Expect the Unexpected

With rain-soaked terrain, fallen trees have cut power to my neighborhood with increasing frequency despite a lack of snow. On a sunny day, a text notification comes across my phone that the power is out . . . again. With each such notification, I consider what I have in my refrigerator and how the lack of power will impact my business, home temperature, plans, and attitude. My expectation for consistent power and the disruption of that expectation can send me reeling. These experiences, along with other disappointments, have made me reflect on how our expectations can affect our children and us.

 Our hopes and dreams are many. We dream of our children reading early, becoming star soccer players, excelling as students, slaying their AP classes, enrolling at a four-year selective college, preferably Chapel Hill, taking over the family business, meeting the perfect mate at just the perfect age, and, eventually, producing adorable grandchildren for us to shower with love. Rarely are these dreams fully realized. How we anticipate and react to our “disappointments” can shape our – their – experiences.

 Indeed, I believe that expectations often paralyze us: they stifle creativity, individuality, and our ability to become real catalysts, and they suppress our growth. Adapting our habits and attitudes and moving beyond our expected roles can lead to innovation and fulfillment. Robert Frost had it right: the road not taken really does make all of the difference. I marvel at how we seem to promote the expected itinerary to our children when our heroes usually traveled far afield.

 As your children choose next year’s academic courses; as they consider whether they will take a “different” path by attending community college, by taking a gap year, by learning a trade, by applying for a job, by enlisting in service; as they contemplate any number of paths that vary from our expectations, we, as parents, need to embrace their initiatives (or at least openly consider them). Our children will make some mistakes and take some wrong turns, but their journeys will be profoundly changed, often for the better, by making them their own. I challenge you to monitor your reactions to such “disappointments” - to adapt to new terrain, to pave a new path, and to allow that new journey to exceed your expectations. Do not be constrained by what is expected or by what has been “proven to work in the past.” 

A Sense of Place

         This past weekend, my husband and I attended The Best of Our State at Pinehurst Resort, a storied weekend that celebrates Our State magazine and, more importantly, North Carolina and draws a sellout crowd – hundreds of returning visitors each year – to enjoy speakers and artists representing various state regions and industries. A newbie to the conference, I was immediately fascinated by the group’s comradery. Folks not only reunite annually at this conference but also warmly welcome newcomers, like me, and we all share the same home: North Carolina.

         I listened to Karen Amspacher share her love of and commitment to Harkers Island, a sparsely-populated hurricane-ravaged coastal community, rich in family history, and immediately realized that my husband and I had perhaps failed to cultivate in our own children or in ourselves her intense tie to her land and to her community. That’s what was present in this weekend, a profound communal feel.

         Community has too often taken a backseat in our lives. We often find ourselves too busy, rushing from activity to activity, to appreciate the beauty in the land and in the people around us.

         As I reflect on this weekend, I have surmised that, although my husband and I did an adequate job exposing our boys to North Carolina culture, especially to our Winston-Salem community and to our favorite eastern North Carolina stomping grounds, Oriental, Arapahoe, New Bern, and Emerald Isle, in retrospect, we could have, we should have, done more.

         Today’s culture is increasingly global and transient. Both our boys have now flown the nest, and, although I am proud to say that they are financially independent, I wish that they felt a stronger tug to our great state. I have not ruled out the possibility that one or both could return home to take up residency in North Carolina, but that possibility seems more remote than I’d like. My oldest son is two-plus years post college graduation and on his second job, and that transition to a second job is the norm, both within his field and his peer group. Change is ever-present in our children’s lives. Instilling a sense of place, a true sense of home within our community, therefore, seems more important, more stabilizing than ever.

         In hindsight, I wish we had been more intentional about exposing our children to the annual events within our community and within North Carolina. Our children are well-traveled, from border-to-border and beyond, but often their North Carolina travel was for sporting events that limited their exposure to a tennis court or a cross-country course, rather than affording them to soak up local haunts and products and to gain a sense of the community.

          I share my misgivings with you, so you will benefit from them. Take time in 2020 to indulge in and appreciate local culture. Find time to share that culture with your children while you can. Do not avoid events for “lack of time.” Planting communal seeds may inure to your benefit in the long-term. And, if you need ideas, pick up a copy of Our State magazine, an award-winning publication second to none.

Warning! ACT Changes Ahead.

My husband and I just finished a minor home renovation, which has made me acutely aware of the value of good customer service: timely service that meets expectations and needs at a fair price and that instills trust. Customer service is a shared relationship. The provider should stand proudly behind its product, but the customer also bears responsibility for clarifying expectations and needs. Let’s consider our relationship with the standardized testing industry.

With only two primary providers, the ACT and the CollegeBoard (SAT), competition in the testing industry is limited, which drives product quality down. In recent years, critics have attacked the ACT and the SAT for printing errors, corruption, security issues, arbitrary essay scores, and inherent unfairness, calling into question the quality of their products and our trust in the industry. These companies bring in hundreds of millions of dollars each year. As customers, we should feel emboldened to seek testing reliability and top-notch service, and, accordingly, a movement is afoot, with widespread demands to abandon the tests as inherently unfair to the poor and with the adoption by colleges of test-optional admission policies. 

For now, though, testing is still a mainstay in the college application process, required to earn admission to most highly selective institutions and to qualify for many tuition reductions and scholarships. Standardized testing is used to compare students within and across borders and to measure, with some consistency, academic potential. 

In the past few years, despite the movement toward test-optional admissions, I have witnessed an increase in the frequency of testing among my local student population. College counselors are generally encouraging retesting: Eking out another point or two can be a worthy investment with high returns. Meanwhile, the scores of economically-disadvantaged students, those who cannot afford frequent retesting or individualized test prep, reflect and perpetuate, at least to some extent, their financial limitations, hence, the growing concern about the tests’ fairness. 

