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

Originally posted by rickymouse
reply to post by Pedro4077

 

Maybe he's bored with school. He has to learn to make it interesting somehow. School bored me, I made a game out of learning to gain interest. I created challenge in my mind.

Yes he is Bored/Dis-Interested with school, but should I push him to become just like his peers?, another groupthink member of the Herd?

I think home school would be my best option for next year. I have no faith in the Public School System.

Originally posted by Pedro4077
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.

And what do you do for a living? Let me guess...not an engineer......

So, school is design for the lowest common dominator, wait you might not know what that is....School is design for even the dumb sh... to pass too, and it seems your son is not even up to that level.

What I would do instead of thinking that a report card of Ds and Fs is dismal...look at it like he is actually getting some Ds and not all Fs, and then you both can be happy that he is achieving his very best...lol

Originally posted by Pedro4077
The education system is creating a communist type mindset where all the children think the same, eat the same, talk the same, act the same, and will want to be paid the same.

That is totally bull... What grade is he in? I'm thinking 6th? maybe?

Need to learn the fundamentals first...i.e. reading, math, writing...before you can more on to big think subjects.

First, before we get into anything: Few, if any of us, are born knowing what we're going to do for the rest of our lives. But we do decrease our future options by refusing to learn.

Originally posted by Pedro4077

My father uses some middle-to-upper math to weld. Not all welders do. I put together storage shelving all day long, some days, and having an eye for the way geometry works is useful. Girls usually have a bit of a harder time with geometry--I aced it. I associatively have the ability to fill shelving to capacity, while maintaining attractiveness, due to really understanding bloody triangles. It's why, when the higher ups come in, my sections usually don't get me in trouble. But I've had to deal with shipments with people who couldn't tell me what use a triangle was, and they can't pack things away worth a darn.

Besides: if you don't exercise the "muscle" it atrophies. Learning things that are difficult is good for brain growth. If you want a smarter brain, you learn things.

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?

1. If he happens to be interviewing with a Genghis Khan buff, yes, it could.
2. If he doesn't lean a few thing from history, he can't reason out what is historically factual. He will fall for any lie, and he will doubt the truth.

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

Stressing will induce your NOT memorizing the equation. But knowing how gravity works makes sure you don't think that flying is defying the law of gravity.

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

Oh, some of what we learned in school was pointless. I won't deny that. Problem s that today, we have a lot of kids that don't even know their 3 "r"s. lol: Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic.

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

Schools ARE taking a far different approach, that why your kid is failing. The stuff in the 50s actually 'learned them good!".

Likely, your son's in a system that has previously passed him when he should have failed. That happens a lot. I'm sorry, if someone cannot get that 3/4s a dollar is 75 cents, then why are we putting them in Geometry, to learn all these triangles,anyway? When kids cannot pass 4th grade math, they shouldn't be out the 4th grade. And it doesn't mean that your kid is an idiot, by any means. This is what "No Child Left Behind" as wrought.

Print out a basic sheet of 4th grade math, with the answers separately, from some teaching resource website. You do that math, and you have your son do the math. If y'all get more than 1 wrong (mistakes happen--and 1 is enough), then you've not got the 3 r's down anyway, to have this discussion. There's other possibilities, but this is the biggest one to deal with.

A broad range of education is better than a short range education that is just focused on a few subjects. It's all about immersing yourself. If he is playing video games or goin out drinking and taking drugs then you should worry because you should educate him outside of school on how the world works because he will need good grades to compete with country's/family's that nearly force children to go to school.

SoS

Originally posted by Pedro4077
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.

Won't do him any good with out a certificate. My grandfather taught me many of those things as well, but no one will hire you with out a certificate. At least not here.
It also doesn't help that I am a girl and most people are still discriminatory against females when it comes to that kind of work.

To the OP,

You seem to be the one that doesn't want him to finish his education, thinks it's all pointlesss and that he should stop going to school and go and work in construction just like you.

Do you know what projection is?

Have you ever stopped to think that being a young impressionable teenager that he is trying to make his Dad happy, by doing what YOU want him to do?

Have you ever considerd he may not want to go down the path you went?

But because you seem to be pushing that all on to him, he now feels that it is his only chance in life. Hence why he is failing subjects and can't be bothered with them.

