I took Dylan to see a college during the fall overnight visit program. While he’s seen nearly a hundred colleges, and taken student tours at about two dozen, he had never spent the night on a campus.
One of the reasons I started touring so early with Dylan was to inspire him to keep his “eye on the prize,” although there was never any guarantee that the prize (college) would be available to him. I remember that, years ago, when Dylan was still in early middle school, we visited a private school for kids with ADHD.
Dylan loved to create and build, so he said, “I want to go to MIT!”
The admissions counselor quickly excused Dylan from the room. She looked at me earnestly and said, “You don’t want to get his hopes up for college, and certainly not for MIT. A lot of these kids don’t even graduate from high school.”
These kids…? She’d only known Dylan for ten minutes. How could she put a hardcore limit on his abilities without seeing what he could actually do?
We went the other direction with our son. We started looking early and examining closely for several years. As a result, Dylan did visit MIT (although he didn’t like being in the city). He has applied to ten colleges and has spent the night on a college campus.
But he was nervous going in, so I told him that his exploration of this college was two-fold: to decide if this college would be a good fit for him, and to decide if he is, indeed, ready to go to college next fall.
The college billed itself as “unapologetically academically rigorous,” and I knew that going in.
Dylan has a whole senior year to complete before he goes anywhere. He still needs to be inspired to do his best work in high school.
“Mom,” he said after his night on campus. “I still want to go to college, but it might be nice to take a year off before I go.”
“You mean it might be helpful if you learn how to live on your own before also going to school on your own?”
“Yeah,” he said.
Obviously, no decisions have been made one way or another. But he may have a point.
Shane is a fan of horror movies.
This started when he was about 11, and discovered that scary books were wildly entertaining. Short, scary videos came next – things like the YouTube jump-scare video. Or maybe it was just a natural progression to scary videos after his obsession with safe-but-terrifying roller coasters.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of horror movies are rated R. Thanks to my own tender-age issues, this means that Shane isn’t allowed to watch them.
There’s a chance that I am highly sensitive. I was so afraid of the creepy guy in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that we watched that part of the movie on fast-forward because I couldn’t stand to look at him. The winged monkeys in The Wizard of Oz gave me nightmares for years. And when I finally got old enough to watch rated R movies on my own, the first one I watched was The Shining. I didn’t sleep for a week.
When my kids were very young, I was extremely careful about TV. They only watched one, half-hour video per day – usually Elmo’s World or Little Einsteins or The Backyardigans. Still, there was a tornado on Elmo’s World that caused both of the boys to run screaming from the room in tears. So as much as possible, we stuck to really happy television.
We would occasionally watch a movie – but Finding Nemo caused Dylan to sob uncontrollably when Nemo was caught in the fisherman’s net. (To be fair, Dylan was 3.)In Spy Kids, there were half a dozen “fooglies” and a bad guy with disgusting, distorted faces growing out of the sides of his head. Shane’s reaction was not good.
And Elmo in Grouchland had an evil villain who stole kids’ toys – and mortified the entire audience. We actually left the theater – as did a slew of other families – when that guy emerged. (The Sesame Street folks really might want to do a few more focus groups before releasing anything else with thick, angry eyebrows.)
When Shane became interested in making his own videos, Bill showed him the tremendously elaborate, purposefully horrifying video for Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Shane never got over it. (I would like to note that I was not consulted when Bill made this decision.)
So when Dylan’s English teacher sent home a permission form to watch Wind Talkers which is just gratuitous violence on a stick, I denied permission. Dylan was the only 8th grader in the (tiny private) school who was not allowed to watch a rated R movie.
And I have never lived it down.
So when Shane became obsessed with It, the Stephen King clown movie released last year, we watched the old, made-for-TV version instead. But I heard it from both boys: We aren’t scared of rated-R movies!
Many R-rated movies still scare me.
I had read enough – and seen enough – Stephen King to offer a viable option. Dylan was old enough to watch the movie, but I told Shane he had to read an entire Stephen King book first.
What a mistake. Shane read Carrie. And then we watched the R-rated It.
Shane is already asking to see yet another R-rated movie – so I am now paying for allowing an It screening.
Shane said, “If you’re worried about a movie scarring me or scaring me – which are spelled the same way, by the way – the rating doesn’t really matter at all. I’ve been scarred by Spy Kids and the music video for Thriller, but It didn’t scare me at all.”
I guess I will continue to pay.
