The boys are in 8th grade so the last several weeks have consisted of various meetings aimed at getting them ready for high school. No, that's not true, the meetings were aimed at getting the kids into college. At some point we jumped right over the high school experience and went straight to freaking out about college. And yes, you can hire someone right now to start prepping your kid to get through his college entrance interview.
The first meetings were held in the library and the 8th graders meet with the 8th grade counselor. I'm sure at some point the purpose of these meetings was to let the kids know what was required to get a high school diploma, entrance into a UC school or entrance into a USC school so make sure you register for the right classes. Now it's "Scared Straight The College Years". I have heard this talk twice because I happened to be helping in the library when it was given for the last two years. The phrase used most often by the counselor was "It's not enough that you (fill in the blank)" and she goes on to inform the kids that they will not get into college unless they have a 5.0, multiple extra curricular activities, volunteer hours, speak three languages and develop an smart phone app that provides clean water to an impoverished third world village. When one student asked about after school jobs, the counselor actually said, "Having a job doesn't count." This lecture is messed up beyond belief.
When it was time for the boys to get "the talk", I decided to keep one of the boys home because he was already stressed out but I let the other one sit through the lecture. Can you guess which was which? I knew I'd made the right decision when I had this conversation with Sam,
Me, "So how'd the High School talk go?"
Sam, "Well, I'd taken an allergy pill in the morning so I kinda fell asleep in the middle"
Me, <face palm>
And Tom maintained a elevated stress level due to hearing how hard everything would be from his regular teachers but he didn't go fully ballistic. So well done, me.
After the counselor finished meeting with all the kids, it was the parents' turn. I knew immediately that this was not the same talk she gave the kids because she was smiling. She introduced herself and said that she'd been the one scaring the kids over the last two weeks and everyone laughed because it sounded like a joke. She also presented 'not going to college' or 'attending community college' as a viable option rather than what the losers do. I will give her credit for realizing that there were probably folks in the audience that fell into those two categories so she'd better tone things down. I left about half way through when it became apparent that all she was going to do was read through the informational packet and I didn't need to have it read to me. I could to that myself later that night while sitting on the toilet. (She also started late and spent the first 5 minutes talking about something that had nothing to due with the meeting. That kind of shit pisses me off.)
FYI for the handful of parents concerned that their child might not be able to take AP calculus as a senior, if you can't figure out the math class flowchart, your child probably isn't AP material. Just saying, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
The following week was orientation at the High School. It started off with a pep rally that I found weird and made me laugh even thought it wasn't supposed to be funny. The Cheerleaders did cheerleading stuff. Fine, I'm with you so far. Then the emcee introduced the Stunt Team and explained, "the stunt team is a group that does different types of stunts." Well, I'm glad we cleared that up. As far as I could tell the Stunt Team was just another group of cheerleaders and we moved from that into the Color Guards that did not present colors, the Drum Line that wasn't in a line and the Song Team didn't sing. This was followed up with an Open House in which 90% of the classrooms were closed. I guess in high school we just call things whatever we want. So when you call something an honors class, is it really an honors class? I'm going to start calling myself an astronaut.
Another pet peeve of mine, cheerleading is not a sport. Again you can call it whatever you want but if it was really a sport, they wouldn't be wearing make-up. Just saying.
The final meeting was, well, I can't really remember the purpose of the final meeting but it involved a slide presentation. The kids got a binder of important information at least I assumed it was important but at that point they could have handed everyone a box with a squirrel in it and I wouldn't have blinked. I guess we did learn how to log on to the system to select the two electives and two alternate electives, which is all 9th graders really get to choose. Unless your child is going to be taking college level courses in high school then there are a few extra hoops to jump through. Now that whole program is interesting because if it continues to expand then eventually your kid can take all of his college courses while still in high school and you'll no longer have to deal with the whole headache of college admissions. In the meantime, I think I'll let the guys take their college courses when they get to college. I know, color me crazy but I'm just too tired for all the bullshit.
And, Ms. High School Counselor, if you are going to dedicate an entire slide and talking point to the importance of being on time, you should start your meeting on time. Also I have a college textbook somewhere in my garage that will explain why lengthening the 'pass-through' times will not solve your tardiness problem, it will only hide it better.
But regardless of all the crap, Sam left excited for high school and Tom left a little less nervous and I left very glad that it hadn't rained so Mission Accomplished. High School here we come!
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