Parents don't actually understand what school is....

public even private schools are basically the place where the child gets brainwashed. Then is educated on how to become a slave.

No really think about this for a second...

First their told that anything the kid comes up with is completely wrong if it's not exactly how it's taught in the school books. Then they're told repeatedly "what do you want to be when you grow up???" And taught to answer in terms of a regular job. If they say something crazy like "rock star" they're frowned upon by the teacher.

Then they're taught that they need to go to college or university otherwise they'll never get a good paying job. Basically in otherwords a way of tricking them into going into massive debt. And a way to start the debt cycle. As they get a credit card upon getting into college. Then after they graduate if they get a job they get offered endless loans. And they're in debt for life.

IT'S A SCAM! A total and comlete scam!!!

I use to think homeschooling was stupid. Now I realize the truth of the matter. That it's incredibly important so your kid doesn't get ruined by the system. 99% of what you learned in school you probably forgot by now right? Exactly. But most of that teaches you in one direction, how to get into college so you can rack up debt!

What you need with that 99% (ouside of basic math, reading, writing) is real life practical skills. Stuff they don't want you to know in grade school. Like how the system works. How the g--v works. How the m--i --l works. What hospitals and other g-- v run establishments are really for. How MSM works. What war is really about. On grid off grid, How to avoid all the pit falls of life like credit card debt, loans, eye R S, and a gazillion other pit falls, etc etc...

That way when they reach 18 they're not zombies, they're fully awake educated young adults. That aren't gonna be tricked by the system. I feel so bad for parents. It would be good if somehow more of them could homeschool. but they're already slaves so they can't afford either time or money to educated there kids themselves, so then they're kids are forced to go to the brainwashing schools and end up as slaves.

BEAUTIFUL!

Anyway if I were you I'd seriously think about this. They're turning him into a debt slave essentially. I only went for 2 years and racked up 30k in debt. I was very lucky though. I'm self taught. Started a small business that grew (no thanks to college at all) and was able to pay off the debt. But most people will never pay it off. Some might if they land a good job but then they end up as slaves to the job. Anyway enough said. Hope things work out for you and no he doesn't need to know any of that crap. it's total BS.

Watch this...

High schools are supposed to introduce your kid to many areas, and make them well-rounded. This allows them to find where their passions lay, and also helps them get into colleges. Someone good in Science and History but not in Math or English isn't going to be a good candidate, etc. Not too hard to figure out.

And yes, college is a fraud. One necessary to achieve some people's goals, however.

reply to post by Pedro4077


Here is my personal view, for what it's worth.

If nothing else, I would be worried that he is disinterested, enough to minimally apply himself, which is really all that is required for an average to above average grade. By learning not to apply himself now, he could be at danger for failing to apply himself in future studies or employment. People have dropped out of school and made a successful career for themselves, but it's not the norm.

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.

I've never used many things that I forced myself to learn in school. What I realize now about learning all the useless stuff is this. The effort put into learning all of this challenging, yet useless stuff, serves to broaden our aptitude for complex problem solving skills. Having put the effort into learning the formula, to calculate the area of the isosceles triangle, will translate into the gained ability to solve other complex problems. The more effort put into problem solving, the easier understanding a subsequent solution will become.

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?

I suspect not. However, back to the value of putting effort into learning. By developing the ability to commit something to memory, and learning to access the memory, will server him well. While Genghis Kahn may not be a topic for most, if any, job interviews, the overall knowledge pool acquired will contain something useful for the interview. If nothing else, by learning all this useless knowledge, your son will have the ability to patch together some bull crap while sitting in the interview hot seat.

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

Again, the gained problem solving skills and reasoning ability are priceless.

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

I guess it depends on what your son aspires to do as a vocation to support himself, and his potential family. If he does not learn to apply himself now, he may find himself unable to apply himself for vocational or academic higher learning.

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

That's right, it's not the 1950s anymore, or even the 1960s. My father graduated high school without the ability to read at even a low level. I suppose he was lucky to have been drafted into the Marines for the Vietnam War. I suspect, without having been drafted, he would have never had a long career or retirement of any kind. Here in the 2010s, I see two main paths, other than the jobs requiring extensive education, which can be chosen for vocation. Those paths are service or technical. Yes, a lot of money can potentially be made in those types of careers, but earning a big yearly salary from them demands many hours of hard work.

