Geek high
Tonight our local school board is having a hearing regarding whether the city of Alexandria should allow students to attend Fairfax’s selective math and science high school, Thomas Jefferson.
As I understand it, the argument in favor is that it opens up an opportunity for a few very talented high school students to attend a school where they’ll be academically challenged and surrounded by their peers. The arguments against are that it takes away money from the local school system (as Fairfax charges participating districts more per student than Alexandria spends on average), and that it reduces the number of advanced courses that the Alexandria high school (TC Williams — yes, there’s only one high school for the city) is able to offer, by taking away some of the students who would take those classes.
As I’ve mentioned before, I attended a similar school, and it was an incredibly valuable experience for me. The fact that it was normal to be smart, normal to read, normal to study, normal to like learning, was wonderful for me. I truly never had to deal with BS like this. I had a ninth grade bio teacher who told me that if I became interested in boys and decided to be stupid she’d wring my neck. And it also protected me from the arrogance of some smart people I’ve known, who are convinced that they’re the only ones with any brains.
I mentioned this to Maggie, who often comments on this blog, and she responded:
Isn’t it funny how all of our experiences shape our opinions? I’m sure I
would have enjoyed the intellectual companionship of going to
Stuyvesant, if my parents or I had had any idea that it existed – I was
bored a lot in high school. But I also think that a lot of what I like
about who I am today is the direct result of going to a high school
where there were kids across the spectrum, not just high achievers, and
learning to get along with them while still being a high achiever
myself. I learned how to talk to anyone, about anything, instead of just
burying myself in my books. There are lots of people with lots of brains
out there, but there are an awful lot of brainy people who have a dearth
of people skills.
Maggie obviously had better people skills than me to begin with — I came out of my shell at Stuyvesant, and think I would have disappeared totally into the world of books in many environments.
That said, the stress level at competitive high schools does seem to have ratched up a significant degree since I went to HS. I started reading The Overachievers, and it’s pretty depressing. (It’s also boring, so I’m probably not going to finish it.) Maggie said that she’s "interviewed so many kids from TJ who are just basket cases that I really, really would be uncomfortable sending my kid there."
September 19th, 2006 at 7:30 am
As someone who didn’t go to a selective school (but would have made it in, if it had been available) I think it would have been better for me. I retreated into my shell in high school, and I didn’t learn all that much either, compared to what I could have learned if pushed.
But I did well enough to get into any course I wanted to at university, so the only thing that was damaged was my happiness, which probably wouldn’t persuade your school Board to spend more money on me (sadly).
September 19th, 2006 at 9:08 am
I think that there is a difficulty in assuming that one’s socialization training–as well as one’s education–starts and ends with one’s high school experience. I have to admit that my own high school experience was more like Maggie’s. I think there is real value to having to take gym in public school, frankly. But my husband went to one of those high-academic, exclusive high schools, and while I used to tease him about it, the truth is that he has gone out of his way to expose himself to different kinds of people. He’s able to sit down and have a conversation with just about anyone now, himself.
September 19th, 2006 at 9:35 am
One thing I consistently struggle with is the idea that my kids’ school experiences are not just a repeat of my own. I have my own baggage from growing up … but what does that mean for my kids?
My husband and I just went thru the process of choosing a kindergarten in the city of Chicago for our oldest daughter. We found ourselves having lots of “heated discussions”.
Me: “But if she goes to the neighborhood school she won’t have any friends! She’ll learn that school is boring, and that being smart makes you unpopular!”
He: “I’m not sending her to some exam school where she’s taught that every interaction is a chance to compete. She’s 5!”
Gee, was this really about Katie and what she would be experiencing? Not even remotely. Not sure where that leaves us, though. It’s not like you can ask a 5-year-old where they want to go to school … perhaps I need to start talking more to the family friends with kids a few years older than us.
September 19th, 2006 at 10:45 am
I know several parents in my neighborhood that have children that were offered admission to Thomas Jefferson for this year. Two of the students opted to go to the IB program at Annandale High and one opted to go to Thomas Jefferson. The parents of the one that opted to go to TJ are already wondering if they really made the right decision, and it’s only the third week of school.
