school - when do things get interesting?
 

So... I've got a girl in high school. She's smart. She's cute. She's fun. But she's just not motivated. When I think back on my years, I was fascinated by math beginning in 8th grade. Is it too early for me to expect my daughter to grab on to something? She's 14. She's a bigtime dancer, 10 to 15 hours per week. The other dance students are all able to manage their dancing and their school work. And, they all have interests in school-related stuff. But it ain't working for us. Do I just sit back and wait? I'm worried that bad habits are developing.

My suggestion is to show her how the academics can further her dancing. How to do this I'm not sure as most dancers people have heard about (J-lo and Paula Abdul maybe) did not take their educations very far. Maybe stress the importance of academics so she can pay for college and study dance there.

Hmm, I sucked at school until I was 16, at which point I studied only 4 subjects that I was really interested in (Maths, Economics, Politics, Physics...). That's when it got interesting for me. Perhaps a stage school is in order?

I went through high school and most of college with little motivation. It wasn't that the classes weren't interesting (at least for the most part). I just was never challenged. The classes always went too slow. Every teacher I had in grade school and high school always told my parents I had great potential, but I needed to apply myself and while I was able to take some advanced classes in high school they were still not a challenge.

I don't know if you daughter is having the same problem, but if she is I'd suggest trying to get her into more advanced classes, possibly at a local college. Find out where her intrests lie and get her stimulated.

Same here Hirare, even though my grades might not show it, I just feel that most of school
was never challenging, and the one subject I at least put some effort into, Physics, I ended up
with an 88% overall by studying, maybe 10 minutes, each day for maybe 5 days and just doing
work from class. With most classes, in my opinion, becoming less and less idea/concept oriented, to more facts-only classes, they just become uninteresting and pointless...

I really have no way to help you out, since most everything I've ever learned was outside
of class on my own team reading my own books... If she's really into as dancing as she seems to be, you might want to keep her doing her damndest there, and just tell her to keep her grades above a 3.0 and she shouldn't have a tough time going places with her dancing.

For me school has always been work I have done what I needed to do to get what I wanted form life. I have an MBA now but I never enjoyed school. My wife is an MD with a masters in Stats, if she could she would go back to school she loves it. My point is each person views school the way they do becouse of who they are, the inportent thing is to make clear the value of an education.

Thanks for the replies. My daughter is in advanced classes. She is being challenged. I like that idea about somehow intermingling the dance stuff with the schoolwork. In fact, this weekend she wrote a report in French about the history of dance in Haiti. So maybe it's starting to click.

I didn't "grab" anything until halfway through my first year of university. She'll be fine. Not to offend you, but your early excitement about math isn't really a "normal" thing.

Here's my personal take on things. Anything can be interesting, as long as the "so what?" element is there. Let me explain. I used to teach physics outreach every once in a while. One of the things we go over is Lenz's Law and induction. To demonstrate, we drop a magnet down an aluminum tube and have a kid catch it. Because of Lenz's Law, it drops really slowly. It gets a few ooo's and ahh's but it doesn't mean anything to them until we demonstrate it at Great America (amusement park) and explain that Lenz's Law is the reason why the brakes work and they don't die.

I find that many people need the connection to a practical application to their personal life for them to take an interest in it.

It sounds like with the report about Haitian dance, she's starting to relate other things to her passion. Good start.

I'm finding that the hardest part of parenting for me is the sitting back and watching. What I mean by that is letting my daughter make her own decisions. I can easily see why I was such a bastard towards my parents as a teenager. The teenager only hears the parents complain, set rules, or punish. And now I hear myself saying those same things.

It's definitely different for every kid. I've got one who was inspired by age 12 and another who will be lucky to make it before age 30. My only plan is to somehow keep him involved and active in school (including passing grades) until the inspiration comes.

A friend's 22-year-old is trying to make something of her dancing skills. The next step is Pilates training, with a goal of becoming an instructor. I think paying her way has been tough since high school, though she has parental support.
In any case, it's kind of like football, isn't it? Tens of thousands play in high school, thousands play in college, and hundreds play professionally. Most of us don't even throw a football in the back yard much any more. Not playing high school football isn't the answer, of course, but knowing that it's a temporary thing is essential. Dance is so cool, but it's like so many arts-related endeavors: Worthy, essential to a life well lived, even, but often unprofitable.
Helping teens see the big picture is an eternal struggle, of course. It's good that she's talented and involved. She's way ahead of most kids in that respect, certainly.
And yes, the hardest part is sitting back and watching.

Dancing will keep her in shape, and keep her involved in social groups. This will likely help her more then any math class will.

We live in a harsh, looks based world..where people who look the best and have the most friends will succeed.

I say encourage her dancing, and make her worry about her school enough so that she's going to be going to university and getting a degree.


just my opinion

I am only a Sophmore in College and I remember some of the stupid stuff they made us do in High School. I will admit even today I don't study very often for anything. In high school I never once brought a book home. I was in many Advanced Classes and I had a 3.8 gpa overall. High School is a joke and you don't get treated like an adult by the regular teachers. Also my school was very small. Town of maybe 10,000 with just 1 high school. My graduating class had 280 people.

I guess what I really enjoyed in High School was two classes that I had. I was in Honors World History and and Human Anatamy and Physiology. In both classes we had many great discussions.

She just needs to find something she likes other than Dancing. And Advanced classes are great for making students think for themselves.