Now, here is why I decided to try to persuade you to encourage your son to apply himself. I was an underachiever in high school. I sought the minimal learning needed to get by with a C, and in retrospect that required no effort at all. Later, after joining the military, I first realized how I had failed myself by not applying more effort in school. My ASVAB score showed I had the aptitude to be an avionics engineer. However, it did not reflect the struggle I found trying to successfully get through the military tech schools I was then required to complete. The problems were directly caused by my not trying harder to learn how to calculate the area of a triangle and by not trying to commit the life of Genghis Khan to memory. I did succeed at passing the tech schools, but I worked a lot harder than many of my peers to do it.

Later, when I decided to start pursuing higher education, I found that I had a lot of catching up to do. Getting stuck in remedial classes is one sure way to feel stupid. At least, it made me feel stupid to have to take them, considering many others didn't. Eventually, I managed to break the learning barrier, and it became second nature to me. Now I make myself learn something new everyday.

There are other benefits to learning that I found. At one time, I relied on my looks to attract women. Now, I focus on using my knowledge. Women have appreciated that I could help them learn how to calculate the area of a triangle, or how to understand the equation for the law of gravity.

Besides that, after dating smart women, I have no real attraction for women of low intelligence.

I don't judge intelligence by knowledge, but by aptitude to learn.

Originally posted by Pedro4077
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.

edit on 4-9-2012 by Pedro4077 because: (no reason given)

If you want your son to do the same job you've always done, live the same life you lived and be exactly like you, then he should have the exact same knowledge you have.... as well as a time machine to go back to the year it was when you were his age. Otherwise, he needs what he's getting and a whole lot more.
He'll be competing for jobs against people who do have educations and did learn what they were supposed to learn and the people interviewing him for jobs will choose the people with the better education, the better skills, the better training, and the better certifications. The job field isn't wide open anymore and we have to compete for everything we get. It's your job as his parent to ensure he has ever "edge" possible in that competition in order to succeed.
It is no longer possible to be as successful as our parents were on their same level of education. 100 years ago, 50 years ago, 20 years ago, most people had the same "basic level" of education and they competed based on that level. That basic level has grown every year since the beginning of time and the competition has become steeper. If your son moves on with the same basic level of education that you had, even if it was considered "good" or "average" when you were his age, it will be considered not good enough now.
The thing is, we don't know what future employment will demand. There will be jobs that we can't even IMAGINE right now. Just like your parents probably couldn't have imagined all the jobs in the computer industry now. He needs to be prepared for anything and everything that may come about. With the constant major strides in technology, it's clear that math skills are going to be increasingly important, just as they have always been for the same reasons. If his math skills aren't up to par, he will be doing the back breaking "grunt work" and there is no way around it. It won't matter if he can weld, or lay brick or do basic plumbing because other people will have certifications and licences and various other documents from training programs that show they are qualified or exceptional or the only people who are allowed to do it and they will get the jobs before he does. He will be stuck at the lowest end of society with only rudimentary skills and abilities.
If you want your child to have a better life than you had, which is pretty much the goal of each and every parent in the world, he needs to continue with his education and take advantage of every opportunity to increase it that he possibly can.

Of course if you want to support him for the rest of your life and watch as he goes into a deep depression and feels "worthless", sure, don't make him bother learning any of that old stuff, he won't need it.

OK, so you think your child shouldn't have to learn something because you think he'll never have to use it....
When he's an adult and hopefully has a job (will probably be a very low level job if he doesn't have the education to qualify for a better one) he's going to be working for someone else. That someone else is going to assign him to certain tasks. If he feels the work his employer tells him to do isn't important or isn't worth doing, does that mean he doesn't have to do it and won't get fired? Of course not!
For the kids who don't apply themselves in school now, when they're kids, and they fail a class and have to repeat it, it's not nearly as important that they learn the material that they may or may not need as it is that they learn they are REQUIRED to do things they don't particularly WANT to do and don't particularly see the need for or they either have to repeat the job or LOSE the job as well as their livelyhood.
Schools teach a whole lot more than the traditional three R's (reading, wRiting and aRithmetic), they teach the OTHER three R's (Be Respectful, Be Responsible, Be Ready). Those are the three R's that will determine the rest of their lives as well as determine how well they do in the other three R's.
Schools aren't brainwashing them or teaching them to be sheep, they are teaching them how to be average to good citizens of the society we are part of. If they are not able to function in society, they will be taken out of society whether it be spending their life in prison because they are in perpetual poverty because they couldn't get a job since they didn't qualify for anything and ended up robbing liquor stores, then shot someone and put away in prison for life or just end up on the government dole which is going to go away soon and again go back into the poverty that leads them to crime that ends up in prison.