The ACT has responded with three proposed changes to its product:

1.   ACT Section Retesting

Beginning in September 2020, the ACT will allow students to register for and take only the sections they have targeted for improvement, without sitting for the entire test, which contains five sections. Students can thereby avoid the risk inherent in retaking a section where they are already pleased with a posted score and where they would prefer not to show regression. They can also save time and money, although rates have not yet been announced for partial testing.

 2.   ACT Superscoring

Superscoring averages a student’s best section scores (English, math, reading, and science; writing is not included) to achieve a composite superscore (from 1-36), rounded to the nearest whole number. Beginning in September 2020, the ACT will calculate and report this superscore to colleges. Many but not all colleges and students already superscore but without assistance from the ACT.

3.   Faster Results with Online Testing on National Testing Dates  

By registering for online testing on national testing dates in or after September 2020, students will avoid paper and pencil in favor of a computerized version of the test and then receive their scores in just a few days, rather than within the typical few weeks.

While the ACT’s ploy is to build market share, I applaud its pursuit of a compromise that seeks to improve customer service. I anticipate at least some student benefits from these changes. Whether colleges that do not currently superscore will adapt their policies, whether single-section retesting will benefit the economically disadvantaged, and whether these changes will result in more or less testing for our children is yet to be seen, but most can agree that the status quo in standardized testing is far from ideal and in need of revision, and the ACT has responded. 

I urge you to seek to understand the complicated relationship we have with the standardized testing industry and to pursue the best options for your child. Please let me know if I can help.

"Did You Really Read That Book?"

Last weekend, Bookmarks hosted its 15thAnnual Book Festival, the largest book festival in the Carolinas. Bookmarks works tirelessly to secure authors, from near and far and representing a variety of genres, to discuss their craft. As an avid book lover, I get goosebumps just thinking about this event, and I now look forward to the festival as a kickoff to the school year.

I try to stay abreast of the latest book releases, but the volume of great reads available abounds, and I always discover a talented author who is new to me at the festival. I have learned to identify at the book-signing tent which authors have the longest line, some wrapping around the block, each fan waiting for the opportunity to secure an autograph and to gush. I then race to the book sales tent to ensure that I get a copy of that author’s most-read title before it sells out. Those books have never disappointed and are often YA titles, from Sarah Maas, to Jason Reynolds, and, this year, to V.E. Schwab. I didn’t think I liked fantasy or superhero books, but the festival pushes me beyond my usual comfort zone.

While I saw plenty of teens at the festival, on a daily basis I recognize that most of our children do not read, and, perhaps, more disturbingly, they don’t like reading. Any book nerd knows what a travesty reading avoidance can be because of the joy these youngsters are missing. Any teacher knows, though, that a love of reading is essential to the development of our best lifelong learners.

With so many riveting reads available in paper and ebook form and in compelling audio versions, where do we as educators and parents miss the mark? Why do most of our children dread reading?

I attribute this degeneration to the confluence of numerous factors, many of which are borne in English class.

When I was in the eighth grade, Animal Farm was assigned reading. With no background in Russian history (not even in school), this novel, an allegory for the Russian Revolution, was a drudgery. I simply was not mature or learned enough to appreciate Orwell’s intentions. The novel study was more than a waste of time for me; it was a total turnoff to reading. Today’s teachers, some of whom still assign this novel to middle schoolers, regularly engage in this misstep: assigning historical fiction written in obscure language that the children struggle to understand and from a time period about which our students have no knowledge.

The students then, understandably, turn to online resources to help them grasp the novel’s meaning, but teachers and parents send the message that doing so is cheating. While I am not a fan of relying on such resources as a replacement for reading, I am a fan of doing so to support an understanding of the text, especially where the student struggles to keep up with characters or with archaic language and has minimal exposure to the novel’s context.

English teachers often also demand that their students annotate text, noting in the margins each character, literary element, and reference to the book’s theme. To me, this process is more akin to revising a strategic plan than to extracting any pleasure from the novel’s overall impact, particularly for a youngster.

Add a layer of reading quizzes and comprehension tests, followed by a five-page essay analyzing how well the author accurately interpreted this era of history, with which the student knows little, and we have created a recipe that will leave in most teenagers’ mouths a very sour taste.

Contrary to what you may think, I love a strong English teacher, but, collectively, we must rethink how we introduce reading into the curriculum. We need fresh titles. We need to dedicate some classroom time to reading for pleasure, even in high school. In our race to fulfill AP curriculum requirements, we are frequently sacrificing, in every class, not just English, the joys of learning and exploring. 

Visit Bookmarks. Visit our Downtown Forsyth County Public Library, too, because it is amazing, and pick up a book to read today, maybe even to enjoy as a family. As parents of high schoolers, try to rekindle that love of reading that you cultivated in your toddler long ago.

Prioritizing Fitness Over Finish (A Warning About Goal-Setting)

This morning, I read a compelling fictional book on school-related anxieties (The Gifted School), a Wall Street Journal article on how teens should spend their summers, and a New York Times Magazine article about a competitive elite preschool. We cannot escape the abounding focus on student positioning, achievement, and résumé-building. Our constant focus on society’s presumed definition of success (e.g., straight A’s, college admission to that perfect university, a high-paying job) usually fails to embrace weightier developmental skills, skills central to our children’s well-being. Accordingly, as you and your child consider goals for the coming year, I encourage you to be intentional about your child’s general well-being.

Goal-setting is like studying. We assume students and their parents know how to do it without instruction. Accordingly, students typically churn out their goals very quickly and very predictably, for example,

·     Earn straight A’s,

·     Make the varsity basketball team, and

·     Become president of the Key Club.

I am increasingly alarmed by the nature of students’ (and, likely, their parents’) goals because these lofty objectives only establish capstone ambitions and fail to address any integral parts of the process. Our children have limited control over the attainment of any of these achievements. Despite persistence and dedication, they may stumble in their pursuit of these goals because of an extremely demanding teacher, steep competition, a learning difference, or a host of other possible barriers. If processed appropriately, such failures can be wonderful learning moments, but if our children only see their initial goals, above, and then disappointing results, then they do not glean any benefits from goal-setting. Moreover, such goal-setting could escalate stress and anxiety and nurture feelings of worthlessness. 

