weeks = 48 hours). High school seniors are not that much slower than college freshmen, you know? More is not synonymous with better.

ETA: Maybe I'll need to keep that in mind sooner than I think. "Pre-AP" starts in middle school / 6th grade, and requires a signed contract, a prohibition on switching out of the AP level other than at semesters, and carries a warning:

She can't switch classes at this point. She can drop non-essential classes such as photography or the 10th grade earth systems science class and take study hall instead up until something like next week, but she cannot, for instance, drop pre-AP bio and take regular bio or change regular history for pre-AP history.

I left a msg for her counselor last night to call me. The counselor apparently pulled dd out today to talk to her and her suggestion is dropping one of the aforementioned classes and taking study hall. Dd isn't too keen on that but it might not be a bad idea. Dd's reasoning is that she has A+s in both of those classes, they don't have a lot of homework, and she really loves photo. Also, she's not the best @ doing homework in school with the distractions of other students in a study hall and isn't sure how much she'd catch up that way.

It is the only solution they have to offer, though, and reducing homework load isn't something they are willing to put in a 504 apparently. Dd said that the counselor suggested that she approach her teachers individually and try to see if she can negotiate something like that.

How is that working? Did you enroll him at an online high school and also have him take some courses at a local community college or university? Or are you officially listed as a homeschooler and supplementing with college courses? Do you have to pay for the college courses?

Our local uni does have an age requirement (I've checked recently). They told me that students must be 17 by day one of the class. Dd won't even make that if she graduates high school on the path she's on now. The community college, on the other hand, does not have an age requirement for enrollment. If she's enrolled through the local school system, they pay for the community college courses but if she's not, I believe that we have to pay full tuition for them. I'd have to check to see if an online school would cover the cost of college courses.

We checked out a second set of many of her books so she has one set in her locker at school and a second set at home. Her backpack was weighing nearly 40 lbs. when she was having to lug them back and forth daily and she is under 100 lbs herself.

I'm not sure that she will be able to do this or will try. She's convinced that it will be fruitless.

This option is working well for some gifted kids I know locally. I also know a few this age that are doing a some subjects traditional homeschooling and a couple CC classes, as a nice compromise for them.

5 hours a night sounds WAY over the top for a 12 year old, PG or no. Heck, sounds like too much for the average freshman too me. How can a kid do any extra curricular activities with this much on their plate?

Hope you come to a resolution!

Well, she did just turn 13, lol. It's still too much (and I don't know that I'd call her PG. She's more HG with tremendous focus and maturity.)

Since she is young for her grade, what about reducing her course load significantly and spending and extra year in highschool?

She could she drop both the photography and the earth sciences (and the world history if they let her). This would give her a couple of extra hours every day to work on the other courses. If she loves photography, she could take it next year, or join a photo club, or take a cc class.

Being a perfectionist myself, in her situation I can imagine feeling overwhelmed that there are not enough hours in the day to do everything as well as I want to. That can cause major anxiety.

Where I live there would be no disadvantage for college applications to spend an extra year in high school, but maybe thats not the case where you are?

That's not an option, unfortunately. Just dropping history would be enough probably enough to do it but it is a mandatory class. She is required to have 80 credits her freshman year. Study hall would be 5 credits as is photo or earth systems. She can't take more than one study hall per semester and they don't allow part-time students as far as I know.

In talking w/ dd last night and this morning, I think that she is going to wind up dropping photo. She's terribly disappointed b/c she has been looking forward to this class, she's already done about 1/2 of the work for the quarter in this class, has a 100% in the class, and will need to retake it later and re-do all of the work she's already done (can't reuse photos she took this semester). She doesn't see any alternative, though.

I really hope that one study hall in replacement of a class that didn't have a lot of homework is enough to make it worth the disappointment.

I can't help but ask "why?" If she is already a year younger, why can't they give her more time? It seems so silly. I'm sorry to hear that she will have to give up something that she loves to meet their straightjacket requirements.

Also, have you checked with CSU to see if they have any flexibility re the age requirements? I know people who have high school age students taking classes at Mines and that there is a program for coursework through CU as well, though I don't know the details re tuition.
If it doesn't work out in the long run. There is a state charter, online high school that is free to CO residents http://co.provostacademy.com/
Good luck

Most of the time, we used the lunch period to study. We'd eat lunch, then go sit in the next class and study. Sometimes if we had a big test the next hour, the teacher in that class would just let us prep.

FWIW, I talked with two of my friends from HS last night to see if my memories were off. They both reminded me I was not there for 9th grade. The Algebra teacher and the Latin teacher handed out a ton of homework in that grade. The Latin teacher was especially a major PIA. Both studied 2-4 hours a night. They both recall working until 2am one or twice a month.

