Losing Perspective

Photon Courier is another of those blogs, emphasis on business, energy, and the passing scene, that slips under the radar, but appeared again when via a good-sense comment from the blogger on Assistant Village Idiot. So we followed him home.

David writes about the Wall Street Journal's report on "the panicky classes," that is, parents over-obsessed with children's performance in school and counter-productive pressure on their children.

One Manhattan tutor reflects on the consequences of the high-pressure efforts to get into a "top college." He sees a distressing number of children who are "completely burnt out and won't accomplish anything in college because they were driven through high school the way an associate is driven through a law firm."

When Sr. Dilys ran his first marathon, he returned frustrated and disappointed because he had gone flat-out too early. He soon adjusted that impulse. Unfortunately, the trajectory of childhood cannot be re-run.

On the other hand, David's friend Ginny does the circle tour of junior or community college experience, and second and third chances.

Comments

[Sal]

Let's not forget panicky high school administrators hoping for a high percentage of students making it into top colleges, for their stats.

Had to talk down the youngest as a sophomore from imbibing their angst.

She is now going to a small liberal arts college with a strong drama program, just what she wants.