Goal-setting should not be a “one-and-done” activity. Instead, goals should be chunked into step-by-step processes that define how goals will be achieved and when progress toward goals will be measured. Then, even failure to attain ultimate goals may be deemed successful because of recorded mini-accomplishments. 

Furthermore, because mental, physical, and emotional health are critical to attaining goals and optimal performance, consider setting goals to improve general well-being.

Set a goal for physical fitness. If your child is not participating in a seasonal sport, daily physical activity is a must to ensure consistent classroom performance and to relieve stress. 

Set a nutritional goal. Too much sugar can compromise mood, memory, and attention. A healthy diet will elevate learning.

Set a goal for ensuring consistent sleep. A lack of sleep may diminish recall and certainly impairs focus.

Set a goal to develop an extracurricular activity that is not about résumé-building. If your child does not want to create his or her own herb garden, to learn to play a musical instrument, to trace your family’s ancestry, to train a service dog, to build LEGO masterpieces, or to pursue an activity for the pure joy of it, then give him or her an agreeable assignment or chore, such as planning and preparing a weekly family meal. The importance of this distraction is that it will give your child a sense of pride. A pastime builds work ethic and personal satisfaction, not for a grade, and may lower anxiety; it can also help build a positive self-image.

Set a family goal. Creating strong family relationships can strengthen a student’s support system and improve emotional health.

These goals should, of course, be tailored to the individual student, be defined as precisely as possible, and be measurable. 

Goal-setting without attention to a student’s physical, mental, and emotional health may diminish the importance of health, in general. I encourage you and your family to focus not just on academic goals, but on personal well-being, a necessary foundation to ensure a student’s readiness to learn. 

Learning to Love Learning

At the age of four, our oldest son wanted to take up guitar. We enrolled him in the Suzuki program, and before we knew it, his left hand was flying up and down the frets, and his right hand adeptly fingerpicked classical tunes and, to our delight, pop tunes. He continued to work his way through the Suzuki curriculum, but his interest waned as the years progressed. By the time he reached his junior year of high school, his spark for guitar had evaporated. He had grown tired of the rote demands of classroom learning and weekly guitar practice. Much to my personal, huge disappointment, of which he is fully aware, he discontinued his guitar lessons and allowed his instrument to become a dust collector. 

The high school students I see today reflect his burnout. Their love of learning, presumably once intact, has now faded. Their high school coursework is largely predetermined. They must take the required courses, dictated by educating bureaucrats who have categorized learning into core subjects, such as English, math, science, history, and foreign language. The mere categorization of students’ learning has long ago become stale.

What seems missing in today’s classroom, in my opinion, is that spark and love of learning. Students are disengaged, systematically memorizing historical facts, mundanely performing mathematical operations, and anxiously cramming for assessments. We can blame the teachers who fail to inspire our children, and we should, but, more proactively, we can take ownership for instilling a love of learning, that curiosity, in our children.

Summer is an excellent opportunity to rediscover curiosities and to reignite a love of learning.

When he traded in his guitar, my son turned to another interest: yo-yoing. Initially, his study of yo-yos seemed trivial to me. I could not fathom his turning away from a life-long musical interest to pursue a mere pastime, yo-yoing; however, he truly loved it. He watched hundreds of yo-yo YouTube videos and developed serious skills, performing “off-string” feats that are truly mind-boggling. Most importantly, though, yo-yoing helped him rekindle his love of learning.

Seize these summer weeks and encourage your children to pursue with intense curiosity their own interests, however trivial they may seem. The ramifications of such exploration may later benefit their classroom performance.

Summer and Fall Enrollment 2019

Thank you for your interest in Arbor Road Academy! The following links will allow you to download forms for 2019 enrollment. Please fill out the forms completely and know that I am grateful for your interest. Historically, enrollment fills quickly. Priority is given based on the time and date of receipt of forms, and returning families will receive a 10-day enrollment priority window.

Summer Enrollment 2019

Fall Enrollment 2019

Feeling Blue about College Admissions

As parents, teaching our children morality is one of our most important jobs. When our children are toddlers, we begin to teach them right from wrong. “Be kind; be respectful; share; do not lie; do not cheat; do not steal.” As our children grow older, though, understanding the nuances of what is moral requires careful consideration. Not all situations are clear, and those nuances are often very confusing, even to us as adults. 

Operation Varsity Blues, the college admissions scandal, has left us reeling with questions about what is ethical. While the case unearths actions that boldly cross every conceivable line of fairness and justice, other, deeper, more difficult questions remain.

In college admissions, we have long been aware of front-door and back-door admissions. Front door admissions mean that students visit; fill out an honest application; write a personal essay, or quite a few; send a transcript, test scores, and some recommendations; and await the colleges’ decisions. Back door admissions are earned through substantial, usually very public donations, which result in less rigorous admission standards for applicants within the donor’s family. Because of the recent college admissions scandal, we are now aware that some students have gained entry to universities through a side door, through bribery and deceit. While we may have suspected that sinister behavior exists in the world of college admissions, we are all shocked by the scandal’s scope and magnitude.

The deceptive behavior about which we have read in the news is stunning: students’ falsely posing as recruited athletes; parents’ delivering bribery payments and then writing those payments off as charitable deductions; students’ faking learning disabilities; exam facilitators’ changing SAT and ACT answers; college graduates’ taking the SAT or ACT for students; and Division I coaches’ advocating admission for indisputably unqualified athletes. Imagine the damage to the involved children’s psyches. Consider the widespread ramifications and, specifically, the students from whom opportunity was stolen.

How different, though, is this behavior from the other advantages that currently exist within the system?

