On this overcast Monday morning, I'm going to be working on a book, writing some stuff, putting out fires, and drawing sustenance from the fabric of the universe.
However, I will NOT be writing any insightful blog posts. Instead, I leave you with a question:
Your child brings you a report card with four As, two Bs, a C, and an F. As an involved, loving parent, how will you screw up your response to this situation?
||| Comments are welcome |||
Help keep the words flowing.
However, I will NOT be writing any insightful blog posts. Instead, I leave you with a question:
Your child brings you a report card with four As, two Bs, a C, and an F. As an involved, loving parent, how will you screw up your response to this situation?
||| Comments are welcome |||
Help keep the words flowing.
Ha! We've actually had a similar situation, but it wasn't report cards, just his general schoolwork. We started virtual schooling him, and I think it's worked out wonderfully. This past year though I'm not as happy with the curriculum and teacher response, so we are switching him to another virtual school.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't know what virtual school is, its basically public school at home. You enroll and sub paperwork, etc. Some of your tax dollars are diverted to pay for the school, which supplies you with a computer, textbooks, workbooks, etc. Online classes are available where the child can participate via whiteboard, chat, and microphone. And state approved curriculum is given. The parent is the learning coach and goes through the lessons with the child, but has the backup of a teacher as needed. Other learning is encourages like taking swimming lessons, field trips, etc. as well.
No dayjob stuff? Lucky. I'd trade a report card with one F for a day like that. My screwup would be asking the kid how (s)he plans to fix it… the result would likely be a long string of denials about how the teacher wouldn't go over the difficult stuff, other students causing distractions, blah blah blah.
ReplyDeleteI'd do a backflip over the A's, praise the B's and C's and ask the child what they feel about the subject/teacher that led to the F...
ReplyDeleteCould be a bit of tutoring could help?
Have fun storming the castle!
ReplyDeleteI'd praise the results where effort was applied, but then undo that good work rapidly working through "What happened here?". The likely response would be something like "The teacher is stupid and doesn't like me, and I won't ever have any use for ______ anyway", which would descend into me pointing out how little said child knows about the future, while being fully ignored because I'm old and what would I know about it anyway.
ReplyDeleteWe all make some bad choices at times, we just have to hope that our children learn from theirs too, as we have from ours (haven't we?). At some point they may discover you were right and they were wrong, and it actually was a useful subject, but they'll find a way to discover the knowledge they missed. Occasionally, they might even be right though.