If you want to know who the "brainwashed" and the "sheeple" are, it's the people who didn't get an education and are easily manipulated by the people who seek to manipulate them. It's a lot easier to manipulate an idiot with no education than it is to manipulate someone who is intelligent and has the knowledge to see through the attempts. They constantly tell those who they have under their control "oh, that's just common sense, you know you don't need that, you're not dumb. Just because you don't have some diploma doesn't mean you're stupid, you have common sense". They tell you that because it's what you want to hear, however, it's not true. It doesn't matter how "smart" you may be or how much "common sense" you think you have, if you don't have an education, you are going to be easily manipulated, especially by those who DO have that education and have specialized in the art of manipulation (politics).
This is one of the biggest atrocities that the "conservative groups" are committing right now. They are encouraging people to home-school, to abandon public education, they are telling people to teach their own children instead of allowing people who are actually certified to teach them. Why? Well, if the only teacher the kid ever has is the parent who is already controlled by the people who are manipulating them, the kid is going to be manipulated too. You should want your kids to be educated by people with diverse backgrounds and diverse opinions and diverse experiences so your child can be exposed to every possible viewpoint and set of experiences possible in the safest environment possible so they will be able to weigh all the different sets of knowledge against one another and make decisions about what is important and what isn't. Don't limit your child only to your own experiences unless you want nothing more than a clone who will go no further than you have gone (most likely not as far since society has changed since you were that age). You would be doing a great disservice to your child and destroying his life.

Schools don't brainwash kids, political parties brainwash kids. The schools offer them the opportunity to learn to make their own decisions as well as function in general society. If you think showing basic levels of respect to others, listening when the person in charge is speaking and following the rules set forth by an organization that you are part of is brainwashing, then perhaps your parents didn't require enough from you and that is the root of the problem.

You should be proud of him

Hug and kiss your child every morning, say Good Morning in a happy way.
Ask your child about their day, their friends, classes, teachers.
Eat a good breakfast.
Stand at the bus stop with them.
Make sure they eat a good lunch.
Search their room when they're at school for any thing questionable.
Make sure your have a healthy snack and good dinner ready after school.
Don't overload on extra curricular activities.
Do homework immediately after school, people are too tired to help their kids later at night,
Take away all computer gaming stuff until they maintain the A/B average on their report card.
Take away cell phone priveledges. Turn off the TV.
Make sure child is in bed Sunday thru Friday at 8-8:30pm.
Maintain a calm predictable stability for a learning environment. (Try not to yell and fight with family members)
Visit the library on weekends. Visit museums and zoo...
Tour the school and grounds with your child.
Volunteer at the school to show your child you care about them and their future.
Reward for A s. ( money, food, clothing, ectra..)
Tell child they are a child for a very short period in their life so they need to figure out what would make them happy for a carreer in life that pays well. They are going to be an adult for most of their life.

Lastly drive down to the slums and make child gey out of the car and stand there. Explain this is where the D and F students end up living in life. Then drive to a wealthy neighborhood and get out and take awalk and explain that this is where the high achieving A sudents live. This worked well for us. How do kids know their are slums un less you show them... Also show them your actual bill pile and have them write a few checks out, explain these come every month as an adult.....