Our culture places an overemphasis on college selection. We live in a world of window decals, sweatshirts, and national championships. The anxiety and pressure mounting about where our children may enroll is often palpable. That pressure leads us, as parents, to make decisions that may cross lines of fairness and morality. 

I have specifically asked myself questions about admission enhancement services readily available to the economically advantaged – college counselors, test prep instructors (me), college essay reviewers (me). Am I part of the problem? While I acknowledge the deep division between the have and the have-nots, in our capitalistic society, the benefits of a private college counselor, test prep, and essay review, while perhaps not acceptable, are clearly accepted. These services are usually above board and widely accessed. Most students have an adult read their college essay who, in turn, offers feedback. Many secondary schools, public and private, offer test prep services within the curriculum. 

Other questions plague me: Should legacies earn an edge in admissions? Should athletes, some of whom bring many dollars to their schools, be welcomed without meeting academic admissions standards? 

What I do know is that we must all stand firmly against stealth, bribery, and deceit, obvious transgressions that violate our universal moral code and, in many cases, the law. In a world where lies abound, the clearest boundaries must remain intact.

The complex landscape of college admissions is not fair. I have seen far too many incongruent results to declare that it is; however, the complicated landscape is what we have. It is far from perfect, and, until we can change it, we must cope with the system and guide our children accordingly. We must continue to remind them that personal values and morality always carry more weight than the name of the institution they will attend. Our children need to develop into their best selves, not so they can earn admission to a college, but so they will become happy, wise, and healthy adults who can lead our world into a very uncertain future. We also would do well to embrace alternative avenues, other than a four-year college. Not every student should attend college. Gap years, service, technical schools, community colleges, and artistic pursuits offer worthy avenues to success. 

Taking Risks

I saw Apollo 11 last week at aperture, our local art house cinema. Apollo 11 is a documentary tracing man’s mission to the moon from launch to its lunar landing and then back to Earth. I was four years old when this successful mission took place, so my memories are only of the footage I have seen previously, primarily Neil Armstrong’s initial steps on the moon and his famous words, “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” This award-winning film, however, contains never-before-seen footage, and I believe that it is important viewing for you and your children. 

The film documents what my husband claims is “indisputably” the most significant historical event of the twentieth century. For its historical weight alone, it is worthy of your time; however, from an academic coaching standpoint, I deem the film important because it celebrates goal setting and risk taking.

On September 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy set the goal for our country to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade. The United States was spurred on by competition from the Soviets, but the success of the mission was celebrated by all mankind, because it was indeed an achievement of many, an estimated 400,000 men and women who helped to accomplish the feat.

The lunar mission was fraught with peril. Three men, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, and Neil Armstrong, literally went “where no man has gone before.” They could have run out of air, run out of fuel, or even locked themselves out of the module. They could have mistimed the reconnection with Michael Collins for the return trip to Earth. About a million things could have gone awry, yet the mission was close to seamless. The mission cost nearly two billion dollars in today’s money, so, no question, there was a lot at stake: lives, money, pride, and the future of the space program, to name a few.

The mission, therefore, required unbelievable planning, a consideration of every conceivable miscalculation and problem, and a lot of faith. Even still, the risks were huge.

I am not generally a risk-taker. Ask my children. I have the uncanny ability to identify in seconds all possible disasters that could occur with any of my children’s grand ideas for fun. I recognize, however, that our society has failed to produce enough risk takers, and risk takers become our entrepreneurs, our inventors, our change-makers.

Please watch this film and discuss it with your children, and then encourage your children to step beyond the box, even if it is only to explore a new hobby or to take an unexpected class, and teach them to believe in themselves. The fact that we put a man on the moon within seventy years of the Wright Brothers’ Kitty Hawk flight proves that with strong goal setting, planning, faith, and courage, we can accomplish the incredible.

Who's Your Caddie?

Test prep is beneficial to college-bound students because, at its essence, the SAT and the ACT are often more about test-taking skills than about any other academic skills. Educators and college admission officers acknowledge that the SAT and the ACT unfairly benefit economically-advantaged students specifically because those students have access to better, experienced test prep, which usually yields an increase in their scores. Most students have no idea how to hone their test-taking skills independently.

In sports, the path to success is to determine how best to accomplish the challenge ahead. For example, when a golfer faces a tournament weekend, he studies hole placement; gauges the weather, wind, and course conditions; and sharpens skills. He also consults his coach and his caddie! Why would we think test preparation is any different? Students must develop a plan of attack: to become familiar with testing patterns, to develop strategies for success, to understand the testing conditions, and to gain confidence and an attitude of optimism.

The SAT and the ACT are vital admission checkpoints. Despite the growing list of colleges that self-identify as test optional or test flexible, students can improve their profile significantly by securing competitive standardized testing scores.

Local freezing rain deferred this week’s in-school ACT until March for public-school juniors. Many of these students will now take the SAT on March 9, for which they had registered previously, and turn around to take the in-school ACT just four days later, far from ideal timing. The pacing of these two tests varies drastically. Much like moving from a racing car to a clunky old jalopy, these students will be velocitized by the ACT and find it tricky to slow their pace and to calibrate their attention to the wordier, often more tedious SAT problems. This transition requires scrutiny and planning.

Don’t assume students will be “just fine” on test day and allow them to go into these significant tests “cold.” Don’t assume that handing them a test prep book or directing them to practice on-line will fulfill their needs. Seek out individualized test prep that will help your children optimize their performance.

Achieving Equilibrium

I have dedicated a fair amount of blog space to your children’s hobbies. I prioritize hobbies because I am continually amazed at how many children, or adults, for that matter, can cite no personal hobbies when asked. The common reply I hear is that they enjoy “hanging out with friends,” “binging on Netflix,” or “playing video games.” How did this lack of interest, this lack of engagement, befall our youth? Hobbies and interests make human beings multi-faceted and appealing. We seem to be cultivating a generation of robots, without distinguishing interests, all focused on the singular goal of attaining “success,” however that may be defined.

