The blue Wednesday folder made a sickening thud as I flung it onto the counter. I slowly flipped back through the mounting evidence. Seventy-six "Check your work", seventy, seventy, sixty-eight, there was a spattering of eighties tucked in between the c's and d's but clearly, they were the exception. Before I could open my mouth, he whined "She wrote all over my folder because of one paper!".
The day for a conference had finally arrived. "Melee', you're so grounded!"
"I KNOW! I KNOW! From what?"
"Everything..."
"Sigh."
As I pulled my tiny person chair up to the knee high table across from teacher, she asked "How's my big boy doing? What grade is he in now?"
What was I going to say? That I'd spent the previous evening sitting on top of him as I oversaw the first half of the Time Capsule assignment that he'd had two months to work on, but instead had waited until two days before the due date to get started? That, had I not had to go in and talk to his teacher about another unrelated item, I wouldn't have even known the project was due?
"He's fine. I still have to stay on top of him. But I'm not used to having to stay on top of this one!"
After a short lecture on the importance of good writing skills and discovering several important items that Melee' had conveniently forgotten to fill me in on, I left the building thinking that I'm probably not writing at a fourth grade level. The planning, the rough draft, the revision, the editing, the rich wording were all more work than I wanted to do. And I like writing. For the last month he was supposed to have been writing in a daily journal at home on nights when he doesn't have composition work. As far as I knew, he never had composition homework and I'd never heard of this home journal. To which he responded, "Well, I didn't have one."
"Well, how can I get you one, if you don't tell me you need one?"
Aye, there's the rub...
I've got one who wouldn't open his mouth in class if his life depended on it, but can't get his work done because his brain is never in the same room with him. And I've got another one who can't get his work done because he can't keep his mouth shut.
Third times the charm, right? My money's on the girl.
7 comments:
Are you sure I didn't write this one? I might as well have - it's the EXACT same story!
Are you kidding? After reading about your son, I thought I'd have to go jump off a cliff!
I'm trying not to be bitter!
Trust me. BOTH of my boys are having (ok had for 5 years) the exact same problems with school - skatepark celebrity or not!
Public school or private?
Does it magically go away?
Can it be cured with a vitamin?
Doesn't it just kill you to know how smart and talented they are and not have it translate to their report card?
Oy-vay!
I am so with you-- I have a parent-teacher conference on Monday and all she wrote on the report card was-- see conference. Ino ther words, it is so bad she doesn't want to hurt my daughter's self esteem-- lovely.
Oy. yeah, I feel your pain. I had not one but TWO parent teacher conferences on Thursday. If that doesn't call for heavy drinking I don't know what does! :)
P.S. Go see my blog. i think I made my font bigger, I hOPE. Let me know.
Public or private? Both. They went to private in middle school and now are at a public highschool.
Does it go away? I wish, but no. At least not at our house.
Can it be cured? If I listened to the "experts", my boys would have been on some kind of attention def drug a long time ago. But we chose to work with them naturally and just keep on top of them (and not by sitting on them, but maybe I should be!)
Doesn't it kill me? YES! I've been killed so many times over the years they've run out of plots at the cemetery!
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