Parents Hi everyone! First post, very proud!

[Muffinsmom]

I've been browsing the forums here for about a month and just wanted to say hello, and thank you! There is a wealth of information here!

My dd is 6 and about to start her first season. She was chosen to train TOPs, but has been the weakest girl in the group of 8 (she's 1 of 2 level 1 girls, everyone else has been on team a year). She has been the only one without a press handstand and was told she had to have one by the end of the month to continue in TOPs. Wellllll last night she did it!! She's been working so hard and I couldn't be more proud! I have greatly underestimated my own child, so shame on me, but this little girl has met every challenge so far!

 

[aksaunders]

I've been browsing the forums here for about a month and just wanted to say hello, and thank you! There is a wealth of information here!

My dd is 6 and about to start her first season. She was chosen to train TOPs, but has been the weakest girl in the group of 8 (she's 1 of 2 level 1 girls, everyone else has been on team a year). She has been the only one without a press handstand and was told she had to have one by the end of the month to continue in TOPs. Wellllll last night she did it!! She's been working so hard and I couldn't be more proud! I have greatly underestimated my own child, so shame on me, but this little girl has met every challenge so far!

It sounds like she is on her way. Congrats to her. Does she train TOPS every practice? If so, you should see her strength increase by leaps and bounds.

 

[profmom]

I really wish there was research detailing just how much time is spent with teachers actively engaged with students vs the time spent managing the classroom, students moving between classes, doing busy work, etc. It would be a real eye opener to parents, which is, of course, why the research will never be done.

Are you serious? Have you ever even looked at an academic journal on education? There is an extensive and exhaustive body of published peer-reviewed research on this topic, and it is part of what has led to the current wave of teaching innovations like flipped classrooms.

From early on, we taught our kids to learn independently. It is one of the major issues with traditional schools - Students do not learn how to learn independently. They are "taught to" for most of their schooling career, including college. It is just the nature of the beast when you have 25+ kids in the classrooms.

This suggests that you hold some major misconceptions about current best practices in secondary and baccalaureate education. The whole point of liberal arts education in college is to teach independent critical thinking and communication skills. Of course if you send your kids off to be pre-business majors, your mileage may vary.

I understand that you're defending homeschooling and home schoolers because you feel attacked for your choices. I think there are many good things about home schooling as long as, as I mentioned above, parents are very careful choosers and consumers of good products. But I feel compelled, just as you did, to point out the significant misconceptions behind your critique of others' reasonable educational choices.

I agree that a debate about the merits of home schooling is unlikely to help the OP. I think it is great that we have a number of experienced home schoolers on the boards who have navigated around the pitfalls and risks, just as we have parents who've managed to keep their high hours kids in public schools and sane. Both paths can work if the parent is proactive about ensuring that the child is getting the kind of education s/he will need to excel, regardless of whether s/he ends up on the national team/a Division I full-ride athlete or does her/his last back handspring at age 11. And we should ALL keep in mind that until pretty late in the process, we don't know which flavor we've got! Work creatively to make elementary/secondary education work with gym? Great! Compromise elementary/secondary education in favor of gym? A terrible idea, regardless of the format or venue of that education.

 

[COz]

@profmom : I think you might have meant to post this on the Homeschooling thread

 

[lovemygymnast]

Muffinsmom how exciting! Congratulations! How often do they train tops at your gym?

 

[Muffinsmom]

Thank you! Carly trains 4 days a week... team twice per week, an open TOPs class once per week, and the closed TOPs class once per week. She has to test monthly to stay in the closed TOPs class. She barely passed her first test 2 weeks ago, managing to press to a handstand from her toes for the first time ever DURING the test.

 

[Gym-Mom]

That's great! It is so exciting to see them finally get something after watching them work so hard! Congrats to your daughter!