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'something toxic about the culture' My kids attend a different Silicon Valley school that has an academic culture that I find very difficult to understand. A v

'something toxic about the culture' My kids attend a different Silicon Valley school that has an academic culture that I find very difficult to understand. A very high number of students load up on college-level advanced placement courses starting their sophomore year. A 'B' is considered a failing grade. What is baffling to me is that the bulk of the pressure is peer pressure, and not directly from teachers or parents. It is typical that kids who transfer to high schools in other states wind up as valedictorians, where they'd barely make the top 10% here. Jocks, burnouts and socialites seems so, so long ago.

jjtheblunt 11y ago
Are there any jocks? Or, are all the kids only encouraged to worship academics?
- paloaltokid 11y ago
  There are lots of jocks in Palo Alto but all the jocks I knew when I went to Paly were also academic high achievers.
- 11thEarlOfMar 11y ago
  It's generally either-or. If you're a jock, you are not academic. The varsity teams are poor at my kids school because most kids in sports as freshman and sophomores drop out of the teams as juniors and seniors to focus more on academics. The sports teams overall are weak.
branchan 11y ago
I guess if you're a kid living in Palo Alto, you are living in an environment where everyone and everyone's parents are high achievers and that is what is expected of you. In order to get admitted to the best colleges, everyone is gunning for the straight A's. If all your peers are getting straight A's and you get a B, yea I can see how that can have an impact on you, seeing that that now takes you to the bottom of the rankings.
- aout 11y ago
  I do not live in Palo Alto and I have never been to Silicon Valley either. I would like to ask what you think about this culture of over achievers telling their kids (via social pressure or directly) that they need good grades when all I can here is that you should not care about grades if you want to become a great entrepreneur. That seems quite a paradox to me but again, I'm just hearing echoes of propaganda from SF. Could it be that people actually buy the "entrepreneur / do-it-your-way bullshit" for themselves but fear to apply it to their kids? Also, I'd like to point out that most of the greatest scientific minds of our era did get mediocre grades in school (I'm not talking about the Gates or Jobs college dropout fairytale).
  - Swizec 11y ago
    It's simple: For every runaway-success person with crappy grades, there are ten people with great success and great grades, and a hundred if not a thousand people with no success (or even failure) and crappy grades. If you make a simple "expected success" calculation, much like the expected value concept, you will see that you should encourage your kids to have good grades. It really does make a difference, maybe not directly, but as a correlation with other stuff, most def. Basically, do not base your life strategy on black swan events. That works for VCs because they make a lot of bets. You are an individual and only get to make one bet. You want that bet to pay off. If you're going to be a black swan, your grades won't matter. If you aren't, and you likely aren't, they will.
  - malchow 11y ago
    "Could it be that people actually buy the 'entrepreneur / do-it-your-way bullshit' for themselves but fear to apply it to their kids?" I sense that this is a very wise observation. I know college dropouts with large homes in the Palo Alto area who take their kids on east-coast college tours via private aircraft. These kids might be better served getting lost in the Andes, but many parents wouldn't hear of such a notion.
  - aout 11y ago
    @Swizec: That's for sure but I'm not talking about the benefits of getting good grades. I'm talking about a culture that oppresses children and fixates everything on grades when what counts is that your child is happy and intellectually sound which I do agree is somehow related to grades in school (related like correlation, not causation).
bluemeniscus 11y ago
I highly recommend arranging a screening of the documentary "A Race to Nowhere". It was an eye opener for me and other parents in Los Alamos (a NM town with many similarities I think) and places this peer pressure into proper perspective for parents, kids, as well as teachers. cf http://www.racetonowhere.com/about-film http://www.racetonowhere.com/about-film
geoelectric 11y ago
Not that I think this is conscious, per se, but I think part of it might be driven by the need for their school to be a "top school." It's not enough just to take AP courses and get As, the overall ranking of the school you do it at ends up affecting your admission chances. Staff might have similar concerns around funding. That probably puts a lot of pressure on all the students to keep up the standard, probably past a level that makes sense for any diverse student body.

jjtheblunt 11y ago

Are there any jocks? Or, are all the kids only encouraged to worship academics?

paloaltokid 11y ago
There are lots of jocks in Palo Alto but all the jocks I knew when I went to Paly were also academic high achievers.
11thEarlOfMar 11y ago
It's generally either-or. If you're a jock, you are not academic. The varsity teams are poor at my kids school because most kids in sports as freshman and sophomores drop out of the teams as juniors and seniors to focus more on academics. The sports teams overall are weak.

branchan 11y ago

I guess if you're a kid living in Palo Alto, you are living in an environment where everyone and everyone's parents are high achievers and that is what is expected of you. In order to get admitted to the best colleges, everyone is gunning for the straight A's. If all your peers are getting straight A's and you get a B, yea I can see how that can have an impact on you, seeing that that now takes you to the bottom of the rankings.

aout 11y ago
I do not live in Palo Alto and I have never been to Silicon Valley either. I would like to ask what you think about this culture of over achievers telling their kids (via social pressure or directly) that they need good grades when all I can here is that you should not care about grades if you want to become a great entrepreneur. That seems quite a paradox to me but again, I'm just hearing echoes of propaganda from SF. Could it be that people actually buy the "entrepreneur / do-it-your-way bullshit" for themselves but fear to apply it to their kids? Also, I'd like to point out that most of the greatest scientific minds of our era did get mediocre grades in school (I'm not talking about the Gates or Jobs college dropout fairytale).
- Swizec 11y ago
  It's simple: For every runaway-success person with crappy grades, there are ten people with great success and great grades, and a hundred if not a thousand people with no success (or even failure) and crappy grades. If you make a simple "expected success" calculation, much like the expected value concept, you will see that you should encourage your kids to have good grades. It really does make a difference, maybe not directly, but as a correlation with other stuff, most def. Basically, do not base your life strategy on black swan events. That works for VCs because they make a lot of bets. You are an individual and only get to make one bet. You want that bet to pay off. If you're going to be a black swan, your grades won't matter. If you aren't, and you likely aren't, they will.
- malchow 11y ago
  "Could it be that people actually buy the 'entrepreneur / do-it-your-way bullshit' for themselves but fear to apply it to their kids?" I sense that this is a very wise observation. I know college dropouts with large homes in the Palo Alto area who take their kids on east-coast college tours via private aircraft. These kids might be better served getting lost in the Andes, but many parents wouldn't hear of such a notion.
- aout 11y ago
  @Swizec: That's for sure but I'm not talking about the benefits of getting good grades. I'm talking about a culture that oppresses children and fixates everything on grades when what counts is that your child is happy and intellectually sound which I do agree is somehow related to grades in school (related like correlation, not causation).

bluemeniscus 11y ago

I highly recommend arranging a screening of the documentary "A Race to Nowhere". It was an eye opener for me and other parents in Los Alamos (a NM town with many similarities I think) and places this peer pressure into proper perspective for parents, kids, as well as teachers. cf http://www.racetonowhere.com/about-film http://www.racetonowhere.com/about-film

geoelectric 11y ago

Not that I think this is conscious, per se, but I think part of it might be driven by the need for their school to be a "top school." It's not enough just to take AP courses and get As, the overall ranking of the school you do it at ends up affecting your admission chances. Staff might have similar concerns around funding. That probably puts a lot of pressure on all the students to keep up the standard, probably past a level that makes sense for any diverse student body.