Dylan’s schedule is a bit light this year. He loaded up on graduation requirements during his first two years of high school, and finished nearly everything in 11th grade. When he dropped out of the IBCP program, his schedule opened wide.
First and foremost, he wanted to take AP Psychology. He had been asking to take a psych class since 7th grade, when he started reading books on neurology and the brain.
But the first time he mentioned that he wanted to be a psychologist, I literally laughed out loud. He was maybe 13.
“Dylan, you can’t sit still for ten minutes! You don’t know how to listen! How are you going to sit still all day long, eight hours a day, and listen to people talk about their problems?”
“I listen to my friends,” he said. “And I help them.”
Ah, I thought. “Okay,” I said. “You should take psychology in high school then, and see if you like it.”
So – finally – he is in AP Psychology. And he loves it.
Otherwise, though, he has selected a number of hands-on classes that will keep him actively engaged throughout the day. It’s the schedule of his dreams – the one he had in preschool and kindergarten. He will be moving around, working hard, concentrating on creating. He can do things and learn at the same time.
Dylan is taking Digital Art, where he’ll be creating a variety of marketing and artwork on the computer. He is taking Guitar 2, since he took Guitar 1 in 8th grade and will thrive in any music class. And he’s taking both an internship to help a P.E. teacher and Radio Production which means he will be helping (again this year) with the school’s video announcements.
He is thrilled with his schedule and hasn’t even asked for coffee drinks which, last year, were his key to staying interested. Maybe his brain is maturing and he’s able to function better without stimulants. But mostly I think he just likes what he’s doing.
Why all classes can’t be engaging, I do not know.
Shane got sick and missed a day of school – already.
But even though he was sick, he got out of bed, showered, and ate breakfast. We discussed his options as he slowly ate a bowl of cereal and drank a specially made smoothie. (He likes lots of cherries in his smoothies.)
When it came time to leave, he finally gave in to his illness and went back to bed. Before he went, though, he asked me to please email his teachers and ask if they had any work for him to do over the weekend.
So I did.
And shortly thereafter, the responses started pouring in. There’s a reading, a video, completion of a project, questions to answer, a vocabulary quiz…. All seven of his teachers responded in a timely manner, allowing Shane the opportunity to make up his work.
Of course, Shane was still on the couch, staying hydrated and getting plenty of rest. So the seven email messages came in to me.
I was reading them, just to get a feel for what Shane was doing in school, when I suddenly realized something:
I didn’t have a feeling of dread.
My stomach wasn’t churning and my jaws weren’t clenching and I didn’t feel completely under water. In fact, I was just reading and finding out what was due, and thinking about how Shane would react to the assignments.
Here’s the thing: Shane would do the assignments. He would watch the video, answer the questions, print out the reading and study for his quiz. He would do what the teachers asked. He would do what was required of him to get a good grade. And he would have everything done and ready to turn in on Monday morning.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve gotten emails from teachers – some of them even the same teachers – explaining the upcoming assignments and/or homework. Ninety-five percent of the time, those emails were about Dylan’s work.
The feeling of dread came from two things: (1) the certainty that Dylan had either lost the assignment or claimed that he didn’t know how to do it, and (2) the additional certainty that Dylan wouldn’t complete the assignment even after he got the email that explained what he needed to do.
With Shane, though, my confidence has never wavered. And when I read those emails, knowing that Shane had two full days to complete the work, I knew it would all get done and – best of all – be turned in, on time.
And it was.
With our Alexa “robot,” the Hawkins family often sits around and plays Jeopardy. In fact, it is the only good thing I’ve found about the Alexa bot. I am not a huge fan otherwise.
But we do have fun with Jeopardy. We have gotten pretty good at answering the questions, considering that only Bill is capable of pulling out trivial facts from some recessed part of his brain.
The Alexa game begins just like the TV game begins. Someone introduces Alex Trebek and Alex responds with, “Thanks, Johnny. And welcome players.”
Shane and I were discussing this, because we knew the opening by heart.
“I didn’t realize the announcer’s name was Johnny,” I said.
“Yeah, but I wonder is that his only job? What else does he do?” Shane said.
“I have no idea,” I said. “But I suppose Johnny also runs a camera or keeps the contestants in line or something.”
“Family Feud has the same thing,” Shane said. “He’s like, ‘I’m somebody that you don’t care about. And now here’s your host, Steeeeve Harvey!”
I laughed. “Poor guy. ‘I’m somebody you don’t care about!'”
