School. My son is Failing some subjects. Should I worry?

So I just had a talk with my son about his dismal school report card.

He seems disinterested, and cannot understand why he needs to know certain subjects. I can see his point.

Why would my son need to know how to work out the area of an isosceles triangle, scince I left school I have never needed to know the formula.



Why does he need to know that Ghangis kahn was born in Mongolia around 1155. He married at age 16, but had many wives during his lifetime. Will this information help him in a Job Interview?



Should he stess out over a science test where he must remember the law of gravitation equasion.

Much of the stuff he learns seems pointless. Once you learn the three R's what is the point of all the useless information.

Should School take on a different approach? It's not the 1950's anymore.

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Originally posted by Pedro4077
Much of the stuff he learns seems pointless.

No knowledge is ever pointless!

If anything, schools don't demand enough out of kids anymore. To say that you don't think your kid should have to learn this stuff....i kind of find that offensive, haha. You should be demanding more of him, not less.

Your son needs to learn to develop critical thinking skills. This is the point of education.

HELL YES. TELL HIM TO OWN THAT SH*T NO MATTER HOW HARD. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME" "SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP AND LEARN TO LEARN" are sort of good ideas, so long as they are not mentally handicapped.

Originally posted by Tw0Sides
reply to post by Pedro4077

 

First of all, take away his phone, cancel his WOW account, and slap yourself across the Face.

You have failed as a Parent, and now your kid will fail as a Citizen.

Thanks mate. All imput is appreciated.

good points, ignorance is always profitable

I think this is a psych 101 project tho

I guess the answer to this is how long you intend on taking care of him and letting him live with you.

These questions are always asked by children, that's where parents are supposed to guide them. Doesn't matter if it's the 50s, 80s, or 2010s. There are responsibilities involved.

If you were home schooling him what would you teach him? I suppose you could always do that, but in order for him to receive some sort of diploma I'm almost certain there will be some sort of standardized test he'll have to take to receive one.

Most jobs require, well most well paying living on your own jobs, at least a high school diploma. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and study.

reply to post by Pedro4077


Instead of worrying about curriculum issues right now, my honest advice is to sit down with your child and have a good, calm, "person to person" heart to heart talk to find out if there are underlying issues. If you are seen as the disciplinarian in the family - then maybe having a trusted relative or family friend do it is a better idea.

A sudden drop in grades could be a red flag for many things... depression, social difficulties, self-doubt, behavior issues, etc. Often puberty is to blame. And this can be an opportunity to address some deeper issues - before worrying about school based ones.

~Heff

I guess it all depends upon what goals you have for him in his life, or the goals he has for himself. While I think many of us realize that a college degree is not necessary for everyone, your son WILL need to know how to learn things, no matter what type of job he will hold one day. The specific facts he has to memorize now might not be relevant, but the ability to memorize information WILL. Even if he has a job in some sort of trade--he WILL have to learn information and skills, will he not?

Now, if you are planning on having him live at home with you and you are planning to support him forever--then definitely don't insist he buckle down. In my house, though, school IS my kids' job, and I expect them to do it well.

EDITED to add:
Baldryck, we were typing our replies at the same time, and I see we share the same thoughts. :-)

My son will be 15 soon. I have been teaching him to drive, fence, lay concrete, weld ect. He will most likely never be out of work. He has a head start on the others who obsess about perfect grades.

What you learn at school is neither here or there, it's proving you can absorb information and apply it in a stressful situation such as a test environment. Even a university education is the same principal. What you learn means sh*t, it only proves to a prospective employer you can apply yourself.

I think back to my school days and laugh at some of the crap we learnt about.....The spinning Jenny and the industrial revolution. Crop rotation etc etc and it's all complete bollox.

It's the end grade that makes or breaks you.

It's a system and a system you have to play in order to progress in life.

I will be introducing the secrets of the system to my children early. It's a game, treat it that way and they will go far.

I used to have a similar problem with my youngest child. She just couldn't see the point in learning things that school was teaching her. I used to try and show her how all information, no matter how trivial and "dumb" it seems as a child, will add up in her head as she ages, to give her a full and comprehensive view of the world and how it works. Still, she was stubborn and said that she didn't need to know how the world works.

Fair enough. So my husband said, "For every A you bring home, I'll give you $20. For every B, you get $10. C's and under get nothing." I was appalled by this approach, as I had always loved learning, but lo and behold, it worked. She went from failing grades to a 3.5 grade point average (A's and B's). She was the same age as your kid when we did this.

