Southwest Nordic Ski Team
State Champions
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Doing the Right Thing - Math Champions
"It
takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong"
- Longfellow
That
quote, with the phrase Integrity at Southwest, is on a poster in the IB
office. The Southwest Math Team displayed integrity yesterday.
Southwest
earned their eleventh consecutive division title this year, along with their
eleventh consecutive invitation to the State Tournament. Nine students
represented the school. Mikal Nelson and I acted as guides and chaperones. Joey
Doyle, Arthur Goldman, Mitchell Hockenberry, Henry Meeker, Mark Pekala, Simon
Rothman, Rachel Springer, Isadora White, and Claire Weil each completed two
individual events and participated in the team event. Arthur had the high score
for the team, correctly answering seven of his eight questions.
After
all the events were completed and the points tallied, our team waited for the
awards to be presented. Based on our season performance, we were competing in
the Beta Class (second group of 14 teams at the tournament out of 42 invited
teams).
We
were awarded third place! Medals were presented! A trophy was awarded!
But
something didn't seem right. The score they called for our team was two points
too many. After a quick consultation, we determined that we actually earned 80
points and we really finished in fourth place.
The
kids were awesome.
They neatly boxed up their medals, and turned in their trophy. I heard phrases
like, "it's the right thing to do". There was no whining or
complaining. It was an Oscars-like moment. Another team was given the award
that they earned.
Mik
and I are proud of our team! Even if they don't have a trophy to show for their
efforts.
David MvMayer & Mikel Nelson
Southwest Math Team Coaches
Monday, March 13, 2017
Slippery Streets and Sidewallks - Be Careful Coming to School -- School OPEN
The streets and sidewalks throughout the neighborhood are slippery. The street in general have been plowed and are in decent shape for cars. However, they are slippery and are especially slippery at intersections. Be careful at cross walks and watch for walkers.
The hill on 47th will continue to be slippery and should be avoided. That is between Abbott and Beard. It has been treated but car traffic makes it more icy and traffic will be slow coming up that hill.
The best student drop off is on the 46th Street side of the school or at the circle on Beard on the north side of the school.
Be careful and have a safe day.
Sunday, March 12, 2017
Sweet Charity Tickets Available NOW
SW Theatre Presents the Spotlight Musical "Sweet
Charity"
Tickets on Sale Feb. 18!
Music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields, book by Neil Simon.
Directed by Margaret Berg, Colleen Callahan-Russell, Bryan Fisher and Reid
Wixson.
March 16-18, 7 pm; March 19, 2 pm
March 23-25, 7 pm; March 26, 2 pm
March 16: Name Your Price at the door
March 17: Alumni Night
Friday, March 10, 2017
Southwest Nordic caps season with state championship
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
How to Help Your Underachieving Teenager
Feeling frustrated by your underachieving teenager? Here’s what to try next.
By Rebecca Meiser
Linny Smith* has graduate degrees in both social work and education. So she assumed, naturally, that whatever problems her own two children encountered in the classroom—whether emotionally or academically—she’d be able to help them. When her 14-year-old son, who continually measured in the highest echelons of IQ tests, first started getting Bs and Cs, she knew just what to do: She helped him make test guides. And talked about the importance of establishing daily study habits. And gave examples of how important grades were to his future.
But to Ginny’s utter frustration, none of these things seemed to resonate with her underachieving teenager. “He’s unmotivated by grades. He doesn’t feel an incentive to get the highest scores. He just doesn’t see the value in it,” she says.
It’s not that Ginny needed her son to get straight A’s. It was the fact that he didn’t seem to care about what results he got at all. He was underachieving, which is a very different phenomenon than a child simply not performing well at school.
How to Help an Underachieving Teenager
“Underachievement refers to young people who are performing more poorly in school than one would expect on the basis of their test scores or other indices of basic mental abilities,” explains Robert McCall, co-director of the Office of Child Development at the University of Pittsburgh. “Poor achievement is when a child performs modestly or poorly, but at a level one might expect of that child’s abilities and circumstances.” Underachievement, on the other hand, “can be a child who gets C’s and B’s when he or she is capable of getting A’s, or gets C’s and D’s when capable of getting B’s.”
When it comes to underachievement, the disparity between capability and results can really get under the skin of a parent. If only Suzie would just apply herself, they think. Yet a lot of times when teenagers underperform, it has more to do with fear, than with laziness, experts say.
1. Understand Why They’re Underachieving
“They worry they won’t be smart enough—and so they start using words like ‘boring’ to describe their academic work,” says Dr. Sylvia Rimm, director of the Family Achievement Clinic in Cleveland and author of the book Why Bright Kids Get Poor Grades. “But ‘boring’ doesn’t really mean boring at all. It means I’m scared to make an effort because maybe even if I make an effort I still might not do well.”
Many underperformers were, in fact, once over- or average achievers; they were likely accustomed to not having to work too hard to do well in school. But as the academics got harder in middle school (or high school), they never developed the tools to deal with it. “They define smart as easy, so if work is hard, they think they must be stupid,” Rimm says.
2. Praise and Demand Effort
Checking out—or feigning indifference to schoolwork — gives the underachievers an easy out for not meeting their own or others’ expectations. As a parent, then, one of the best things you can do to help your underachieving teenager get over these fears is to spend more time complimenting him on his efforts rather than his results.
“Give your teenager the message that we expect you to be a hard worker and do your best. And if they do their best, you’ll be satisfied with the grades,” Rimm says.
3. No Excuses
It’s important also not to make excuses for your teen. When a child is more of an outside-the-box thinker, it can be easy to label him as a “creative type”—giving your teen tacit permission to bow out of work and assignments. And conversely, it also “gives your child the message that they always have to think and act differently or creatively—thus putting pressure on them not to conform even when it’s appropriate,” Rimm says.
4. Set Realistic Goals
If you are concerned that changes in grades might be related to an underlying undiagnosed issue like ADHD, talk to your child’s doctor. But once you’ve ruled out any medical issues —and tried to get your child extra support — you might have to do the hardest thing of all: Swallow your ego and accept that your teen just does not have the same goals as you. “Our rule now is that our son can’t get C’s for the grading period,” says Smith, who admits to struggling daily with these revised expectations.
And at the same time, she admits that she can’t help but admire her son a bit for his attitude. “I think in some ways the attitude he has will serve him more on this planet than the monkey who just jumps through hoops,” she says. “My friends remind me that if I talked to any mom of a Silicon Valley executive about how their child was in school, I’d probably hear similar stories.”
*Not her real name
Rebecca Meiser is a freelance writer in Cleveland, Ohio, and frequent contributor to Your Teen.
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