I finished math lessons with the kids tonight around 11:30. It sounds like a mad thing to do, but it really is just a necessity. Their evening hours have grown increasingly longer into the night while we are at the beach, so I’m just taking advantage of that. If I didn’t cover something during the day, then I’m trying to get to it at night. It might as well be math, and it really should be math. I use their mood and clarity of thought to tell me if they will understand their lessons, so I always stop when I see they are just done (and me,too). They did watch a mini-show on Florence Nightingale tonight just before bed. Big fan of those educational cartoons, although that meant that Pinocchio was not read.
I’ve been reading more on the admissions process into the Ivies and other upper tier colleges. Just baffling to me the lengths that some students and parents are going to in order to gain acceptance. Folks are trying to fill the squares and solve the formula. Kids are trying to start charities, volunteer hundreds of hours, be in everything and be somebody, not because they love to do that but because they have to do that. The whole process appears to be contradictory to education, in general. I imagine an educational institution would want to see an applicant’s characteristics including such things as authenticity, honesty, passion for the area of study, and responsibility. Current media seems to be highlighting a different picture of Ivy applicants, and the characteristics are quite the opposite to include fakeness and forgery. I hope these colleges see through the fallacy of those applicants who choose a win-at-all costs belief system, none of which appears to be related to the joy of learning. I don’t know. Sometimes, I feel a bit like Jekyll and Hyde. I feel myself getting caught up in the craziness, and then sometimes I just shake my head at the absurdity of it all which really makes me a hypocrite, doesn’t it?

Nevertheless, you know what would be really impressive for a university to do? Throw the whole system out the window.  Get rid of the SAT mess and the break-the-code mentality.  The process ruins learning for children. They should come up with an admissions process where kids could not simply fill squares and think that will get them in. No, an ideal admissions process would be one where those kids who really went after the joy of learning and pursued their true talents and interests would be rewarded for doing such.  What would that look like? I’m surprised there’s been no originality with it all.  Seems so boring and stale, and for institutions who say they are looking for unique individuals, their screening of individuals is the opposite of uniqueness.  The two ideas do not mesh at all.  It’s an interesting thought to ponder. Come on Ivies, impress us with something different!