Is the Drive for Success Making Our Children Sick?
Many of the posts have to do with the expectations of business, society, etc. Maybe we parents have something to do with it too.I should be happy. I'm educated, have interesting and rewarding work to do, have a roof over my head, and get to play music on the side. I've got two great kids, who are both smarter than me. What's wrong with that? Why should I be neurotic about success? Why should push myself and my kids harder than I was pushed? And make no mistake, I was pushed.Because I can see that my class -- the middle class -- is vanishing, so the expectations of my generation are no longer valid. Get an OK degree in something worthwhile and work hard. Gone. I literally followed exactly the same education and career path as my father. That's gone.We don't know what the future expectations will be, so we aim as high as possible. I don't know if this is a good thing, but it seems like what's happening. Not to mention, I grew up in a family culture that held education to be one of the highest values, so we were inclined to be demanding about education even before all hell broke loose.Another thing I've noticed is that the school curriculum is more intensive and consuming, but not necessarily more advanced. My kids are ahead of where I was at the same age, in terms of simplistic milestones like Algebra. They have perfect GPA's. I sure as hell didn't. But the curriculum is more superficial and more based on drill work, worksheets, and computer busywork. They write more papers. That's good. Their papers are written to fill out a thing called a rubric, which is a glorified worksheet. That's bad. I recently found a copy of my 12th grade public school math textbook. More than half of the problems are proofs. Today there are no proofs. The proliferation of homework merely gives the illusion of a rigorous curriculum, and robs kids of the time that they could spend learning interesting things or just having fun. I learned things like programming and electronics while in high school, during the time when I was not doing homework.