Some kids need to have concrete goals that they can appreciate in order to perform better in school.

She's graduated high school, kept out of trouble, and is now a dental assistant. She still didn't like classroom work, but was able to do enough to learn a good trade. She was just one of those kids who would perform for a reward she could appreciate. With my older daughter, that approach didn't work whatsoever.

If your child is one of those stubborm ones who somehow appreciates earning a little cash, you may want to try and bait him. I know, I know, it's not the ideal way, but if it helps your kid focus and do better in school, he'll be more likely to finish and go on and be able to support himself. I mean, we all work for money, it's our reward, so why not start that lesson early?

Just a suggestion, it worked for my mule-headed child.

Originally posted by Hefficide
reply to post by Pedro4077

 

Instead of worrying about curriculum issues right now, my honest advice is to sit down with your child and have a good, calm, "person to person" heart to heart talk to find out if there are underlying issues. If you are seen as the disciplinarian in the family - then maybe having a trusted relative or family friend do it is a better idea.

A sudden drop in grades could be a red flag for many things... depression, social difficulties, self-doubt, behavior issues, etc. Often puberty is to blame. And this can be an opportunity to address some deeper issues - before worrying about school based ones.

~Heff

He has represented our town in Rugby League and Rugby Union. He is very popular at school and is very good with Maths and English. Science, Geography, Drama and History are not his strong points.

I too was uninterested in this until I got older, we are a hands on Trade Family.
My brother is a Diesel Mechanic, the other is a Plumber, I have done various Trades. That's where he wants to go.

Just tell him to do whatever it takes to graduate/

I graduated, yet I never did homework by choice until it mattered.
I went to class when I felt like it etc.. passed with C's and just did what was necessary to grad.

He might just have to learn the hard way... so let him. But tell him to graduate.

Originally posted by Tw0Sides
reply to post by Pedro4077

 

First of all, take away his phone, cancel his WOW account, and slap yourself across the Face.

You have failed as a Parent, and now your kid will fail as a Citizen.

BS and crapola.

Period.

My father, uncle, and aunt were teachers. My father, science and math. My uncle was a physcist who became a teacher after bailing on his job in Australia late 50's/60 at what was one of 3 nuclear fusion facilities in the world at the time. He built ham radios in northern BC , and talked to astronauts and scientists in Russia and China. They sought him out.

Anyway, my father always tried to teach children at their own rate, ie. different streams of school and had quite a success rate of turning learning around for kids. He had students coming up to him years later, over and over again, thanking him for turning their lives around.

But, he didn't see any point in all the mandatory courses in the schooling. Learn to Read and Write and Do Basic Math. All the rest can be learn at any time, via the skills of reading and writing and math. All the rest should be electives, or short toe ins, so all students get a toe into everything on a frequent basis and then have tons of choices. He was all about choices.

He has 4/5 grandsons wtih apraxia, and 2, the second oldest now over 20 and the youngest 11, have had quite the time of it in school, and physical apraxia disrupting the signals to the muscles and those 2 had occuptational therapists, and learning assistants. Yet on anything not language structured, for abstract thoughts in the tests, they scored years over their age group.

The rest straightened out. The 13 year old shook apraxia, finally this past year, and missed alot of school due to sickness since (FUKUSHIMA) and is now on 65 mgs of iodide crystals and got 95% summer school math and the teacher said he passed English with hardly attending so she considers him very bright.

Parents are not the same people as their children by the way. Kids are their own people, and they do well or less well even in highly gifted families, depending on their makeup.

I wouldn't judge anyone, at all!!!!!

Oh, my dad said he was sorry to me, he said he was a science teacher but he had something akin the apraxia, he thought it was dyslexia. I remembered I always had to spell for him and then my thyroid quit and then my spelling is out the window, for structure went out the window with that.

Don't every judge anyone.

2 stars for judging what you don't have a clue on.

reply to post by Pedro4077


Just keep working with him to be good at reading and writing and basic math, and then he needs to decide what he is interested in. Music, art, mechanics. For some things he needs the advanced math and science so he should be told ahead of time, what requirements are. Many boys develop later in life, their brain wiring, and are more prone to learning disabilities than girls, and brain wiring things. Don't be overly strict but guide him.

When he goes into high school you should try to get him in a career oriented high school. You usually can get college credits for attending them as well. It blows away normal schools, at least my experience did.