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Post BB - Housemate Antics 2013

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camerashy1 said:
when English is not a compulsory unit there will be that many people jumping up in the air it's not funny

if you find this subject hard, by the time you start the HSC you become so focused on working to achieve at least a pass in English, all your other subjects suffer, and this where the stress begins. why? because this is something you can not choose not to do, you have to. English can bring a highly intelligent person's ATAR down, it's not everybody's forte, but the Dept of Ed thinks it should be. i have much proof to what i just said if you can understand it
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With English – you either have it or you don’t.

All 3 of my children have been in gifted and talented programs, and the oldest 2 (both now out of school) excelled at English and did extension English. Both achieved excellent results. My youngest is now in year 12 and – while he is undoubtedly the smartest of the 3 overall – English is completely alien to him. He topped the year in other subjects – but analysing poetry and interpreting novels just defy him. And, as you say, that affects the ATAR and there is no way around that. As English is the only compulsory HSC subject, it is an inescapable nightmare for those who aren’t inclined that way. (And when the English teacher – who is also Head Teacher of Student Welfare – happily tells her students that she hates all males because her ex-husband was a jerk, then the nightmare escalates to an epic, insurmountable horror, and you can end up with a young person who spends their time contemplating ways to kill themselves and under the care of a pyschiatrist and psychologist).
 
smurfette said:
With English – you either have it or you don’t.

All 3 of my children have been in gifted and talented programs, and the oldest 2 (both now out of school) excelled at English and did extension English. Both achieved excellent results. My youngest is now in year 12 and – while he is undoubtedly the smartest of the 3 overall – English is completely alien to him. He topped the year in other subjects – but analysing poetry and interpreting novels just defy him. And, as you say, that affects the ATAR and there is no way around that. As English is the only compulsory HSC subject, it is an inescapable nightmare for those who aren’t inclined that way. (And when the English teacher – who is also Head Teacher of Student Welfare – happily tells her students that she hates all males because her ex-husband was a jerk, then the nightmare escalates to an epic, insurmountable horror, and you can end up with a young person who spends their time contemplating ways to kill themselves and under the care of a pyschiatrist and psychologist).
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i understood every single word you said. it's a nightmare for so many

you will find a lot of people who achieve a very high ATAR have chosen subjects where they have the ability to take information they have and put it in an essay or speech. there were no Maths or Science subjects done at all. the people who excel at the Maths and Science but are average at English, and only English, just shake their heads
 
camerashy1 said:
when English is not a compulsory unit there will be that many people jumping up in the air it's not funny

if you find this subject hard, by the time you start the HSC you become so focused on working to achieve at least a pass in English, all your other subjects suffer, and this where the stress begins. why? because this is something you can not choose not to do, you have to. English can bring a highly intelligent person's ATAR down, it's not everybody's forte, but the Dept of Ed thinks it should be. i have much proof to what i just said if you can understand it
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And yet if you want to succeed in many jobs your writing and skills in analysis and deconstruction need to be good. believe me, most English teachers would prefer not to have it as a compulsory subject in the senior school, but unless other faculties are prepared to teach writing skills, it's not going to happen.
 
smurfette said:
With English – you either have it or you don’t.

All 3 of my children have been in gifted and talented programs, and the oldest 2 (both now out of school) excelled at English and did extension English. Both achieved excellent results. My youngest is now in year 12 and – while he is undoubtedly the smartest of the 3 overall – English is completely alien to him. He topped the year in other subjects – but analysing poetry and interpreting novels just defy him. And, as you say, that affects the ATAR and there is no way around that. As English is the only compulsory HSC subject, it is an inescapable nightmare for those who aren’t inclined that way. (And when the English teacher – who is also Head Teacher of Student Welfare – happily tells her students that she hates all males because her ex-husband was a jerk, then the nightmare escalates to an epic, insurmountable horror, and you can end up with a young person who spends their time contemplating ways to kill themselves and under the care of a pyschiatrist and psychologist).
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Teacher bashing...a national sport. Not that I am questioning the fact that there are people who teach who shouldn't be allowed to.
 
camerashy1 said:
i understood every single word you said. it's a nightmare for so many

you will find a lot of people who achieve a very high ATAR have chosen subjects where they have the ability to take information they have and put it in an essay or speech. there were no Maths or Science subjects done at all. the people who excel at the Maths and Science but are average at English, and only English, just shake their heads
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This is a generalisation and actually not a good one. In fact the correlation at the top end of English/maths is that students who tend to do well in one more often than not do well in both.
 
smurfette said:
With English – you either have it or you don’t.