One friend has a PHD in Math and is a full professor. He also works at a major nuke lab and also owns a company that does quantum computing. He told me he usually studied from 5pm until 9pm and then did six hours on the weekend. He said he hated it sometimes. But now appreciates the work ethic he developed. He said his dad encouraged him to stick with it. He gave up football his junior year to focus on his studies. I do recall him quoting aphorisms to motivate himself.

The other friend is head of the surgery department in a major metro area. She told me she often cried her 9th and 10th grade years. She also had major concert commitments outside of school as she played 2d chair in the metro orchestra and also did recitals around the country. She was in band and the band teacher would let her take a nap in her office or study there. There was a lot of trauma in her life her junior year as well due to loss of family members so schoolwork was her refuge.

I now also recall that my GF in HS cried sometimes. She is now head of pediatrics at a large hospital. She usually studied all weekend and from 2-4 hours every night during the week. She also did theater outside of school and had to give it up her junior year to focus on school. She really wanted to be a physician and that was what kept her going.

All three earned straight As, had SAT 1's over 1450, and two were NMSF.

Both friends said they felt that I did not have to work as hard as they did to get the same grade - so "easy" was not so "easy" for them.

I hope this helps provide perspective in some way.

Not super recently but I did give a call to the community college this morning. She more than meets their low requirements to waive the age limit to enroll. You only need something like 19s on the math, english, and reading parts of the ACT to be allowed to enroll in whatever you want. We would, unfortunately, have to pay full tuition at the community college if we just take her out and have her do an online high school or homeschool. If she's enrolled in the local school district, they pay the cost of the CC tuition. I don't see how she'd possibly be able to take CC classes in addition to what she's already doing there, though, and it's not an option to replace classes they offer at the high school, just to take classes that are not offered at the high school.

My strong suspicion on this is b/c they won't get full funding for her from the state if she isn't enrolled full time.

On a side note, she's actually as much as 2-3 yrs younger than some of the other freshmen for some odd reason! Her bd put her on the young end and with the grade skip I do expect that she'll be 1-2 yrs younger, but there seem to be a lot of 15-16 yr old freshmen.

The problem with too much work, though, is that overwork can lead to burnout and chronic depression.

Austin, and this thread in general, has obliquely raise a point that I have been considering for a while. Is it advisable for 2E kids to be aiming for the kinds of career paths Austin's friends have successfully pursued? Are they always going to need more down time, longer to get things done, etc. Is it ever going to be realistic for them to have a sustained output that is both intellectually more than average and output volume and hours per week more than average? Can they be mentally and physically healthy with that sort of load? Sure they may have the intellectual capacity to be head of surgery at a major hospital - but is that life a good idea for them?

My eldest DD is 9, she's most definitely not PG, I am guessing she will show up MG when re-tested next month. She wants to be a cardiologist or a neurologist. And I believe she has the capacity to get there if she wants it, but I do wonder if med school and early years of practice as a surgeon is something she is cut out for, and whether we should be encouraging something that is challenging and stimulating but she can pursue and still have a more balanced life. Does that make any sense at all?

I'm a cardiologist. At age 9, kids really don't know what they want to be. She is at least 25 years away from being a fully practicing physician- who knows what the practice of medicine will be like then? Alot of fields, including cardiology and surgery, can offer a good work-life balance.
These threads offer up a general theme though for some kids who grade skip- when they get into the higher grade levels, like high school, the amount of busy work associated with taking Honors/AP classes can be overwhelming if they are alot younger than their classmates.

Medicine is one of the last fields out there that offers a real salary. I'm still thinking about going into it now because it's one of the last places where you easily can make $250,000 based on something other than your ability to sell and market. I don't really feel like enduring the training, and it would waste another 8 years of my life, but the salary provides you enough so that you can actually live something resembling a life.

I don't know about the US system, but we are in Australia, where Medicine is generally direct entry from highschool, requiring incredibly high marks AND a second medicine entry exam and interviews. And it most likely requires careful subject choices in highschool - balancing what she will get best marks from and prerequisite subjects for medicine. She's in yr4, 5 years from now she will be making subject choices for the following year that may "matter". If we thinking she may not be that well suited to the level of pressure and output required to get into medicine, to study medicine and to practice (some fields) of medicine then we should probably start gently encouraging any other ideas that come up pretty soon so she's at least not thinking on one track, which she has been for a while now. And to be honest I could have predicted medicine and vet science would he high on her interest list from her interests as a toddler.

In the U.S. we have enough D.O. schools that you pretty much only need a barrel of cash. Or access to federal debt origination.

Plus, there's always the Caribbean.

My point was simply- children mature at different times. Maybe at age 13 or age 18, etc., a child that seems flaky or not able to achieve at age 9 might do better later on, or vice versa.

