But it’s increasingly the case that Johnny is fully in favor of and cooperating with his parents’ intervention. I have a friend who teaches at a local university who reports that this sort of thing is now routine - she deals with a dozen cases a semester.
[Pink Floyd]
Momma’s gonna keep Baby cozy and warm.
Oooo Babe.
Oooo Babe.
Ooo Babe, of course Momma’s gonna help build a wall.
[/Pink Floyd]
My kids are 8 and 10. For the last couple of years I’ve been telling them that their faults, failures and successes are their responsibility. You didn’t do your homework? Tough: you explain it to the teacher.
- Dear Madam: dribbling should be kept on the basketball court, not in the the classroom.
Bullshit. The school’s basic responsibility is to educate the children.
Period.
Any sporting events are extracurricular activities-that’s why they occur after school and on weekends, not during the day.
Is this always the case in the United States?
When i went to school, in Australia, Wednesday afternoons (after lunch, still during school time) were set aside for competitive sport, and it was considered a part of one’s obligations as a student. Kids who didn’t like sport, or who were not athletic, still had to participate in some sort of physical activity overseen by teachers, and those of us who did play on the competitive teams spent Wednesday afternoons playing rugby or cricket or field hockey or basketball against other schools in our area.
The Wednesday afternoon sport block was standard across all the public high schools in our region, so that we could easily coordinate our game schedule.
They are extracurricular in that they are in addition to the curriculum that the school teaches and in that they are not required for graduation, though some Phys Ed is required.
This varies a great deal by city and state, but typically high schools require a certain number of credits to graduate–4 credits of English, 2-4 of science, 3-4 of math, maybe some fine arts, foreign languages and speech–the specifics vary. Often, these include one or more years of physical education.
If a student attends class all day for 4 years, they will have more slots to fill than they need to graduate–electives. It’s not uncommon for participation on a sports team to count as an elective: the sports team meets during the last class of the day, say, and continue practicing after school gets out (especially in season), so that the kids can get 2-3 hours of practice and still get home in time for dinner and homework. This can substitute for as many years of PE credit as they need, but if they stay on the sports team afterwards, those later classes don’t actually count towards graduating. Other students may use those elective slots to be on the newspaper staff, leave early to go to a part time job, or be in the band or choir.
As far as the actual competition goes, most of those take place after school with a few exceptions: IME Golf and Tennis almost always take place during the day because the schools can’t rent the facilities during times popular with people with jobs. There are also many tournaments for basketball, baseball, volleyball and softball where a group of teams will play all day. Most people that play in those sports miss 2-6 school days a year for tournements. The worst offender in my district, though, is baseball, where, since there are no lighted fields here, games have to start right at 4. Since we don’t get out of school until 4, that means that for away games the boys leave at 2, missing at least one academic class. Baseball players can miss that last class 15 times in the spring. It’s awful.
So sports can take place during the day, but they are still basically extracurricular.
As a side note. “no pass no play” is a law, at least here in TX, not just a guideline.
Extracurricular activities, like band, orchestra, debate, sports, etc., are part and parcel of educating children.
Marc
mhendo writes:
> When i went to school, in Australia, Wednesday afternoons (after lunch, still
> during school time) were set aside for competitive sport, and it was considered
> a part of one’s obligations as a student. Kids who didn’t like sport, or who were
> not athletic, still had to participate in some sort of physical activity overseen by
> teachers, and those of us who did play on the competitive teams spent
> Wednesday afternoons playing rugby or cricket or field hockey or basketball
> against other schools in our area.
What you’re talking about is what’s called physical education in the U.S. In elementary school and high school in the U.S. you’re generally required to take a physical education class, which is approximately two or three class periods per week. These are entirely separate from playing on the sports teams that competed against other schools, although in some cases a student may be allowed to substitute playing on a sports team for physical education. Physical education classes consist of playing or learning to play various sports and exercises with other students in your class.
Extracurricular activities are just that, opportunities for students to engage in over and above their regular curriculum. It’s a privilege to be allowed to be in marching band, speech, student government, drama club or sports, and one of the conditions is that you are satisfactorily handling the expected classload that every other student in school is handling.
Aside from that argument - as others have said, this is largely about responsibility. First, no kid in high school doesn’t know what their grade is going to be at the quarter, unless a teacher is a complete incompetent. Since more than one of little Jiohnny’s teachers got the letter, it’s more logical that the problem here is his, not theirs.
So he lets his grades lapse, knowing full well that a sub-par grade is going to hurt his chance to play ball, but slides because he knows in the end, momma will drop in to save the day.
That just baffles me. Regardless where Johnny’s jump shot lands HIM, I’d have a really hard time understanding how it’s going to help anyone else’s education. Can you help me understand this?
Nah. If he were really worth bending the rules for, he’d be on the varsity team at any age. Around here at least there’s no set age/grade level rules for who gets to be on varsity. If you’re really good you can be on a varsity team as a freshman or sophomore.
No, your description of physical education is not the same as what i was talking about.
I was talking about school time that is specifically set aside for sports teams playing in competition with other schools. Every Wednesday afternoon, starting at about 1 p.m., we represented our school is rugby or cricket (or whatever) against other schools in our region. On the other four days of the week (MTThF), there were regular classes in the afternoon; on Wednesday afternoon, no-one had classes. Sure, some non-athletic students did not play on the organized sports teams, and had to be content with whatever was organized for them, but the majority of kids in the school played organized competitive sports.