I also emphasize the importance of hobbies, though, because I believe that they add so much color to my own life. I long to take a break from my daily work and chores, so I can pick up the novel I am reading, play my latest piece of sheet music on the piano, needlepoint my next creation, join friends at the bridge table, or follow a new recipe. Hobbies bring unadulterated joy, so how is it that our youth has largely abandoned the pursuit of hobbies?

In the fall of last year, Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia, published an op-ed in The New York Times entitled “In Praise of Mediocrity.” He equates our universal lack of hobbies to “a civilization in decline.” He attributes our abandonment of hobbies to our tendency only to find hobbies worthy of undertaking if they can be pursued at the highest level. Somehow, we have communicated to our children that, for a hobby to be worthy, our children must become a state champion or an expert in the field. Collecting stamps is not enough; our children must develop a stamp collection that will merit recognition on a college application. What have we done? 

I believe that our children’s work ethic and classroom performance can be improved if they can counterbalance their hard work with the pursuit of an activity that brings them genuine joy, no matter that their effort renders them only mediocre as a runner, an artist, or a seamstress.

If your children cannot promptly respond with their favorite hobby, help them identify that pursuit, that activity, that enriches their own lives. I believe that our hobbies and interests ultimately yield dividends in the classroom and in the workforce. More importantly, though, they are simply fun, a welcome respite from our daily demands.

Raising Expectations

This past weekend I went to an exercise class entitled Body Works Plus Abs, a class designed to improve overall fitness, muscle tone, and balance through high repetition weightlifting. Although I enjoy the instructor, I really hate the class. It is misery crunching out set after set of lifts. While I am generally proud of myself as I walk out the door and gain the benefit of a few endorphins swimming around inside, after-the-fact I cope with sore muscle groups and a sense of dread about attending the next class. The work ahead seems unending - use it, or lose it, as the saying goes.

I believe that my experience with exercise class is akin to how many of your children feel about homework, especially math homework where routine practice builds cumulative skills. They may dread doing it but feel more competent after completing it, notably when they do so thoroughly, with attention to detail.

As parents, our first tendency may be to sympathize with our children. Parents appreciate the sense of foreboding that comes with homework. Many parents, though, commiserate with their children but rarely direct them to “suck it up.” We may excuse our children from embracing math homework: “I was bad at math, too, so you come by it naturally.” We look the other way when our children bring home A’s in math classes that clearly lack rigor. Moreover, we may encourage our children to enroll in classes with teachers whose expectations are truly minimal but who award the easy A.  

Just like hard work in the gym, though, students cannot gain true growth in a subject matter without sufficient at-home practice, and I am constantly amazed at how little homework some math teachers assign.

I see math teachers who do not assign any regular homework, which I deem completely unacceptable and, frankly, unbelievable.  I see math teachers who rarely assign homework, and for the work that they do send home with the students, they readily award credit for it whenever it is complete, provided the work is submitted before the quarter’s end. I see math teachers who assign homework but too few problems to assure retention of the concepts. Fortunately, I also see math teachers who appreciate that repetition breeds understanding and competence. They assign a healthy, sometimes lengthy, problem set nightly. These math teachers in the final category, I believe, get it right.

Where teachers and often parents miss the mark, though, is in not setting expectations that push children to their capacity. Indeed, I suspect that many readers, right now, are wondering incredulously how their children could possibly handle any more homework than they already have.

In the process, our conservative expectations lull children into laziness. They do not exert effort when attacking math problems that require more than rote skills. They begin to seek the easy out, the “gut” class. We have become so convinced that homework causes anxiety that we have swung the pendulum too far in the other direction, especially for students who imminently face college.

I believe that we should expect more of our children. They are more resilient than we know, and, moreover, they want us to think they can accomplish the unexpected. My message to you this month is to raise the bar, both in math class and in the gym!

Stepping into Politics

We live in a politically-charged world. In our current climate, every decision we make is politicized: what car we drive, what television station we watch, and what book we read. In my lifetime, I cannot recall a more divided nation. As we approach the week ahead, election week, I believe that it is important to connect with one major responsibility we owe our children: Developing independent thinkers.

We have read about the anxiety that riddles our children, whether it originates from social media; from rampant targeted violence; from the challenges to achieve success, as we define it; from our own overprotection; or from another source. The effect of these anxieties and perhaps of the world in which we live is often unveiled in our children’s lack of confidence.

Teenagers learning to find their way are understandably and expectedly lost at times, but I do worry that our children do not always have the confidence to derive or to express their own opinions: What extracurricular club should I join, what should I discuss in my creative essay, or for what classes should I register? Many of our children are paralyzed by these more mundane questions. How will they, one day soon, independently handle the more monumental decisions?

As much as we are surrounded by political thought, I witness very little political discussion. Your children’s teachers and schools are not deeply engaging in political issues, at least from my observations, and your family is likely cautious to raise political issues at parties or even among friends, particularly those friends whose political opinions may differ from your own. After all, we were instructed at a young age to avoid the discussion of religion and politics. The result, though, is further divisiveness, and the one thing I believe most of us can agree upon is that the divisiveness is not healthy, for us or for our children. We need to strive to reach common ground and to create a world of compromise that embraces our many voices.

As the election looms, now is a wonderful time to engage your children in a discussion about the candidates running for election and about local and state government. Encourage questions from your children. Cultivate their curiosity. With the internet at your fingertips, research together the answers to their questions. In short, develop their independent thought, even if it strays, slightly or dramatically, from your own. This week is a pivotal week, a week of discussion and opportunity to instill confidence in our children, to consider other perspectives as openly as possible, and to model for our children that we take pride in our democracy and will take time to vote thoughtfully.

Know Your Audience

My husband is a magician. No, really, he is. He became interested in magic, like many boys, around the age of eight, and the hobby stuck. He performs magic shows for all ages and practices his tricks at night on me.

 One thing I have learned from him is the importance of understanding your audience. His shows for four-year olds are vastly different from his shows for adults. He has dedicated tricks for different age groups.