In my DDs case she is steadily improving but she is 2e and although we are doing a better job of picking up and remediating her issues than our parents did, family history tells me that some of her difference will be lasting.

I just wanted to address and clarify a few things. With my dd10 being distinctly 2e, I have to admit that I don't really view dd13 as 2e. Yes, she does have avg processing speed which is seriously out of sync with her other abilities, but she isn't ADD, not dyslexic, has no ASD... I really view the SPD dx she has from her younger years more as part and parcel of being HG+ than a disorder. That and the avg speed are the only things one could possibly call 2e and they really don't rise to the level of 2e in my book.

I also really don't think that being a year or two older would make a difference in this circumstance for her and I don't believe that we are now seeing the negative aspects of a grade skip for that reason. She was a straight A student all the way through an IB middle school with fairly large work output expectations. She won regional writing contests, academic and citizenship awards, and scored about the same as the avg high school junior at this very high achieving high school she now attends on the ACT when she took it in 8th grade shortly after her 12th bd. She participated in clubs, had lead roles in musical theatre productions, was pretty popular...

The list goes on and on and, while I can't say for sure, I really don't think that 5 hrs of nightly homework would be more managable for her at 14 or 15 than it is at 13. I also don't think that she'd do it any faster. As I said earlier, the work is not in any way too hard for her. It is just too much quantity and I think that would always be the case not b/c she is 2e or younger, but b/c it isn't a fit for her as a person to work that much.

I am sorry to have hijacked your thread cricket! I should have started a new one!

That's okay! My last comment was b/c I have seen a few posts that seemed to insinuate that her age was the reason this was a problem and/or that grade skips might have negative consequences later down the line that weren't seen earlier.

I don't think that what she is being asked to do is reasonable regardless of age.

On a side note, she couldn't bring herself to drop photo b/c she loves it so much so, for now, she's still in the same spot with the same classes. Today she will be working on building a life sized anatomical model of a human with the front of the body cross-sectioned to show the internal organs down to capillaries. Then there is journal writing, vocab catch up b/c she's behind on that, French, Geometry, and Earth Systems homework...

Hmm. Consider this. Given the effects of Title IX, it is easier for girls to get a full ride athletically than academically as compared to boys. Most colleges will support a five year plan so sports and academics are a realistic goal in college. They also support with tutors, dorms, etc.



A good networking person, system admin, or DBA with 5 solid years of experience can make 100K pretty easily. People with 10+ years make 250K pretty easily. Or, you can get an MBA and enter the managment ranks and make 500K or more after 10-15 years. There is still no way out of 60 hour weeks and you may not like where you end up.


I agree. Everyone matures at different rates. However, high achievers tend to have high workloads put on them at an early age and then find a way to deal with it. Sometimes this is a load they place on themselves or it comes from an outside source.

Dermatology give you 4 day work weeks, $300,000, and life near the beach. You have to put in the residency hours, but then you can cruise after you're out.

I didn't realize that DBAing was still paying good salaries, like that, though. One of my friends seems stuck at $120,000 or so with 10 years experience.

And just think of all the fun of popping those zits!


So he's making $60 an hour while he is being billed out at $300 an hour? There are agencies that take just 20% of your bill rate and who also pay you a 5% commission on their hours on anyone you place. A good DBA with five people placed will do well. Or you could just place people and work on commission. Or bring in a whole project.

I don't think you make that much in Dermatology anymore, LOL. You can work part-time, but you won't make THAT kind of money. My friend who is one sees 30 patients a day, so I also wouldn't say "you can cruise after you are out." She also has the threat of lawsuits if she misses a melanoma/skin cancer.
Like any job, it has negatives.
I"m a cardiologist and think it's alot of fun. However, I would never suggest being a doctor if you didn't really like it- 4 years college, 4 years medical school, 3-8 years training post-med school working 80-100 hours a week at $35,000 a year?? You would make more money for the hours you put in if you opened your own small business!

Or you'd make no money at all for the hours you put in, and end up declaring bankruptcy to escape the mountain of debt. Being self-employed has its negatives, too.

I know that there is a lot of overhead including malpractice insurance in the medical field, but is it really that low paying for a doc? Heck, my kids picked up some horrible cough from my brother's children this summer that a PA at the ped's office dx as mycoplasma is a 15 minute office visit (she saw both of them together). We were in and out in 15 mins and then off to get antibiotics which dd12 turned out to be allergic to, but that's another story.

When the bill came in, we had $138 per kid for that 15 mins, so essentially $276 for 15 mins of office time or $1104/hr. Insurance paid a little over $50 of it, leaving me with an over $200 bill for what was seriously 15 mins for both of them together.

