The MUS Lower School Blog

New Poll: 7th Grade Parents Camp

One of the fun parts of the Lower School blog are the polls which allow us to hear what you're thinking.  The latest poll asks 7th Grade parents what they thought of Tuesday night's "Parents Camp" meeting at school.

If you have other thoughts on Parents Camp or you feel the choice of responses is too limited, drop us some Blogmail.  You can send Blogmail anomymously or not (your choice), so we hope you'll feel free to be candid.  We're genuinely interested in hearing what you have to say.

New Poll - Should 9th graders start the year in study hall?

Currently, all MUS 9th graders start the year with free periods, instead of the supervised study halls that they were accustomed to in the Lower School.  8th graders covet that freedom and look forward to it immensely.  The issue is whether some students would be better served by starting the year in Study Hall and earning their way out by demonstrating that they can manage their academic responsibilities.

What if ninth graders, other than those on the Honor Roll (3.0 average, no grade below a B), started the year in supervised study hall during their free periods?  That would mean that about 2/3 of the class would be in study hall instead of being allowed to roam unsupervised for nearly 8 hours each week at school (4 hours per week for non-athletes).  As the academic year progressed, the standard for getting out of study hall could become more relaxed.  Perhaps by the end of the first semester, students with no D's and F's could also be released; and at the end of the year, all students except those on Academic Probation would have earned their free periods.

Or maybe the current system is better.  All students start the year with free periods, and only those with an F, more than one D, or conduct problems end up in supervised study hall.  Under the current system, only about a dozen boys end up in  "s-cubed", so the vast majority of boys have free time and no supervised study halls during the school day.

What do you think?  Participate in our new poll or drop us a Blogmail.

New Poll - Summer Plans

Easter break is here, and summer is just around the corner.  What do you have planned for your son this summer?  We've listed lots of choices, and you can pick as many as are appropriate.  Have you got something planned we didn't think to include?  Send us a quick note in Blogmail -- we'd be interested in your thoughts.

New Poll - Thinking of College

Clay and I were talking about colleges, and that inspired our new poll.

We were talking about families and college choices, and thought of at least three different outlooks on MUS as it relates to college choices.

Some families, even when their sons are still in the Lower School, know exactly where their sons are going to college.  Maybe it's where older siblings or the boy's parents or grandparents went.  Those parents don't send their sons here because of the variety of college opportunities that MUS might provide; they presumably send their sons here because they think MUS will best prepare their sons for the school each has already chosen.

Other families, are on the opposite end of the spectrum.  MUS' reputation and college admissions track record is an important reason why they are sending their sons here.  If you wanted to send you son to Harvard, it is probably important to you that half of the Memphis boys in the last five years admitted to Harvard were MUS graduates.  That's more than any other school (even White Station which is much larger).  And it doesn't have to be Harvard; maybe it's Stanford or M.I.T, or Duke, or University of Virginia.  These families are looking at an MUS education as a door to a wider variety of college choices for their son.

Finally, with increasing college tuition, finances are becoming an ever-more-important factor for many parents.  These parents look at MUS and the scholarships that are offered to our graduates as a way of helping pay for college.  For a few students, the scholarships earned from their attending MUS could exceed the tuition paid for their high school education.  These parents look at MUS in some ways as a financial investment that will pay back when their sons are choosing a college.

Clay and I have known parents who fit into all three of these categories, and many more who don't fall so neatly into just one.  But, for the purposes of this poll, we'd like to know which of these attitudes best reflects your thoughts about MUS as it relates to college.

As always, your thoughts (anonymous or not) are welcome on Blogmail, as well.

New Poll -- Proofreading and Progress Reports

I received a Blogmail today asking why Progress Reports weren't available yet, since they were supposed to be online this past Friday.  Please note that I didn't say they would be online, but someone did; perhaps they were just being a little too optimistic.

Your son's progress reports were submitted last week, but now they're in the purgatory that is proofreading.  MUS doesn't want you to think that our teachers are a) illiterate or b) careless, so our administration proofreads every progress report before releasing them to you.  The upside is that you will be less likely to receive a progress report for your son Bobby that says "Booby is having trouble in Physics".  The downside is that you have to wait several extra days to see how Booby, I mean Bobby, is doing.

If I were a parent, I wouldn't care about a typo or two.  Now, if my son's English teacher regularly wrote progress reports that appeared to be written by a Neanderthal and punctuated by e.e. cummings, I might become concerned, but that seems like an unlikely scenario.

What do you think?  Vote in the poll and drop us a Blogmail if you find the Poll doesn't let you express yourself fully.

Current poll: demerits on the web

To preventing any misunderstanding or undue worry, there are NO current plans to post demerits on the blog. 

We are interested in what you think about the issue, and if there were an overwhelming sentiment to post them on the web, we might reconsider our current policy.   But, based upon the reaction we've seen and the intense opposition of some people to such a change, I don't foresee any changes.

Allowance poll follow-up

The allowance poll results surprised me a little.