“I know,” Shane agreed. “Why do they have to have somebody to introduce the host? Why can’t Steve Harvey just walk out?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“They probably have to pay that guy a lot of money just to say that every night,” Shane said. “It doesn’t seem worth it.”
“True,” I said.
And then, like many things that Shane brings to my attention, I thought and thought about why there’s an announcer for the host, and why the host can’t just walk out. And who is that announcer anyway? Where did they find him? Did he want to be a game show host announcer? Or did he want to be the host and end up playing second fiddle?
Maybe he’s the show’s producer and it’s the equivalent of saying “action” on a movie set. Maybe he’s just some guy with a good voice who stumbled onto the set one day. Maybe he’s actually a voice actor – you know, like the voice of Siri – and he just landed this great gig on a show that lasted 50 years.
And why does it have to be a male voice? Would it be more effective, or the same, if there were a female announcer? And why are all the females on game shows relegated to gesturing at prizes and smiling?
My brain started to get wildly distracted with game show questions. Meanwhile, Shane had gone back to his video game like there was nothing to consider.
Shane always makes me think.
After many weeks of discussion, and multiple emails to the counselor, Dylan finally decided to drop his IB math class.
“It’s not an IB class,” his counselor told us repeatedly. Yet, there were no provisions made for kids who weren’t enrolled in the IB program, or those who weren’t able to tackle college-level math.
Even if he could tread water for the entire year, he would get absolutely no college credit for having taken a college-level class. Since he’s not in the IB program, he’s not allowed to take the IB test at the end of the year – and the test is what provides the credit.
Dylan is, of course, able to tackle college-level math. He is very bright. He grasps concepts the same way I grasp chocolate chip cookies. But because of his focus issues, he can’t concentrate for a full 45 minutes on any one subject, unless he is completely engaged using his hands, his voice, or anything musical. And in math, that means he falls behind by the end of the first class.
Oddly, this year is the first in a long time that I’ve remembered that Dylan belongs in Montessori school. In a real Montessori school, kids work independently, at their own pace, and they never get to the “end” of what they’re learning. For example, they learn social studies concepts by choosing a subject and following the independently presented instructions (perhaps on a card or in a binder). They study at their own pace by reading, using school-provided manipulatives and kits, and watching educational videos. Once they’ve learned about a topic, they create a presentation or give a speech or write a paper to share what they’ve learned.
Montessori is the only way to successfully teach a student like Dylan. He was so passionate about learning in his early years. He devoured information, as rapidly as he could find it. He wanted to know about everything – and public schools killed that curiosity.
Montessori schools are private, and they cost a lot of money. I visited all the Montessori schools within a 30-mile radius and they all cost substantially more than we would ever be able to afford. Still, I know for certain that Montessori school would have afforded Dylan the opportunity to love school – to thrive in an educational environment. Dylan’s entire life would have been different.
Instead, he’s suffered through every, single school year – bored and wistful – waiting for college when, hopefully, he’ll be able to choose some classes that he finds engaging.
If Dylan has to take a college-level math class at college, I hope it’s in a very small, intimate environment where he can trust that the teacher will be able to assist him on a daily basis. Because if it’s not, he may as well not take the class.
There’s so much I wish for Dylan, and I do have regrets that we didn’t give him what he needed to make his educational experience a happy one. Yet, somehow, I am still hopeful that wherever he eventually lands, he will be happy.
Dylan’s schedule is fairly fun for him this year. Because of all the time he spent in the IBCP program, he had all of his graduation requirements completed before the start of his senior year, but he still had to take an English and a math class.
Math has been a problem for Dylan since the fourth grade. He was in the highest math level when he started fourth grade, because he tested at the highest level. But Dylan was having a bit of trouble staying on task. So they moved him down a level, to see if the slightly slower pace would work for him.
It didn’t. He was still having trouble keeping up. So they moved him down another level, where he had no trouble with the math – but surprise! Dylan was still having trouble focusing on his math work.
They moved him down to the second-to-lowest math level in the fourth grade. And there, he fit right in. Why? There was an extra teacher. This was the first time I’d heard the word “para-educator.” The para-educator spent the entire period tapping Dylan’s paper, gently calling his name, and reminding him to focus.
That was eight years ago.