She's talking about residency. And, no, you make more money as a resident than that. And when you get out, your pay essentially depends on your rank in doctor-world.

You need to get into the proper specialty. The best specialties, according to my psychiatrist brother-in-law, have two requirements:

(1) You treat patients with serious, I'm about do die, conditions - cancer/heart problems.

(2) Your patients are relatively well off, with solid insurance, who have worked their lives to accumulate $$$.

I talk to him about doctor status levels. He asserts that psychiatrist is the lowest. I told him that I thought GPs were the lowest, but apparently psychiatrists are even more disfavored (although better paid). Apparently that's the specialty you go into when you get through med school and figure out you don't want to be a doctor.

I'm just grouchy about my (relatively) low salary and near complete disinterest in my job. It's annoying to have to save 50% of your salary.

I just can't tell whether the upcoming sovereign debt catastrophe will slice physician salaries by 50% and/or destroy the economic rent seeking that's present in the better specialties.

hmm. I think there are some kids who work fast and some that don't and it is pretty much independent of age (within bounds). Therefore it is critically important that you know your child's strengths and weaknesses and be able to evaluate the high school(s) accordingly. Tailor as much as possible.


I couldn't resist:
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/grade_skipped.htm

I'm abhorred by this entire conversation. Let's set aside that this is a younger, gifted child, because I don't think ANY child, of any age or ability level, is well-served by spending this much time on unproductive nonsense outside of school hours. It sounds like this school has forgotten that the purpose of school is learning.

I'd pull my child out ASAP, and I'd have some very strong words at the next Board of Education meeting.

FWIW, you can add my voice to the many AP graduates who found a real AP education involved less homework, not more. Heck, my US History teacher gave out a worksheet that might take 20 minutes, and he'd walk in the classroom the next morning to see us all copying the homework answers from the one kid in the class dumb enough to actually do it. He never said a word.

I scored a 5 on that one.

I work in IT, and yeah, you can get to 100K with 5 years' experience, depending on the local market. In places where there's a high cost of living, that's certainly attainable.

But 250K with 10 years' experience? No.

500K as a manager? No.

60 hour work weeks? Possibly, at times. It depends on whether you're working on a time-sensitive project, or if you're doing consulting. Otherwise, if you're consistently working 60-hour weeks, you're not doing it right.

The "bill" that people get doesn't reflect what the doctor gets. A bill for $138 doesn't mean either that the insurance company gives the practice $138- often it is $50 or less.
When I worked at our local university/medical school, the bill for an ablation that I did was $100,000. Wow! I got maybe $300 for my 3-4 hours of work. I have no idea where that $100,000 went.
My point was simply that, like most fields, being a doctor isn't as lucrative as it might look or as it was in previous years. My friend's son is going to a private medical school in NY- it's $75,000 a year! For 4 years. That's alot of money to pay.

You can pay it back pretty quickly, though. It took me 4 years to pay off $120,000 back in 2000-ish, and that was with an $80K starting salary. You just send your entire salary to Sallie Mae. I think I was paying them off at a rate of $3,000+ per month.

So there are two threads in one here? One is about busy work, and the other is about the personal finances of physicians?

Overall, medicine is friendlier than law. In medicine, you seem to make partner. In law, unless you somehow figure out how to sell and market, you're out on the street, so to speak, after 7-10 years. Plus, law has a much more severe pyramid structure. Last I checked (about 5 years ago), equity partner at one of the larger firms was requiring $2,000,000 in billable value. Less than that and No Soup For You.

Doctors have been much better at limiting supply, which increases the strength of the guild.

If I went into medicine, cardiology is already off my list of specialties. It's pretty high-stress. I've already represented one cardiology burn-out who was nearly dying from the stress.

Also, with respect to the actual content of this thread, I agree with Dude.

Right, I know that. As I noted, my insurance paid something like $25 per kid and the doctor's office billed the remainder to me. I work in the medical field, so I know that there are some write offs for agreements w/ insurance cos, but in this instance, the dr's office got nearly $300 for 15 mins of work btwn what my insurance paid and what I am paying. I know that covers office staff, supplies, insurance, etc., but it is still a good pay rate.

Back on topic, though, since I am the OP and someone else did bring up the original issue. We're going to try to make it through this year and, if things aren't better as the year goes on, consider something different for next year. I want her to give it a fair shake and see if it is going to be this much in terms of quantity long term. She's holding up grade wise and mostly emotionally for now. We took last night off and went to a concert and I'm trying to work with her on balancing life with school.

lol

We can talk about the IQ of physicians, too!

10th percentile - 105
90th percentile - 133 (?)

The most intelligent of all the professions!

http://sq.4mg.com/IQ-jobs.htm

Wisconsin men only.

Note: Intelligence may vary outside of Wisconsin. Void where prohibited.