I distinctly remember the day my then-second grader came home in tears over her math homework. "It's too hard, I can't do it," she cried. I happened to be at her school the next day and mentioned to her teacher that she was upset about the math homework...
...Up until now, this has been an issue that is addressed in hushed conversations outside of school walls. Teachers quietly admit it, parents struggle with how to help their kids, but officially, the subject is taboo.
But the tide may be turning. A group of parents at one local high school are organizing to bring the needs of their at-risk children to the community's attention. On Sept. 30, Walt Whitman High School is premiering the documentary Race to Nowhere, which explores the "pressures faced by American schoolchildren and their teachers in a system and culture obsessed with the illusion of achievement, competition and the pressure to perform."
In Montgomery County, we will soon have the opportunity to make this a priority with the selection of a new school superintendent. Let's get this conversation out in the open and do something about it.
I just found this group and I agree. But my daughters' experience for lower school at private schools was so, so different - grades were not stressed and my daughters had such a love for learning. Now my older daughter is in an MCPS high school and we are already hounded by Edline. Do you think the situation at private school is different - or is it just the difference between lower grades and upper grades?
I just found this group and I agree. But my daughters' experience for lower school at private schools was so, so different - grades were not stressed and my daughters had such a love for learning. Now my older daughter is in an MCPS high school and we are already hounded by Edline. Do you think the situation at private school is different - or is it just the difference between lower grades and upper grades?
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