What online website should I use to learn about public schools?

By Joyce Szuflita
Inside Schools. Period. We are so lucky to have them. They are a NYC institution. They “get” us. They are nuanced, they are thoughtful, they are looking past the numbers, which can lie (or at least mislead).

Please STOP reading the grades and rankings on Great Schools. Although, feel free to read the blog. And also, please no more Niche or their ilk (they are all you have for Independent Schools, I’m afraid, but not any more accurate or insightful than for public school ratings with even less data). When families ask me, “what is the difference between a ‘9’ and a ‘6’?” I know they are using Great Schools. The answer is, “‘3’.” And yet, these are reputable websites that are doing their best to grade and/or rank schools with data that is crunched by big data people, but when we are talking about real professionals and families in communities that big data doesn’t understand, there are serious blind spots.

I don’t normally have occasion to look at the array of Great Schools grades laid out on the local map, but this week I chanced across one and I spit milk out of my nose. It bore little to no resemblance to the schools that I know. It was wildly cockeyed in both directions. If you are looking to move to the suburbs, you don’t have anything else to go by, and as inaccurate as it is, that is all you have…but in Brooklyn where you have the deep study of the New School for NY City Affairs and the professionalism and insight of education journalists who have studied every school in the City for over two decades - why would you go anywhere else? Because it doesn’t distill school quality to one number or letter? Because it doesn’t put them all in a line? Different people want different things. Different children need different things. Two different institutions can both be “good” AND different. When you try and cram the world into a line, you get a crazy line that is as unfair as it is inaccurate.

I know that I am telling you to turn away from information in a time when there is so little out there for you. That info is not always completely weird and off center. All I am asking is that you don’t make it your first or biggest resource. You should use your own eyeballs (through a virtual tour or open house, please God) in combination with the data and culture interpreted through Inside Schools, with a possible ‘grain of salt’ cross reference with Great Schools. Remember, there are a wide range of thoughtful schools that could serve your child. School (when it is in session) is 6 hours within 24, and 180 days within 365. Your child’s successful outcome may have as much to do with your good nutrition, making sure they get enough sleep at night, your reading to them every night, your modeling good habits, your thoughtful expectations and enrichment, your using big words, your turning your phone off and making eye contact with them, your expressing your own passions and hard work and respect for others, as weighing the difference between a “9” and a “6”.

Good luck, and remember that Inside Schools is an underfunded not-for-profit. In these last hours of the year, please send them a check, as I will.

your placement is not the reward for good work

By Joyce Szuflita
It is hard to really embrace this thought, and even harder to convince your child about it, but there is no other path.
Hard work should ‘pay off’, but there are plenty of times when it doesn’t. There are lots of people who don’t deserve things that get them. Life isn’t fair. If you are expecting a pat on the head and a key to the city for going the extra mile, you will often be disappointed.

The only true thing is that hard work- the satisfaction, knowledge and character that comes from it, is its own reward. The prize is the knowledge that you accomplished something meaningful, that is actively making you a more informed, more skilled, better person. It is almost impossible not to wish for the glittering prize (the admiration, the acknowledgement, the envy), but in the end, it often disappoints.

If you hold out the carrot of a plum placement as reward for a job well done, there is plenty of reason for kids to stop trying at the first disappointment.

handwriting

By Joyce Szuflita
I realized a year or two ago that I haven't the faintest idea what my children's (almost adult) handwriting looks like. I can tell the difference at a quick glance between my parent's similar hands (frankly I could since I was little and scrutinizing Santa's package tags for clues to his origin). I can forge my husband's curlie q's (although I never would!). I remember being very proud when my Japanese Art History Professor (who taught calligraphy) complimented me on my handwriting.

My kids are super fast typists! The problem is that their handwriting is not practiced or fast and when it comes down to SAT and AP tests, they have to hand write quite a bit and it has to legible.

Is penmanship a dying art? Check out this interesting article in the NY Times, The Case for Cursive.

Many schools use "Handwriting Without Tears" to help early writers.

Does anyone know any other good handwriting resources?

Parents of NY Teens

I follow the neighborhood yahoo groups of parents of young children to answer questions about nursery and elementary school, but I occasionally yearn for a group of older parents. I need friends who will talk to me about tutors and teen break ups and how to handle the coed sleepover. I have been an avid member of the yahoo group, parentsofnyteens. It is smallish and chocked full of great parents that I actually know, who are funny and generous and very, very supportive.

Just two days ago, Rachel, the moderator, did us all a wonderful service and started the Parents of NY Teens blog where she is compiling information and resources that the yahoo group members have been supplying.

Now a place for us to go! - to find about the emotions and college tours and ...(a couple of months ago there was a lively discussion on the yahoo group about how to inform your son that it was time to take a shower). I recommend that you sign up for the group, and use the information on the blog early and often!

Middle School: Part 3

So it is the first day of middle school, congratulations! This is what every sixth grade parent wants to hear as their darling comes in the door, "thanks mom and dad, that school is great! It is everything that I dreamed it would be over those long months last year, when we were waiting to hear where I would be placed." This is what you undoubtedly will hear, "It smells funny." That is if they are being kind.

This is what parents need to remember for the next two weeks. Your darling has not been in a new school since they were 5 years old. They have been the kings and queens of their elementaries. They knew everyone. They knew exactly what to expect. They knew all the teachers and it smelled familiar. But now they have to change classes in a building that they are afraid to get lost in. Even the sweetest teacher is putting on her mean face to keep the upper hand on the first day of middle school. The kids, whether they are giant and menacing 8th graders or not, are strange. Even kids they have known all their lives are coming back from the summer with breasts and different voices. How weird is that? It can't possibly be a good day.

So here is what you need to do:
First give them a protein filled snack. They probably had lunch at 10:30. Let them zone out for a while at the mindless activity of their choice.

Don't ask them how they liked school. You won't get the answer you want.
Just ask about facts. What color was your math teacher's hair? Do you have to climb stairs? How many minutes in between class? What do you want for lunch tomorrow?
In a couple of weeks they will start to say things like, "I met a nice kid today." "The science teacher is pretty funny." and you will finally get your rewards for dragging them on a million tours the year before.

And children...
have pity on your poor parents. They only want what is best for you. When they look at you pleadingly, hungry for any detail and praying that they made the right choice, say, "Mom, Dad, I love you anyway."