 The popular adage of “knowing your audience” is worthy of considering in the context of school as we approach the end of the first quarter. By now, you and your children have settled into a rhythm between school and extracurricular activities. Your children’s binders are filled with returned papers and, hopefully, teacher comments. Their grade books should be accumulating marks. Your children’s audience at school is their teachers, for teachers hold the red pens and assign the grades.

 Just as my husband’s audiences differ for magic shows depending on the age and setting, your children face distinct expectations and preferences, depending on the teacher and course. Your children can sharpen their skills by discerning and catering to their teachers’ specific desires.

 A review of comments found on returned assessments and essays should impact your children’s decisions about how to approach similar assignments in the future. Your children should pay very close attention to assignment rubrics, because they typically delineate clearly an instructor’s expectations.  Reflecting on the source of recent assessment questions, considering whether they come primarily from the textbook or classroom lectures, should help your children hone their study skills. Acknowledging the study habits and classroom participation of teachers’ star students and deliberately choosing to adapt accordingly could lead to greater achievement. In short, taking time to intentionally consider what each teacher wants can elevate classroom performance.

 While your children probably are already aware of the need to consider their teacher’s preferences on some level, the breadth of their awareness and their ability to extend that principle to other areas of their lives can transform a mediocre student into a much more perceptive, analytical thinker and performer.

 Standardized testing is a prime example. The students who can anticipate what specific skills the test makers seek to evaluate in each question will perhaps stumble upon the key to answering that question correctly. On college applications, seniors who consider the college’s community and its admission goals when crafting their essays may be more likely to strike a chord with their readers; and, in summer job interviews, by knowing what an intended employer wants and needs, candidates may attract more attention by rewriting résumés and by angling interview responses to cater to those preferences.

 By engaging in conversations with your children about these topics, you will build their awareness in the classroom and beyond, so they can learn to transition effectively from venue to venue and from audience to audience.

Preparation and Patience

The build-up to Hurricane Florence has been mind-blowing. Over a week ago, we first learned of her presence and potential impact on North Carolina. Since that time, we have witnessed nonstop news coverage and growing anticipation and fear of the storm. She has since wreaked havoc on people and property we love. Locally, we have ransacked the grocery stores and hunkered down indoors, often in what appeared to be nothing more than a rainstorm, but, foreseeing a deluge, we have stayed put, or we have ventured out precariously, aware that we are violating expected norms. We anxiously await the after-storm sunshine.

 The week certainly has been an exercise in preparation and patience, and patience is not our long-suit. We live in a fast-paced world, with our phones sounding every few minutes and our attention bouncing from topic to topic. Our apparent singular focus on the approaching storm has bred discomfort, panic, and claustrophobia, especially in September, a very busy time of the year.                                                                                          

As parents, we would benefit from a wealth of patience. We often do not show tolerance for our children’s growth. We see the storm coming with their lackadaisical attitudes and their disinterest in homework and obligations, and we panic. We suddenly set abundant rules and boundaries surrounding after-school hours and weekends and seem surprised when our children are nonplussed, inert, or outwardly resistant. How can we avoid or minimize this turmoil?

Preparation. Parents should ideally set expectations and parameters around schoolwork well in advance of trouble signs. We should not wait for sirens to instill in our children the need and obligation to take schoolwork seriously, to prioritize work over pleasure, to minimize mindless weekday activities, and to cultivate pride in performance. We must demonstrate interest by asking to see their schoolwork, not to find fault but to celebrate successes and to share our genuine curiosity. By taking the necessary precautions to avoid a crisis in a storm, we are minimizing the need for a rescue effort, and, accordingly, our children will not be as stunned by our resulting alarm when they falter.

Patience. If a storm is already upon us, though, how should we react? As a culture, we must become more patient with our children’s growth. Every low grade should be taken seriously but as an opportunity for growth, not a catastrophe. Our presence, standing ready to offer support and help as needed, will facilitate that growth. Our patience and understanding that the rebuilding will require time will yield the best possible results. 

I pray for resilience and recovery for our friends and family who have suffered at the hands of Hurricane Florence. May we not only act to support the recovery effort but also show patience and love for the suffering.

Perpective on the Year Ahead

Last night an old friend called and told me she had breast cancer.

Of course, she wanted me to know because of our longstanding friendship. Beyond that, however, I believe she called not only to share with me that she is facing a journey but also to elicit my advice because I too embarked on that journey six years ago.

The gist of our conversation gravitated toward three primary themes: every cancer patient’s journey is uniquely personal, positivity matters, and normalcy breeds comfort. Since our conversation, I have reflected on her journey, praying for her health, and on the more general application of these themes, which seems relevant as we commence another journey: the school year ahead.

I am not trying to elevate the rigors and stress of a school year, no matter the level, to staring down cancer. Cancer, as unfortunately most families know, is seemingly all-consuming and carries with it a variety of emotions and life changes; however, I do see parallels. The themes threaded through our phone conversation can be guideposts for any number of journeys we face in life. They may not be surprising truths, but we easily lose sight of them as we get caught up in our day-to-day battles during the year.

Each Child’s Journey Is Uniquely Personal. Seek Understanding Before Offering the Quick Fix.

At Arbor Road Academy, I choose to work with one child at a time so I can become intimately familiar with his or her strengths and weaknesses. Every child I meet struggles with some aspect of school, even my highest performers, and a child’s struggles will often differ from the struggles of his or her parents, sometimes to their surprise. My understanding of your whole child steers my coaching.

Most people have sensitivities when others assume that they know the journey and offer quick fixes or remedies. I was particularly irritated when people told me the decisions that they would make about breast cancer treatments, and, frankly, I still am. Students, too, I believe, want to be understood, not dismissed with a casual directive, such as “Work harder;” “Go to tutorial,” or “I expect better grades.” Sometimes these instructions are perfectly appropriate, but not always. Taking time to unravel your child’s struggles and to problem solve with him or her is usually a better approach. Other times, students need to conquer demons independently, because, through these travails, he or she will experience the most growth.