Almost two thirds of our students receive no allowance, but the two reasons behind that are polar opposites.  One quarter of those receiving no allowance (17% overall) get none because those parents want their sons to work for any money they have.  Three quarters of those receiving no allowance (48% overall) are given anything they want within reason.  Of course, what constitutes "within reason" probably varies dramatically from parent to parent.  Nonetheless, it is interesting that nearly half of our students have little or no experience with saving allowance money for long-term purchases by the time they reach the Upper School.

Of those receiving allowance, inflation has had its impact since I was a boy.  I used to think that my $1 per week was a princely sum, but I guess that would mean one trip to MacDonald's would wipe out a month's savings.  Now, of those receiving allowances, roughly one third get $20 or more per week, one third bet between $10 and $20 per week, and one third get less that $10 per week.  I wonder if this varies between seventh and eighth grade students (something for next year's poll).

Thank you for your participation, and I hope you find this information about how you and other MUS parents approach the topic of allowance useful.

New Poll - Should the demerit list be posted on the blog?

It's so nice to have Blogmail working again.  I've already received feedback from our faithful readers already.  It's inspired me to update our blog poll.

The new blog poll asks you whether you'd like the weekly demerit list to be posted on the blog.

On the plus side, it would give parents more information about their son's disciplinary status and help you get a jump on your sons who wait until the last second to let you know their "plans" for Saturday morning.

On the downside, all parents (and even outsiders) would be able to see who has demerits and who are regulars on the demerit list.  That's pretty embarrassing for those students and their parents.  I guess that would be another deterrent associated with demerits, but the system seems to work fine without making it reputationally punitive.  Also, in this modern age, your son's demerits would become part of the giant [cess]pool of information on the internet; you'd hate to have someone "Google" your son and find the first eight entries to be his middle school demerits. 

Finally, part of the penalty associated with getting a demerit is forcing the boy to confront his parents to make arrangements to get to Saturday School.  That is one reason why demerits would not be nearly as effective in High School because many of those students have their own transportation and would never need to have that parental encounter.  That student-parent conversation is an important part of the reason why demerits do work -- boys fear that conversation probably more than they do losing a half hour of their Saturday morning.  If putting the demerit list on the web made demerits into something that their parents tracked without discussion, then that would undermine the demerit process.

If you have your own thoughts on this, send us some Blogmail.  I'm anxious to see the poll results and hear your ideas.

New Poll: Allowance for your son

This week's poll topic is allowances.

Part of the inspiration for this poll is an article in this week's Wall Street Journal about the challenge of managing allowances for kids in today's world of iPod downloads, ringtones, and eBay purchases.

The diversity of our school makes things very interesting in the contrasts it provides.  Some of our students have relatively little and must value each of their possessions dearly.  Others have so much that the thought of leaving their $100+ calculator on the floor means nothing to them. 

Allowance and chores are part of the way that I learned about the value of money, but I wonder whether these are rapidly becoming part of ancient history.  It seems that relatively few of our students have chores that are required of them as members of their households.  I was told many times (much to my dismay) that allowance wasn't pay for chores; chores were the responsibilities that came with being a family member.  I was also given a very limited allowance and learned the tradeoff between buying small items frequently and larger items after saving my money for weeks and months.  These days, delaying gratification like that seems hopelessly old fashioned, and kids don't seem to have to wait long times to get what they want any more.

I'm interested to see what the results of this poll will be.  I'd ask you to pass along your thoughts in Blogmail, but that service is still down, but if you'd like to send e-mail to my school account, I'll be glad to honor any requests for anonymity.

New poll - Exams and Incentives

With exams approaching, I've decided to ask you about your use of incentives as a tool to help your sons achieve their (and your) goals for exams and semester grades.

In a perfect world, all students would do their best with no additional inducements.  The intrinsic rewards of doing well in a class, the satisfaction of a job done well and the satisfaction from earning the respect of parents, teachers, and classmates would be enough.  For most students, that may be true in some courses that they particularly like or with some teachers who they feel a special respect for, but I think it's the minority who are sufficiently intrinsically motivated to do their best in all their classes. 

I remember an MUS parent, years ago, asking my mother for her secrets in motivating me to do my homework and work hard at MUS.  My mother thought about it a moment and then truthfully answered that she did nothing.  As a boy in elementary school, I developed lofty college aspirations, knew what was required to make that happen, and then I was on autopilot; I wanted to go to Harvard or M.I.T., and I knew that B's and C's weren't going to do it.

On the other hand, many other students are not as self-motivated when it comes to academics (our principal, Clay Smythe, took a different approach to his MUS studies from the one I took).  For those students, extra incentives (rewards, penalties, or both) may make the difference.  I know that
I often hear from students who are driven to get a particular grade either because of some reward (videogame system, ski trip, going to sporting event) or some penalty (grounding being the most frequent followed by loss of privileges and luxury items).

What is your approach to your son and his grades?  Are general admonitions to do his best enough to motivate him to reach the goals that you have mutually set for him in his classes?  Or do you rely on rewards and/or penalties to help provide some extra motivation to keep your son going as winter vacation draws near?

As always, we'd love to hear what you have to say on the subject -- drop us a Blogmail if the poll format is too confining.