For Dylan’s senior year of high school, after years of slower-paced, “on-level” math classes, Dylan was stuck. He has to take math, but he is so bright that – even after taking Algebra 1 twice – he’d finished his graduation requirements by tenth grade. He didn’t want to take Calculus, so his senior year choices included:
AP Statistics (college level – but a subject he expected would bore him)
IB Math Modeling (college level – but NO college credit because he’s not in the IB program)
Quantitative Literacy (finances and investments)
All along, I have said that Quantitative Literacy was the best choice for Dylan, but his counselor and his math teachers – seeing how bright he is – refused to put him into the class. They said that, since his grades were good in math, he should take a higher level class.
He eventually chose IB Math Modeling.
I was only in the math class for eight minutes on Back to School night, and I immediately knew we had a problem.
IB Math is, indeed, college-level math. There are a handful of students who are not in the IB program, but the math is intentionally taught at a lightning pace and with the intent of preparing students for the Ivy Leagues.
At the end of Day 1, Dylan was already struggling. When he took his first quiz at the end of Week 2, he didn’t know how to do a single thing. But, because he’s smart, he figured out – on his own – how to do it. And he got a B on the quiz.
At the same time, he didn’t turn in his homework on time for an entire week, so he was failing the class. Obviously, he might be better equipped to learn the material if he would do his homework. But he says he can’t follow enough to know how to do the homework.
“I just feel like all this information is coming at me so fast, and I can’t get it all into my brain,” Dylan told me.
So he tried to drop the class – twice – but no one wants to put a brilliant kid into Quantitative Literacy so the counselor keeps talking him into giving IB Math more time.
The way he sees it, he has two choices:
- Struggle all year with IB Math.
- Be bored all year in Quantitative Literacy.
Dylan only has a few days left to make a definitive decision.
With two kids in the same school, Back to School night was a challenge. We were supposed to meet both of our kids’ teachers – simultaneously.
Fortunately, Bill was in town and able to attend, so we split the duties. Bill followed Dylan’s morning class schedule and Shane’s afternoon class schedule. Meanwhile, I followed Shane’s morning schedule and Dylan’s afternoon schedule.
Because I knew which teachers I’d already met in prior years, and because I knew which classes were most important to the kids, I chose the ones that would teach me the most about Dylan and Shane. I wanted to find out how to make their school days more successful, and Back to School night is a great resource for that.
For example, Shane was somewhat bored by his journalism class. He’d enrolled in Video Production, and it was combined with Journalism. Back to School night taught me that, after one month, the Video Production kids would be making videos for the school website, while the Journalism kids would be writing for the school newspaper. So I was able to tell Shane that the class is going to change soon – thereby giving him something to anticipate, so that he is better able to muddle through the first month.
But Bill doesn’t have the background knowledge – or interests – I have. He just wants to see what’s going on, what the kids are learning and who’s teaching. So when he reported back about the classes I’d missed, Bill’s reports were … well, different than mine would have been.
On our way home, he gave me the rundown on Dylan’s guitar class. He told me about the other parents in the class – how many there were, what they looked like, what questions they asked. I learned almost nothing about the school’s new music teacher.
In another class, Bill ran into another father – a friend Bill had made when, years ago, he had chaperoned on an overnight field trip. Bill told me about the other parent, gave me his job title, and laughed about how they’d joked around in “class.” But when I asked Bill whose father that man was, Bill had no idea. So I still have no idea which student is in my son’s history class.
Perhaps the most interesting report came from Shane’s math class, where Bill met both a teacher and a para-educator, who helps the teacher. Bill told me very little about Shane’s math teacher or class, but he found it fascinating that the para-educator had a hip replacement and recently gave up her two-wheeled motorcycle in favor of a trike.
From this story, how am I supposed to surmise if Shane will be happy in math class this year?
Luckily, I already know that Shane is happy in math class, or I would have gone to that class myself. And Shane’s math teacher taught Dylan last year, so I know she’s great.
Bill is a great guy. He’s a people person – a true extrovert – and interested in everyone around him. So his stories were all about the people around him, what they discussed, and what he learned about them. He’s just that kind of person.
I am a single-minded, self-centered introvert. This, I know, is likely responsible for my sour outlook and shorter life expectancy.
But … since I knew Bill (well) before sending him on his Back to School missions – I asked him to take a short video in each class I missed.
I watched the videos and learned what I needed to learn. And I also learned a lot about Bill.
“I don’t know what I should do about Spanish 3,” Shane told me after his eight-minute orientation class. He’d gone from taking on-level Spanish in middle school (for high school credit) to honors-level Spanish in high school.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, I really didn’t understand anything that was said. And when the teacher asked if anyone was struggling, the only person who raised her hand was the smartest girl in the class last year.”