Positivity Matters.

I firmly believe that my upbeat attitude and, even more so, the outlook of my supportive husband made my cancer journey easier. Even those whose prognosis is much grimmer than my own apparently benefit from a positive outlook. Studies show that positivity leads to fewer hospital readmissions.

As parents, our own optimism about school is important, too, as our children see how we react, hear what we say, and internalize our feelings. Reframe negative statements about your child’s teachers and schedules and refrain from expressions of hopelessness, such as “You are just bad at math,” or “I heard she is a bad teacher,” substituting positivity: “You’ve got this,” “We will figure it out,” and “How can I help?”

Normalcy Breeds Comfort.

While school will be the centerpiece of your child’s life, it need not become the centerpiece of the family’s day-to-day life. Every dinner conversation should not revolve around homework, college choices, college essays, or grades. Balance is always preferable.

I never wanted my diagnosis to become the focus of every conversation or to change my relationship with family and friends. Certainly, heavy conversations were required at times, but, mostly, I craved consistency: living a normal, day-to-day life.

As your children encounter obstacles this year, they will yearn for your love and support; the structure your household offers, including their daily chores and obligations; the usual family jokes and silliness; and your efforts to understand their struggles without judgment.

If nothing more, I hope that the parallels I have drawn here offer perspective. None of these school issues are as weighty as our health or happiness. As parents, you set the tone for your children. May you and your family have a school year filled with growth and normalcy, but, mostly, may the year ahead bring your family good health and happiness.

Reading, The Differentiator

I am among those who treasure long summer days with my nose in a book, as I am anxious to catch up on the titles that have lingered far too long on my bedside table – to become immersed in a faraway land, to assume the life of another, and even to learn. As I am sure you have noticed, most of today’s teenagers do not share my obsession. Reading for pleasure among adolescents is on a steep decline according to research, and the impact has been scientifically shown to deflate vocabulary and writing skills and classroom performance across curricula.

I have been surrounded by children this summer, and most of them are decidedly not reading . . . anything. Not magazines, not books, not even their assigned reading. A few are listening to their assignments on audio. Most are “saving” their assigned reading until the final weeks before school, so the plot will be fresh for any in-class assessments.

Both my husband and I took years of piano lessons, and we credit our teachers, both of whom, perhaps reluctantly, allowed us to supplement or even replace classical music pieces with more modern tunes. Because they were open to broadening our repertoire, we both continued playing until this day.

For me, with literature, the path was not certain. I fell in love with books in the second grade when I discovered Henry Huggins, Ramona, Pippi Longstocking, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and Harriet the Spy. I read voraciously through grade school, at least until my teachers began assigning classic novels, such as Animal Farm, Romeo & Juliet, and Lord of the Flies. (I have since reread these classics and, now, have a deep appreciation for them, but I certainly did not when I was 13 or 14 or, frankly, at any time during high school.) Classic literature, in my opinion, often requires a very sophisticated palette, a deep understanding of place and time, and a strong vocabulary. “What comes first,” you may ask, “the sophisticated literature or the vocabulary and historical understanding?” Surely, some of you would argue that reading such monumental works builds strong vocabulary and appreciation for history, but this approach will only work if the students do, in fact, read and struggle with the texts. I did not, and your children are largely not doing so as well. Indeed, for years, I abandoned my love of reading, because I no longer found joy in reading page after page that seemed like mishmash to me.

I have noticed in the last few years that local English teachers are recognizing that some of these traditional titles are missing the mark with the new generation. I have recently seen modern titles on summer reading lists, which I fully support and cheer, such as Beartown and Never Let Me Go, but, yet, during the year, the classroom curriculum is filled with Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, and Ernest Hemingway. True, their works are worthy of dissertations, but perhaps not as the mainstay, the meat, upon which adolescents should gauge their reading appetite. Regrettably, our children are slow to trust a summer reading assignment, fearful that it will fall into the classic classic genre and be written in Old English – impossible either to understand or to appreciate, particularly at their age.

Encourage your English teachers to allow some choice in reading and to include some modern texts in their curriculum, and by “modern,” I don’t mean 1950; I mean post-2000! Discuss books with your children, and encourage them to allow their own personal interests to direct their reading. Perhaps most importantly, read yourselves. Your children will be much more interested in reading if reading is modeled on a very regular basis in your home.

And don’t worry; I am not a heathen. I recognize that the classics are classics for a reason, and that high school students should be exposed to several each year; however, teachers need to supplement these classics with modern literature and choice, so together we can build a new generation of readers. The best readers breed the best leaders, and, my, don’t we need both!

The Power of a Summer Job

When I was fourteen, I held my first real summer job. I served as a gatekeeper at our local community pool. My job was to ensure that everyone who entered the gate signed in and had their membership identification pin. If someone was not a member, he or she had to be a paid guest of a member, and I collected the fee. I remember finding the job extremely boring. I watched the lifeguards longingly, as they joked with each other and with guests near or in the water, just beyond my earshot.

Despite the monotony, from that summer job I learned responsibility. I rode my bike to and from my job daily and learned to be on time. I committed myself to the job, which was tedious and extremely hot, and, although the job paid, it did not pay well and was generally thankless. No one wanted to be stopped by the gatekeeper, whether to sign in or to pay. I learned conflict resolution as I dealt with members who tried to slight the system and sneak in guests.

My job was only a stepping stone to the development of my character and my work ethic. It was neither glamorous nor noteworthy.

Many parents today seem to underestimate the value of a paid job for their children. Teenagers go from school, to camp, to travel, and to mission trips, some of which are “travel” in the disguise of community service. Students attend rigorous and expensive academic camps at esteemed colleges, presumably to build résumés. I would wager, however, that none of these activities develop the character of your children better than a hardworking, honest-to-goodness job that requires dedication, collaboration, and problem-solving.

