Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
When did high school turn so brutal?
And I’m not talking about bullying — Jake’s at a Catholic high school, so there’s none of that. Unless you count what the teachers are doing.
I popped my head in to see how he was doing. I suspect he was sleeping, but he denied it. He has to finish reading a chapter in his American History text, and it looks like he has about 10 more densely worded pages to go. It’s 10:30 and he still has assignments for Biology and Spanish due tomorrow. And he has a four to seven page paper due on Friday for Theology.
Used to be he was chronically sleep deprived because he’d be up all hours surfing the net. Now he’s chronically sleep deprived because he’s inundated with homework. Is this necessary? Really? I think my high school did a great job preparing me for Berkeley, and I know I didn’t work half as hard as Jake is working now. Well, maybe half as hard. I still had time for leisure reading. And for a girlfriend.
It’s the sleep deprivation that bugs me the most, perhaps because it’s something I understand only too well, having had lots of experience with it during training and from time to time thereafter. My episodic bouts of insomnia occur frequently enough that I am always at least a little bit grateful when I have six or seven uninterrupted hours of rest. I think Jake’s youth is getting him through this, but at what cost? At the very least, he hasn’t the time to join me at the gym.
He’s been slow to do his online Driver’s Ed, and now I’m thinking it’s a good thing he doesn’t have his license. I don’t think he’d be safe to drive, not when he’s been up all night working.
D.
Wow, that sounds like a ton of work. HA1.0 and 2.0 are both in grade 10, one in public school, one in private catholic school, and they rarely have more than an hour’s homework a day. They certainly have lots of time for leisure reading (also leisure watching TV, leisure lying on the couch, leisure texting and posting on facebook … strangely though, they rarely have enough time to clean their rooms or empty the dishwasher).
How many Honors/AP courses does he have? As a junior, if he is overloaded with those courses, that is what is taking all the time. The counselor talked to my 10th graders yesterday, and she is very UP on what colleges want and it’s not to see a bunch of courses with AP in the title just to have those courses.
I loathe useless homework. My Honors students have reading of some kind Mon-Thursday but rarely with a written assignment (I don’t want to inundate myself either). However, I, like a lot of teachers, find if I don’t hold their feet to the fire with a quiz or some sort of annotation assignment, they won’t do the reading.
Chris, I suspect Jake would kill for that much free time.
Sis, I think they’re all either honors or AP — Theology (Honors), Chemistry (AP), Biology (Honors), English (AP track but I think the test is Senior year), US History (AP), plus he’s doing his Calculus BC as independent study. (Am I forgetting anything, Jake?)
Jake got the opposite advice. He was told to take the most challenging selection of classes that he could manage & still excel. As for extracurriculars, he’s head tutor, which is pretty good for a junior (but hey, he’s the only one they have who can tutor Calculus AB, brag brag).
Don’t forget Spanish 3 (Honors).
Jake’s schedule is why he’s getting so little sleep. As far as extra curricular, word is colleges want to see you stuck with something for 3 years (like journalism, debate, etc) rather than the usual service club hours (handing out water bottles for x number of hours at an AIDs walk).
Head tutor Jake? Way to go…make sure dad lets his brother know.