All 3 of my children have been in gifted and talented programs, and the oldest 2 (both now out of school) excelled at English and did extension English. Both achieved excellent results. My youngest is now in year 12 and – while he is undoubtedly the smartest of the 3 overall – English is completely alien to him. He topped the year in other subjects – but analysing poetry and interpreting novels just defy him. And, as you say, that affects the ATAR and there is no way around that. As English is the only compulsory HSC subject, it is an inescapable nightmare for those who aren’t inclined that way. (And when the English teacher – who is also Head Teacher of Student Welfare – happily tells her students that she hates all males because her ex-husband was a jerk, then the nightmare escalates to an epic, insurmountable horror, and you can end up with a young person who spends their time contemplating ways to kill themselves and under the care of a pyschiatrist and psychologist).
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I'm very sorry to hear what your son is going through at the moment. My son is also incredibly stressed about his English exams too but his is still 18months away. Despite his reading comprehension difficulties he can actually analyse the books they give him and come up with some good ideas to write about but his written skills, spelling and grammar are poor so he can't express them well. He really wants to do his HSC because he excels in Maths and physics but he has actually considered dropping out because he is afraid of sitting his English exam because he's embarrassed about a marker reading his writing.
 
camerashy1 said:
i understood every single word you said. it's a nightmare for so many

you will find a lot of people who achieve a very high ATAR have chosen subjects where they have the ability to take information they have and put it in an essay or speech. there were no Maths or Science subjects done at all. the people who excel at the Maths and Science but are average at English, and only English, just shake their heads
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My son topped Maths and came very close in the Science subject he does, as well as Modern History. It's just English - and the flow on effect has now been debilitating
 
pop-culture-freak said:
I'm very sorry to hear what your son is going through at the moment. My son is also incredibly stressed about his English exams too but his is still 18months away. Despite his reading comprehension difficulties he can actually analyse the books they give him and come up with some good ideas to write about but his written skills, spelling and grammar are poor so he can't express them well. He really wants to do his HSC because he excels in Maths and physics but he has actually considered dropping out because he is afraid of sitting his English exam because he's embarrassed about a marker reading his writing.
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I'm sorry to hear that - is he able to have a scribe? A couple of kids in my younger daughter's year had scribes for their HSC exams. I'm not sure what the criteria is, though
 
smurfette said:
With English – you either have it or you don’t.

All 3 of my children have been in gifted and talented programs, and the oldest 2 (both now out of school) excelled at English and did extension English. Both achieved excellent results. My youngest is now in year 12 and – while he is undoubtedly the smartest of the 3 overall – English is completely alien to him. He topped the year in other subjects – but analysing poetry and interpreting novels just defy him. And, as you say, that affects the ATAR and there is no way around that. As English is the only compulsory HSC subject, it is an inescapable nightmare for those who aren’t inclined that way. (And when the English teacher – who is also Head Teacher of Student Welfare – happily tells her students that she hates all males because her ex-husband was a jerk, then the nightmare escalates to an epic, insurmountable horror, and you can end up with a young person who spends their time contemplating ways to kill themselves and under the care of a pyschiatrist and psychologist).
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That is not true.

I believe you either have a natural affinity towards learning, or the determination to learn and improve, or you don't. It is up to you as an individual. I would suggest if your son really had a passion and a genuine interest in analysisng poetry and interpreting novels, he would find a way to do it.