Be firm, Be patient, Be kind, and Best of Luck to You!

reply to post by Pedro4077



In all honestly, I say don't worry. I've failed subjects at school when I was young, I was considered a "bad ass" got suspended a lot, got in fights and skip school all that jaz. And it's funny, I made it out successful I now work for National Defence (Canada) I got a high security clearance and Life is good. But the thing I noticed was, I learned a lot more on my own and not in school. There is a lot in life that you don't learn in school, and a lot of parents worry about it. But really you shouldn't, Let your kid have fun! things change when you get older, most of us mature like I did. And I've turned out very well, a lot of people are surprised. I am also only 22

reply to post by Pedro4077

It's about training the mind to accept, organize and process information. THe subject is irrelevant. I didn't see how old he/she is but I'd be concerned about drug use if you see grades drop off. Pattern happened to both my son's. They recovered (thankfully) but looking back, drug use up, grades scores go down. Maybe not drugs but something to look at...
By the way, I used to skip school a lot (started in 2nd grade). We used to skip 6th grade and ride the bus downtown and hang out in the museum all day. I'm sure I learned more doing that then sitting in school those days.

reply to post by Pedro4077


well it sounds like you are training your son to go into construction, and if you ask me one of the most important subjects for construction is math, specifically geometry, which you just said you're not sure why it's so important to know. what happens if your son goes into lawn care and tries moving his way up the ladder and one day his boss asks him how much sod he will need to order to fill a lawn there working at, because he can't make it to the job site. But your son decided geometry wasn't important, so he never learned how to find the area of a triangle (A=1/2 *B*H), but one of the other guys did. who do you think is going to move up the ladder?

Most higher ups in construction are very intelligent well learned men, knowing the history very well behind their trade. It's great that you have taught your son about masonry but does he know the history behind it? Like that the Romans are thought to be the inventors of cement and that they used lime and volcanic ash to create it. Just this statement alone will teach him so much.

fact one: Roman fell almost 2000 years ago and there cities can still be seen today, meaning that cement is very strong and durable and that is why we use it still to this day.

fact two: The Romans used lime and volcanic ash to create there cement. There are many different ways to create cement all having their own practical applications. some work better in different environments

If your son took all of the information I just talked about and really learned everything to know about what I just talked about. He could go out right now and pour a cement driveway without your help, and order just enough supplies so he would have no waist. something any employer salivates over.

After thinking about your problem some more I thought I should mention that you should make a Teacher-Parent-Child conference and discuss how you and you child can achieve. Ask the teacher if they have early morning tutor sessions. My son was in advanced math and wasn't getting an A, so I drove him to school on Tuesday and Thursdays for a seven o'clock tutor sessions. It was a 40 mile round trip journey at 6:30 am for me. I did this for the whole smester.

Stating the obvious: Have the school nurse do a hearing and eye test. Ask each teacher he getting C,D,F in to put your child in the front row of the class in front of the teacher. This way they have to focus on the teacher and they will not be distracted by other kids.

Sucess comes in thirds: 1/3 Grades and Brains, 1/3 Hardworking, 1/3 self motivation and social skills with others.
Once you have that college degree no one can take it away from you. Whether of not you use it to achieve sucess or not is up to you. Some people get a degree in one thing and end up becoming wealthy doing somethging else. A college degree puts your child at the top of the pile for job applicants, instead of circular filed into the trash can.

Also remember to use lots of verbal praise for a job well done... positive attention. Children love and work for this. Best of luck!

reply to post by r2d246

What you need with that 99% (ouside of basic math, reading, writing) is real life practical skills. Stuff they don't want you to know in grade school. Like how the system works. How the g--v works. How the m--i --l works. What hospitals and other g-- v run establishments are really for. How MSM works. What war is really about. On grid off grid, How to avoid all the pit falls of life like credit card debt, loans, eye R S, and a gazillion other pit falls, etc etc...

Good post.

It's so sad to see all the haters who get angry at anybody who doesn't conform to the groupthink.



They spend their whole lives following the "Rules". To afraid to question the School System, or the Work System.

The MSM has created a race of sheep that will essentially police themselves.

All the posters regurgitating this tripe are too afraid to step out of line, think outside the box.

All in all, your just another brick in the wall.

reply to post by Pedro4077


"It's so sad to see all the haters who get angry at anybody who doesn't conform to the groupthink."

sir.,., there are no haters in this thread,.., all the posters took their time and wrote well thought out replies,, not because they emotionally think ill of you and your son,,, but because they want to offer advice from their knowledge and experience,, and because they want to see the best for you and your son.,.., most of the replies i read were very encouraging.,,.,.