September 19th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Elizabeth, thanks for quoting my email – I realize as I read the post, though, that there’s an important piece of my high school experience that isn’t obvious. I didn’t go to the local public high school, I was a scholarship kid at a Catholic high school, which – although common (in Queens) and not-so-competitive (fewer AP classes etc than the local public school) – was still private. Most important, though: my high school was single-sex. I think that I, too, might have retreated into the world of my books if the adolescent boy/girl interactions were played out during the school day – I sure didn’t have the people skills going into 9th grade that I had at the end of 12th grade. But not having boys sitting in class with us meant that we women were free to have a significant part of our lives free of those tensions – the boys were plentiful after school, but during the day they were largely a non-issue. Some tensions, of course, spilled over, but the friendships and esprit de corps we had with one another were far stronger than the tensions of who likes which boy. I feel so strongly about the positive effects of single-sex education for women during adolescence that I am one of the very few people in my peer group who might someday push very hard for my daughter to attend an all-girls high school.
Leaving aside the intellectual development (clearly a very big thing to leave aside), when a particular smart, nerdy kid is thrown into the stew of the non-specialized high school, is it more likely that s/he will learn to cope with the jerks, thrive, and be better off for it, or will s/he sink and falter and be far worse off for it? I was better off for being in the stew – but I also was at a single-sex high school that made a BIG difference in the kind of stew and kind of jerks I had to deal with. It could easily have gone the other way for me at the local public high school, looking back on who I was in 9th grade. And, as with so many other things, the answer to the question of which high school is best for any particular kid depends entirely on who that kid is, right?
But I’m still really, really wary of the TJ pressure cooker . . . I have met some great kids with their priorities straight who attended TJ, but man, some of those kids are stressed out and messed up, in the most well-intentioned of ways.
September 19th, 2006 at 11:19 am
I went to a large public rural high school and did indeed disappear into a world of books, while my husband attended a public high school for performing arts that was very selective. I still find myself retroactively jealous of his experience, and he is like landisdad, able to enter any social setting and feel at ease, whereas I am not. Granted, part of that is our two personalities as well, but I really want our girls to have an experience more similar to his than mine. I guess we’ll deal with the pressure cooker aspect when we get there.
September 19th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
I went to two highly competitive public high schools. My husband went to a large urban high school he has described as a “vast sea of mediocrity.” We have many years before having to decide for our three year old, but right now we’re leaning more toward an experience like his. I feel that he was given so many more opportunities to take chances and try different things. My experience was that it wasn’t only the academics that were hyper competitive but the extra-curriculars as well. I showed up at college with much better study skills, but he had some excellent classes as well, given that his school was large enough to offer them. My memories of high school all involve stress.
But, as was mentioned before, every child is unique and what really matters is what makes your child thrive.
September 19th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
I feel like the question of elite academic high schools is similar to one posed by Time magazine earlier this summer: Who Needs Harvard? http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1226150,00.html (And I’m certainly not knocking Harvard, mindful of present company!)
As Maggie said, I’m sure there are great kids at TJ (and elsewhere) who have their priorities straight. I’d also be willing to be that there are some high-strung, cut-throat caffeine addicts who see elite high schools as the only non-failing option. And I’d also be willing to be that there are some socially awkward brainiacs who are hiding from the rest of the world by going to TJ.
If Alexandria decides to go ahead with allowing kids to attend TJ, it will be interesting to see how they pick those kids and whether that selection process will turn into a pressure cooker of its own for Alexandria’s top-notch high school students.
September 20th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Nate and I have this discussion a lot. I went to a top public school in Westchester (no stuy, but not too shabby either) with a great performing arts program and tons of AP courses, where something like 8 kids went to Harvard, a few to Stanford, and a dozen to Michigan. Nate however went to army base schools where not one counselor ever said, “so…college. Something to consider?” Not one.
There’s no doubt that the school itself is a huge influence on your kids. But then…we did somehow end up in similar places. So there’s got to be that X factor, even beyond family and peers. That gives me a little hope, no matter where our daughter ends up.
September 20th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
I attended, at the time, a highly regarded Catholic co-ed highschool in Queens. Every subject was treated competitively from science to sports to even art. What freaks me out now is that once a year the school, in the main part of the building, would post every student’s rank from 1 to last. It was crazy! There were a variety of cultures and ethnicities , but everyone focused on academics. I realize now that I already made my decision for my daughter regarding school. My husband and I moved to one of the best and competitive public school districts on Long Island. Although it is a public school, the high school is extremely similar to mine – also the parents from my high school are equally academically minded as the parents in my current neighborhood.
On a side note, I was not the most motivated student and the rigorous academia of my highschool fully prepared me for college. It really shaped my ideas about excellence. The passing grade was 75, whereas most public schools were 65 and some colleges 59.