We all have the capability to improve, but it is almost impossible without self belief, determination and perseverance.
 
smurfette said:
I'm sorry to hear that - is he able to have a scribe? A couple of kids in my younger daughter's year had scribes for their HSC exams. I'm not sure what the criteria is, though
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I'm not sure if he is eligible either but a few friends of mine have suggested us exploring it with the school but he isn't keen. The impression I got is that he has no confidence in his ability and doesn't want to embarrass himself in front of a scribe.
 
smurfette said:
My son topped Maths and came very close in the Science subject he does, as well as Modern History. It's just English - and the flow on effect has now been debilitating
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As an HSC English marker for more years than your son has been alive, please reassure him that almost nothing surprises or alarms us and we have to mark positively. That means we are looking for what is good about the paper, not what is not. We also value insightful deconstruction above most other things.
 
pop-culture-freak said:
I'm not sure if he is eligible either but a few friends of mine have suggested us exploring it with the school but he isn't keen. The impression I got is that he has no confidence in his ability and doesn't want to embarrass himself in front of a scribe.
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The more often he works with a scribe the more comfortable he'll be and most scribes are chosen because they are unflappable and kind (as well as literate).
 
pop-culture-freak said:
I have two kids with dyslexia (in year 11 & year 7) and they both have significant spelling difficulties, worse than their reading issues. From my experience with my kids you can only work on developing the ability to a certain extent. They've seen every sort of specially recommended tutor under the sun and I've been told by all of them that regardless of how much work they do they'll never be great spellers if they have an underlying reading issue because the two go hand in hand.

Starting his HSC years my eldest is working incredibly hard at it at the moment. At his school taking an English course is compulsory. He does 4 hours of tutoring for his reading comprehension and writing each week. I can certainly see the results when he's sitting down and concentrating to write a response, but often his writing during casual tasks like leaving me a note or posting a Facebook status is so disjointed and unintelligible I have to read it a few times to work out what he meant. Just last night I was um-ing and ah-ing whether to tell him be posted "a suspection guy" rather than "a suspicious guy" on his Facebook status.

I've noticed the same thing with Jade. When you look at her long post defending Tully she actually spells it quite well. I reckon she went over it a heap before posting it so the same people attacking Tully wouldn't attack her for her spelling. But then when she just posts causal tweets there are more errors. Same exact thing with my kids. I've been told it's because strong spelling and writing isn't second nature to them like it is to a lot of people so when they're not thinking and just writing the errors happen more.

It really is difficult as a mum because both my kids work so hard. It's certainly not through lack of trying or effort that they still have difficulty. Some people are just natural spellers and some aren't. Jade obviously isn't but she doesn't really strike me as a lazy person that's in this position from lack of trying.
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I think that a lot of the problem that dyslexic English speakers have with spelling is really a problem with the language. English still uses archaic spelling rules which were abandoned in other languages many years ago. I do not know if there is a movement to reform the language coming from the dyslexia community but I would be surprised if there were not.
 
prufrock said:
The more often he works with a scribe the more comfortable he'll be and most scribes are chosen because they are unflappable and kind (as well as literate).
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Thanks for your insight. It's certainly something I'd like to explore if he were willing. It's not even about him going well. I just want to find something that will alleviate some of his stress about it before he gets to year 12 when I'm expecting this issue to get worse.

I think another reason he's worried about a scribe is because his reading speed and comprehension isn't the best and he doesn't want to seem "slow" in front of one. I know they be very supportive and non-judgemental but try telling a 16 year old boy that.
 
pop-culture-freak said:
Thanks for your insight. It's certainly something I'd like to explore if he were willing. It's not even about him going well. I just want to find something that will alleviate some of his stress about it before he gets to year 12 when I'm expecting this issue to get worse.

I think another reason he's worried about a scribe is because his reading speed and comprehension isn't the best and he doesn't want to seem "slow" in front of one. I know they be very supportive and non-judgemental but try telling a 16 year old boy that.
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Talk to the school...specifically probably the Year Adviser first, although the name may vary in a Catholic or private school. Or go straight to the boss and let her direct you ;)
 
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