I thought about that. It sounded to me like Shane was struggling, but he hadn’t raised his hand. I wondered how many other nervous freshmen didn’t want to raise their hands.
“I just don’t know if I can do it,” he said. “But I don’t know if I want to quit Spanish either.”
“You do need to take one P.E. class for graduation,” I reminded him. “I will find out what P.E. classes are available and, while you’re checking out Spanish 3, you can think about your options.”
“Okay,” he said. “But I just don’t know if I will understand anything in there.”
We had four days before school started. During that time, I emailed Shane’s counselor and got a list of P.E. options: Yoga, Soccer, Fitness, and Basketball. Then I spent three hours – yes, three hours – working up different four-year plans for Shane’s high school career. The problem with Spanish is that three years isn’t enough to be fluent. And if Shane takes all the high school electives he said he wanted to take, he may only have room for this one Spanish class.
So I worked diligently on showing Shane exactly what he could expect if he did – or did not – drop Spanish 3. There was the IBCP video production program with and without Spanish, the Broadcast Media option with and without Spanish, and the No Plan At All plan with and without Spanish. Basically he has one simple choice: IBCP or Spanish.
I showed Shane all of his options. He thought about the different P.E. classes. We agreed that he should try Spanish 3 for a full week before dropping out.
The four days passed, and he went back to school where, during 8th period, he had a full 46 minutes to determine his future success in Honors Spanish 3.
Then, at home, Shane said, “I think I’m going to do okay in Spanish 3. I didn’t have any trouble understanding stuff today.”
The next day, just in case, I asked him if he still wanted to stay in the class.
“Yeah,” he said. “I understand pretty much everything and I really like it.”
There’s still no resolution on how he’s going to squeeze in Honors Spanish 4 next year. But I tossed the plans into the recycling, just the same.
Shane had made his decision.
Dear Admissions Officer for an Unnamed College:
As a former marketing professional, I just wanted you to know that, after having visited colleges all over the country, your school was one of only six to which my son planned to apply. He visited twice – once on our own and once for a tour – and enjoyed his visits immensely. He thought the campus seemed friendly and the students seemed happy.
But today my son (a rising senior) was working on his Common App, and decided to remove your college from the short list of schools to which he will apply.
And WHY did he do this…?
Because your college is the only one on his list – and perhaps in the world – that requires the Common App’s Courses and Grading section to be completed. For my son, and likely for many other prospective students, that’s a deal-breaker.
The Courses and Grading section requires students to list every single class that they’ve taken, sorted by year, including those taken in middle school. Each class must be entered into a category next to the specific name of the class, and its corresponding label (i.e., Honors).
THEN students need to enter the grades for each quarter, semester AND final grade – as well as listing the credit for each course by semester and year – so, 0.5, 0.5, 1. To complete Courses and Grading, they must do this for each and every high school class they’ve taken.
ALL OF THIS INFORMATION IS ON THE TRANSCRIPT that would be sent along with his application! But for some reason, your college still insists on having the students transpose that information manually into the Common App form.
In my son’s case, this even means adding the name of his middle school into a different section of the Common App, because he took high school level courses in middle school. Since my son’s high school uses a semester system, it means that he would have to individually type in the names of 48 courses, including their label, category, and quarter grade, semester grade, and final grade for each and every one of those 48 courses. This, of course, doesn’t include the courses he’ll be taking in his senior year.
Basically, your college – and only your college – expects him to retype his transcript into the Common App form.
While I tried to persuade him to enter this information anyway, since he really loved the school, he simply can’t bear it. It took him nearly half an hour to put in courses from just the first half of ninth grade.
He finally said, “They seemed kind of out of date anyway,” and this just confirmed his suspicion that your college might not be a good fit for him after all.
I realize that you probably have your reasons for requiring this laborious and completely unnecessary process. But if I were a college admissions officer, I would want to know that there are prospective students out there who have visited, and who LOVED your school, who were planning to apply – and who decided not to apply even though your application is free. And I would want to know why.
Courses and Grading is an agonizing process that would be duplicated in its entirety when the transcript is sent.
So I thought you should know, and I took another half-hour out of my day to tell you. Maybe in the future, you could drop the requirement like so many other schools have already done. Good luck with your future candidates.
Sincerely,
Mom