If your child’s video-game playing and laziness are already starting to irk you, strongly encourage him or her to get out and work, to earn some money. Whether seeking employment at a local establishment or starting a personal business mowing grass, babysitting, coaching sports, assisting camps, washing cars, or servicing bicycles, your child may stumble upon a summer job that will be a lifelong lesson in initiative, grit, communication, and money management. Let’s face it, work can be monotonous, draining, and difficult, but it also can be confidence-boosting and rewarding. Encourage your children to seize this learning opportunity.

Spring Cleansing

The Today Show aired another story on teenager stress this week.  While I agree that social media, college applications, and parent expectations have made this era particularly difficult for teens to navigate, I also believe that our secondary schools sometimes fail to expect enough of our kids, especially in the classroom. I find that our schools are so focused on ensuring our students not fail that the adage “failure is not an option” has become universally true.

Just as we all know parents who fail to enforce their own family rules, who fail to punish their children for missing curfew or for otherwise violating household expectations, many of our children’s classroom environments are similarly submissive, and, sadly, our children pay the price for these extremely low expectations.

In today’s schools, locally and elsewhere, grade inflation is rampant. When unused bathroom passes convert to test points, we can agree we have a problem.  When students retake failed tests, in whole or in part, without penalty, we are not holding our children accountable. When extra credit points are awarded for donated tissues and other school supplies, we are allowing students to buy grades. When essays that do not reflect deep thought merit an A, we atrophy writing skill development. When students can delay tests by complaining that they are not ready for them, we undermine student preparation.  When school projects completed in just an hour bring up quarterly averages, and when students earn an A or B for the quarter without ever scoring above a D on a test, grade point averages become specious. When high school students can submit work late and still receive most of the possible points, we promote procrastination. When students can successfully plead their case to teachers to raise their quarterly or even semester grades arbitrarily because they missed an A by a full point (or more), we ensure inequity.

You might believe that I am over-generalizing, and I am, but the observations are worth noting because these practices occur often in local classrooms. This problem is not isolated to our part of the world; it has been documented in high schools and colleges across the nation. By refusing to fail students, or even to give them an honest grade, we have failed our children.

How can our students go out into the “real” world without knowing how to respect a deadline and without knowing how to push themselves to do more than the minimum required? The minimum required by many classrooms, from my observation, can be quite a low bar. We should and can expect more from our children. 

Standardized Testing Landmines

As parents, once we have survived the college admissions process with our first child, we may feel emboldened by our newfound knowledge. We perhaps serve as counsel for friends who parent high schoolers and even feel confident in making abrupt decisions for our own younger children – decisions we had weighed carefully the first time. Because we are at the height of the testing season, I believe that now is a good time to issue a word of caution.

The standardized testing landscape has changed dramatically over the last decade.  Decisions made regarding standardized testing for older children just a few years ago may no longer be advisable today. Accordingly, I want to share a few facts about standardized testing that may surprise you – considerations that either may have changed since older children graduated or that simply did not apply to your older children. I know that over the past few years, I have seen many parents stunned by the following information:

Some colleges require students to submit ALL standardized test scores. In other words, there are no free passes for these schools. University of South Carolina, Georgetown, and University of North Carolina-Charlotte are a few popular schools in our area that subscribe to this policy. Many, many more colleges, though, follow this same policy.

Every year, I have parents who want their children to begin testing early, as sophomores or before, with at least half of their high school careers ahead.  Many parents want to do so to establish a “baseline score” for their children; however, for most students, this early testing is not prudent (1) because most students are not ready to earn their optimal scores and (2) because it creates a record that may have to be submitted alongside college applications. Practice tests at home can often serve as a suitable replacement for these sought-after baseline scores.

Fewer and fewer colleges require or even recommend the SAT and the ACT optional essay.  Many students sign up for the essay without even considering whether they should because a teacher or parent, perhaps ill-advised, told them to do so. In today’s testing environment, though, this decision should be weighed carefully.  If your child will not need the essay, then perhaps it is not advisable to risk tainting an otherwise strong score report with a low essay score, particularly if his or her college list is complete and none of the intended schools require the essay.

The formats of the SAT and the ACT essay differ significantly from each other. Practice and prep for these essays often leads to improved scores. Students should not go into these essays unaware of the format or of their graders’ expectations.

Moreover, many students simply do not have the stamina to write an outstanding essay at the end of a three-hour exam.

The ACT outpaces the SAT in popularity.

Every year, I hear of parents who push their children to take the SAT without even considering the ACT. They may know that their children should attempt the ACT at some point, (however, often they do not) but they are wholly unaware that the ACT overtook the SAT in popularity in 2012.  On the East Coast, historically the SAT was THE test, but those days have well passed.

Your child should consider very carefully on which test he or she excels. Do not presume to know that it will be the SAT or the ACT. Take practice tests at home to identify your child’s preferred test. Often, your child will not have a preferred test and will end up taking both the SAT and the ACT, but proceeding with intention and knowledge will best serve your child’s interests.

A perfect PSAT score is now a 1520, not a 1600. The College Board shifted the PSAT scale down to account for the fact that it is an easier test than the SAT, so its score should presumably better predict your child’s SAT score. If, as a parent, you saw a significant jump from PSAT to SAT score in your first child, you may not experience and certainly should not expect that same jump with child two.

Be aware that highly selective schools often require SAT Subject Tests for admission.  Although the testing landscape has not changed as much in this arena, every year I meet parents who fail to understand that their child’s college application would be improved or even incomplete without these tests.  Students who seek admission to highly selective schools should take these SAT Subject Tests immediately following their final or AP exam in the subject matter at hand (The College Board, who administers the SAT, offers twenty different subject tests), when possible, because, at that time, students will usually be best prepared for these content-heavy tests.

In short, take caution when approaching standardized testing. Presume nothing has remained the same. Every decision may be fraught with unintended consequences.