What to do about DD, 17?

[ClimbingMum]

Up until this year, DD had always been impeccably behaved at school. I would go as far to say that she has never been challenged academically, despite being at a relatively good grammar school.

This year she began her A Levels, and things have become even worse. I've heard reports from her German teacher that she swears, walks out of the classroom whenever she wants and talks over her whenever she feels like it. I have questioned DD about this, and she says she only does it because she's bored. She know's it's unnacceptable, but won't stop until the teacher gives her work which is more challenging. She's been in detention three times because of it, which is really embarassing for a sixth former, especially one who was always so well behaved before.

She comes home in tears practically every day because she feels that she is getting nowhere in German. Her CATs score for verbal reasoning was 140/140 at the beginning of this academic year, and her German teacher told us on parents evening that she is already working at first year undergraduate level, despite having only ever been on a one week exchange to Germany and being in a class where the majority of the other students are C/D borderline. She gets through a novel or play in German every week, and sometimes translates the conversations we have within our family word for word into German. None of us are native speakers, and I only have O Level basics from years ago.

I really don't know what to do. I can't stand another year of her crying, and even she admits she is tiring of being rude to the teacher, who she actually really likes. The main problem is that the rest of her class aren't bothered, and this really upsets her. They won't engage in discussion, so she sees no point in making an effort in group work, thus annoying the teacher even more. DD has asked her for more challenging work, but the teacher just tells her to do more grammar exercises. What she really wants is activities similar to those that the class do, but at a much higher level. DD has looked online, but can't find anything. She is also really into current affairs and philosophy, but has no one who she can talk about that with either. It's really getting her down, and has been all year. She keeps asking the teacher to talk through poems and other texts with her, but she says she is too busy.

This is no excuse for her bad behaviour, but I really don't know what else I can do. She's going to a language school for three weeks in the summer, but even then I'm worried that this will just widen the gap between her and the rest of the class even further. WWYD?

Can she just do her A level in 1 year, or is it too late for that?

Has she applied to do German at uni? Is that what she wants? Does she realise that her behaviour could impact on her getting in?

How is she in her other subjects, academically and behaviour-wise? could she be stretched by doing a crash course in a new MFL? If her german is good enough to pass the exam now then is there a point in her going to these lessons? Could she take on another subject for the timetable and just do the exam-only German A level?

It's too late for her to do the A Level in one year - her English teacher suggested that to her in November, but DD's German teacher said it was too late by that time.

She desperately wants to study languages at Oxford, but isn't worried about the behaviour affecting her getting in because the head of languages, who sort of acts as her mentor (although she unfortunately doesn't know a word of German) has told her that they don't include petty incidents such as detentions for rudeness in someone's reference.

She is predicted A*s for the overall A Level in her other subjects (French, English and Maths), and is apparently above target, but she behaves impeccably in these lessons, probably because in each one she has a friend who is as serious about her as the subject and actually wants to talk about it with her. Her school would never allow her to take up another subject next year in place of German, it's apparently against school policy unless someone receives a U in one of their AS Levels and wants to take a different subject to make up for this.

DD is learning Latin and Russian by herself, and seems to be getting quite far in them, but she does complain that she is sick of doing everything by herself.

Is she able to change classes? If she thinks she will get a* without attending class perhaps can ask permission for her to self study? Citing time would be more productively spent that way. Unfortunately if the teachers won't help there's not much you can do about it, it's just ashame as a lot of teachers do encourage especially the interested ones.
Otherwise I'm afraid she'll have to just put up with it, take it as training at uni as there WILL be boring lectures/ seminars and you just have to stick with it or not attend and they won't put up with bad behaviour there. Either way, self study is an important skill and in a way, the more she does now, easier uni will be as there won't be someone to teach you every little thing.

She is predicted As for the overall A Level in her other subjects (French, English and Maths), and is apparently above target*
Why do you still send her to school?

No, seriously.( Our children were taken out because I firmly believe that gifted and intelligent children are wasted in the school system. I took all of ours out to educate themselves ...with a little guidance from DW and me).

Why does your DD still attend school? Is it because it's the done thing? Because someone her age has to be in a school to acquire knowledge?

I think if she wants more challenging work, then she needs to come up with some concrete suggestions herself - the teacher is there to teach the syllabus to the class, not to spend her time dealing with one student who is at a different level from the others. In an ideal world, yes the teacher would come up with something, but teachers are human too and she may be ground down by having to deal with a class who are not that interested.