We had physical education, just as you describe it here, in grades 7 through 10. It was separate and different from the Wednesday afternoon sports.
Then there’s nothing that’s the equivalent of the Australian Wednesday afternoon sports in the U.S. There’s just physical education, which is required two or three times every week for everybody during the school day, and competitive sports, which is entirely optional and only occurs after school hours. There are no required athletic teams in the U.S., at least in public schools. (Perhaps some private schools have requirements.)
For every true helicopter parent who must be involved in every facet of their precious snowflake’s life, and for every kid who welcomes that kind of thing, there are at least two or three students who tell their parents to fuck off. Said parents then come whining to their kids’ advisers or the department secretary or chair about how they have the “right” to legally-privileged information because they pay tuition. These parents are a headache to advisers, but as long as advisers can invoke the Buckley Amendment, there’s not a lot the parents can do.
One day, I was in the department office doing something when the parents of a prospective student came in. The kid didn’t say a word as his mother asked questions like “How often are conferences with parents called?” and “What kind of communication does the department have with parents?” The secretary looked at her like she had three heads and explained that, in college, professors and advisers don’t have contact with parents; that must come from the student. After a few more, similar questions, the kid lost it and went off on his mother. Apparently, this wasn’t the first college where she’d done that, and he was sick of her embarrassing him. Furthermore, he was going to college to be on his own, and if she didn’t like it, that was just too damn bad.
The mother looked like she’d been slapped and was about to cry. The secretary and I looked at each other with knowing glances. We knew what that was about.
Robin
I have actually had that happen. Eye-opening, I tell you. Parent calls to bitch about early twenty-something daughter getting a negative performance review. :eek:
My response was (In the most faux-polite tone I could summon) “Sorry, I cannot discuss private personnel matters with you. Kthanxbye!”
You do realize that you’re making a blanket statement and then backing it up with “around here,” right? There are plenty of places where underclassmen can’t play varsity.
And why the hell is the OP “pitting” school athletics? This is a problem with either a parent or a child’s unwarranted sense of entitlement- it’s got nothing to do with athletics and could just as easily be about Speech/Debate or Model UN or Color Guard.
Wow- you’re attributing a LOT to a kid you don’t know. In HS, I was getting a grade in chem that precluded my going to the state championships in Speech and Debate. It wasn’t that I wasn’t trying, I just didn’t get it. So I didn’t go. If my mother had called up and demanded or even tried th wheedle me into States, I’d have been fucking MORTIFIED that my mommy had to fight my battles for me.
There are just as many of ME as there are of your little stereotype out there; the thing is, you don’t hear about people like me because “entitled kids” make for a much better story.
Maybe the kid is the way you say he is. But YOU don’t know that.
Pit the parent. But to blame this on the kid or the fact that it’s basketball is irresponsible.
Seconded.
To insist that the “values” instilled by sports are more important than the values instilled by being responsible for your actions is one of the most bizarrely ludicrous assertions I’ve seen here.
Did you read the same OP that I did?
Where is anything said blaming this on either the school athletics program or the kid? Any blame is directed specifically at the mother for suggesting that the grade be changed.
I went to high school either near or at the same school as MGibson, so I’m going to jump in. It may very well be cultural, because I know where he’s coming from.
Extracurricular activities are part and parcel of the educational experience in a lot of places. It’s not always about learning the “values” that sports teach, values I’m not sure exist. For a lot of kids, extracurriculars are how they differentiate themselves from the competition for college admission and scholarships. Parents and counselors have convinced themselves that Johnny won’t get into a “good” college or get a scholarship unless Johnny participates in one or more extracurriculars. So what ends up happening is parents lose sight of the forest for the trees and the extracurriculars become more important than the academics and Johnny gets ridden hard about the basketball and less about the grades until it becomes apparent that the grades aren’t acceptable enough for Johnny to play ball. Then Mommy or Daddy steps in and tries to convince the teacher that it’s more important for Johnny to play ball than it is for Johnny to do his homework, and why can’t the teacher just see that? After all, it isn’t hurting anyone if the teacher changes the grade to a C. Except that it is hurting Johnny, who’s learning that he doesn’t have to do what’s expected of him because someone will always go to bat for him. And Johnny flunks out of college when Mommy and Daddy aren’t there for him anymore, and the coach refuses to rip the professor a new one because Johnny is one more player on the team and not the special snowflake he thinks he is, and the coach isn’t willing to put his job on the line for that.
I’ve seen that a few times. Can you tell?
Robin
That’s a total crock, the policy I mean. An adult is not responsible for another adult’s actions. Most places where I’ve lived, there are laws that prohibit an employer from discussing an employee’s disciplinary record with a person not authorized to have such access, even if the person is the employee’s parent. What should work is, “I’m sorry, we cannot discuss an employee’s personnel issues with you.” If that doesn’t work, up the ante with, “It is illegal for us to provide you that information. Please refrain from asking us to violate the law.” Finally, “We have informed our legal staff of your harassing calls to this company. We shall refer any future calls from you to the appropriate authorities for prosecution.”
My response would have been a little shorter.
Dear Mrs. Johnson:
Thank you for your letter. It caused me to review Johnny’s grade for the semester. He will now receive an F in the course.
Sincerely,
Clothahump