Ask HN: Friend's 15 year old wants to drop out, I've been asked to intervene

Re:Ask HN: Friend's 15 year old wants to drop out, I've been... by hkmurakami on Saturday February 09, 2013 @05:40PM (#5194380)

Some private high schools will give assignments that in totality, really do take many hours per day since they require lots of repetition and formula application, rather than say, a small number of very difficult prompts.

In response, here are some "deals" that my friends cut with their teachers:

Friend 1: Instead of doing ~50 easy/medium difficulty math problems per night, he would do 3 difficult ones instead from the section.

Friend 2: He would not have to any homework for AP Physics class as long as he got an A on the previous exam.

AP Bio Teacher: Had an official rule where any student who got a 90% or higher on the previous week's exam wouldn't have to do any of the assignments for the week (though many would do the assignments anyways to learn the material).

These are some things he could look into.

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Re:Ask HN: Friend's 15 year old wants to drop out, I've been... by InfiniteLoopx64 on Saturday February 09, 2013 @07:03PM (#5194677)

My teachers (with exceptions) are stubborn and unwilling to make such deals. It's also not only the after school assignments that I'm upset about, but the fact that I spent 8+ hours of my day in school with no ability to get any work done.

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Re:Ask HN: Friend's 15 year old wants to drop out, I've been... by mtrimpe on Sunday February 10, 2013 @04:42AM (#5195933)

Have you considered that you might not have the social skills yet to make them willing to make such deals with you?

I was in a very similar position as you and looking back what got me those breaks were the teachers that liked me, that liked what they saw in me and who wanted to support me.

Everything I got, I was granted. Just like in real life.

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Re:Ask HN: Friend's 15 year old wants to drop out, I've been... by danielweber on Sunday February 10, 2013 @01:11PM (#5197201)

Lots of schooling is built around making it easier to manage groups of kids. If this guy starts getting exceptions, the teacher is afraid that the next 10 kids in the class will also want exceptions, and pretty soon it's dogs sleeping with cats.

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Re:Ask HN: Friend's 15 year old wants to drop out, I've been... by InfiniteLoopx64 on Sunday February 10, 2013 @03:19PM (#5197682)

Yep. That about describes it. All the kids in my school are wildly crazy and immature and thus it's not in the picture.

I may not have the "best" social skills, but I will say many of the teachers do like me.

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Re:Ask HN: Friend's 15 year old wants to drop out, I've been... by shawndumas on Sunday February 10, 2013 @04:20PM (#5197959)

worse than that; the very nature of the job of school administration attracts a certain kind person

they want him to conform to a system that was never designed for him

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Re:Ask HN: Friend's 15 year old wants to drop out, I've been... by shawndumas on Sunday February 10, 2013 @04:18PM (#5197952)

he convinced me to do what I could to try and convince his parents to let him get his GED and then dropout

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