How about your daughter getting a subscription to a weekly German newspaper and reading that in class? She could get through the required class work quickly, then sit and read that - then she would be improving her German, but not disrupting the class through boredom.

Get her a turot outside of school to speak German and work with and let her read German novels etc in lessons.

Tutor, even

what about doing a german course via the OU - I think there lovel 2/3 courses and similarish to 1st year undergrad (although I don't know about languages)

If she is sick of doing everything by herself, she. Will struggle at oxford!

Regardless, her behaviour needs to change, and she should spend the time improving her other languages, or perhaps reading german literature, to be discussed with the tutor, or current affairs. Oxford will want to see some evidence of her passion for language.

She is 17! She has to take responsibility for her own actions! We are not talking about primary school here! An able student at that level will show it through self motivation and solving their own problems of boredom in lessons. If she is unable to do this, then perhaps her problems lie somewhere else away from her ability.

As for home ed - I think home ed is great, but have not chosen that option for my own children. I do however work with a number of elective home educating families and one of the most difficult issues at secondary level is finding ways of external assessment at GCSE and A levle - so HE is def. not the answer in this issue!

I sympathise with your DD but she really needs to take the long view - if she wants to read languages at a good university then she just needs to suck it up, or find a better option, whatever that may be.

I did very well at a-level, also in arts subjects, and went to Cambridge. I was absolutely miserable for most of the last few years at school as I genuinely couldn't understand why people would still be there if they weren't interested in learning (and so few of them were). I used to sleep through class, or obnoxiously flip through a magazine until a question was directed at me and I would answer correctly - very rude. I also used to do work for other classes which doesn't go down well with teachers. On occasion I would drink alcohol at school to get me through the day. I had an enormous amount of extra curricular stuff going on and had a job too which probably made sure I was too tired to cause too much hassle. None of this stopped me leaving school with the best marks in the year and the highest results in the country for one of my subjects.

Luckily I had very bright friends who kept me sane, but they were studying different classes, so I had to learn to live with it in the classroom. I got a lot of abuse because I was prepared to be interested in things and get involved in debate. My school also ran a lunchtime 'geek group' - I think it was called further study and was for those of us who wanted to attend interview at top universities. Any chance she could set this up or talk to her head of year about something like this? There may be other bright kids in other classes who could be persuaded.

I really do feel for your daughter. I have a few suggestions - is there any chance you could take her on a trip to Germany to practice? Depending on where you live she may also be able to join a German conversation group for free, or perhaps the council runs sessions for advanced students of German. There must be resources online for learning languages and I know some are free, or the price of a cheap itunes download.

Could you buy her some German philosophy books, since you say she's interested in both? There are countless philosophers to turn to and it would be of immeasurable benefit if she goes ahead to study either English or German at university. German summer school sounds like a great idea - and if she's already further advanced then she might as well make the most of it - she has to look out for herself now. Why not try to find out some sample exam questions from the first year exams at Oxford/Cambridge and let your DD have a go at studying for and answering them? Could she work on a 5,000- 10,000 essay with a view to submitting it for consideration with her Oxbridge application?

There were other good suggestions above. I particularly agree with nerfherder that she will struggle at Oxford if she is not prepared to work independently. In arts subjects most of the work is independent study and it takes a huge amount of motivation - I know this because I didn't figure it out until my second year - to work alone and go the extra mile. Other universities, which don't have the supervision system, have even less contact time in arts subjects than Oxford, and less work in most cases. And Oxbridge doesn't give any time to adapt or mature - it's pretty much sink or swim once you arrive. Your daughter sounds like a bright girl and I'm sure she will thrive once she's at university and surrounded by other people who aren't afraid to be interested, but she's got to focus now and make damn sure she gets there, with or without help from the school in pushing her.

Sorry for the huge response, but I really feel for her. She will get through it and it will be over before too long. But she does need to make the most of the time she has, and learning to work on her own will only benefit all of that.

Sorry, I will shut up eventually. Could she set about translating a book, again with a view to submitting the translation as part of her university application? It will help hone her skills and teach her a lot about academic language use.

You could also order catalogues from German book publishers and she could practice translating them, or order books that sound interesting.

Yes, I'm in publishing, by the way...