It's almost back-to-school morning

Got back from that annual fall festival, back to school night. My 3rd this year, two at my school and one at my kid's school. A least one kid is in college now. Last year I had 5 of them.

I'm never quite sure what to do at these things. Am I supposed to give a detailed description of the curriculum? Do I give the parents math problems to work on, (at my older daughter's school, the choir teachers used to make us sing, so why not)? Do I talk about our math department philosophies?

I probably should do all or most of these things, but of course what I usually do is just ramble on for 10 minutes, just like I do in class. I don't really think this is a total waste of time. As a parent, I want to know (1) what kind of person is teaching my kid? and (2) does this person understand my kid? I think parents leave with a decent idea of what class is like, and I try to sprinkle in enough observations of the students that they are comfortable that I'm at least making an effort to get to know them. In reality, my whole approach is based on getting to know the students as well as I can, as math students anyway. I can be much more effective answering questions if I know what's behind them, and that's where the skill is. Anyone can outline a chapter and write it on the board.

Tonight, the one thing I realize I forgot to say is what an abomination the whole AP thing has turned into. Not the class or the curriculum. That's fine. I just think the original intent of the AP has been perverted. When I was in high school, the only people who took AP were people who had specific reason for wanting to enter college advanced in a particular subject. The vast majority of the advanced students took honors classes. Today, AP classes have become the new honors- they're transcript trophies. Again, the curricula are generally pretty good, but the time pressure caused by having to teach to the test isn't good for anyone's psyche. And I don't think it does anything to foster a love of learning. It is certainly good for the College Board's bottom line, though, so they have no reason to discourage it.

I'm just sympathetic to the kids. The college entrance process in this day and age is brutal and I hate to watch it, especially since I think that college choice is not nearly as important as it's cracked up to be. More on that later.