Why do we overwhelm our kids with so many activities and sports these days?
Isn’t it enough any more just to be a student doing homework? Instead, they play on In House teams and Travel Teams, we sign them up at age 5 for fear of being left out or not getting into the right school or getting that scholarship.
We run ourselves rag-ed getting from school to dinner to practice! I long for riding my bike, playing baseball and watching Leave it to Beaver.
Am I officially old?
What are your thoughts?
Hi Bob,
I feel your pain on this Bob. I have twins that are going on 11 and they do the following: piano lessons both of them, ballet for my daughter(3 days per week Peabody in Baltimore, City), karate for my son (2 days per week), scouts for my son (once week and now camping two plus weekends per month), tutoring for them both (twice per week). We run them all over the place and still get homework done! Wow…it is so much. I never did this much when I was a kid. I have to say our kids will be much smarter than we were going into the workforce, but not sure I can say as innovative and creative. We had to find things to do and could run around our neighborhood with no parents telling us what we could or couldn’t do. The townhome community my sisters an I grew up in was perfect for friends and activities going on all over the place. I was outdoors most of the time playing sports or riding my bike till it got dark and I would hear my mom calling me to come home. It is a different world now. Now they text you to come home with kids having cell phones! I think the schools have not evolved as fast as technology as evolved. The one thing that makes America different is innovation and thinking outside the box. IF we loose this sense of out side the box thinking, we are left with a bunch of smart kids who can multitask, but can not make decisions for themselves. The system is to me broken and it will take a lot of people, parents, teachers, and/or political leaders to fix it and over a long time. Social media / new technologies have changed the way our kids do things and learn things.
When I was in high school, Kennard-Dale High, right over the MD/PA line above Bel Air MD, I signed up for a Russian class that was taught via satellite with one teacher teaching Russian to over 300 students in 40-50 classes across the country. It was an awesome class and an innovative way to teach. We called in over the phone and would read over the air live and all the other classes would hear what we were saying. So, you really did not want to mess up! It was back in 1990, so that was before the internet. The class was a success, but was later cut due to funding after five years of rather great success. I think it was a political move to not fund the program because the cost of an individual teacher for each school would be more money than the cost for the program.
I think the technology has become far better and we are at a time where that style of learning would be effective, but we instead use the traditional way of teaching. I am all for finding the best teachers and paying them tons of money to teach many students, and have teachers aids that are people who really want to help kids with learning. I am not saying that should be done for all classes, but it sure was cool for me. With programs like Skype, we really can change the system, but those who have pensions and tenured positions rule against such innovations.
When my kids were in 1st grade, their teacher would send home emails every week regarding the classes progress. I was so spoiled. Since then, from grades 2-5, no emails or updates outside of the standard school letters talking about fundraisers. I do not have all the answers about what to do other than, perhaps we need more after school activities AT THE SCHOOL vs having to truck our kids all over the place. Teachers want to roll out at 3:30 and be done with their day, so we as parents have to get there and end our work day. Don’t get me started on the whole old school farm like school hours that our schools run today. High school and some middle schools getting off at 2:30 is crazy. Schools in our area work with the Parks and Rec Council and it seems like we need an act of congress to get an after school activity to happen in an empty classroom. When our old Principal Mrs. Hershfeld left Fort Garrison Elementary, all those cool after school classes like Robotics flew south for the winter when Mrs. Harris took over. The website for the school looks like something out of the early 90’s and it is one of the highest rated schools in the country. I think it is one of the highest rated schools, because they have a high degree of parent participation vs schools with a low degree of parent involvement. Schools take all the credit, when in fact I know they could do much better.
Would you believe it that even with low parent approval of the new principal and the after school parking lot being empty, she won the Principal of the year award last year! Wow, I think the system is very political and not in favor of the student. Sounds like our congress with a huge disconnect with the American people.
I know some amazing teachers that have no degree in teaching that will never get a chance teaching because they have not gone through the political system (four years of college and a masters degree paid for by the school system or tax payer). I have a musician client who can teach music to kids in ways that would turn kids into stars, but since he did not get a degree in music, he is not even considered. I think we place too much emphasis on the college system and do not look at people who perhaps teach in the private sector who are game changers. Instead we are getting tenured teachers who enjoy the status quo, look out for their pensions, and look at the clock to bolt out of school when the school bell rings.
Sorry I went all over the place in my rant, but I agree our kids do way too much and need to just have some down time to do nothing or even choose what they want to do. I hope schools could find some great uses for the empty buildings either after school or during summers when we working parents need to find stuff for our kids to do that are cost effective.
The main reason my kids do so much is their mother is a great and smart person who wants them to excel in life. She is very educated with a Doctor degree and so my kids have larger expectations then some other kids with moms who perhaps did not go so far in education. Me, I never made it past four years of college and did not opt to go to graduate school or PHD because I went into the private sector after college. If I went into the public sector, it would be a sure bet that I would have had the tax payer foot the bill for my education working for the state or federal gov. (Public sector jobs now pay more than private sector jobs a stat that use to be reversed) But, I chose to not do that and start my own business and work crazy hours with no guarantees of success or a paycheck. I was blessed with outside the box thinking and love what I do, so I would not trade it for a minute.
Best,
Charles Tucker
Owner
eBranding Group
http://www.eBrandingGroup.com