|
parent-teacher trauma
2002-11-15 - 4:37 p.m. Hi. My poor poor Nora -- I just went to her parent-teacher conference I'm feeling more and more like a dork at these things, aging person that I am. her teacher -- a very nice guy -- is probably in his thirties, not married, no kids. Anyway. She's pretty much like I was -- very very shy. Her social studies teacher is worried about her -- why is she so bored? Her math teacher thinks she's doing well. Since teacher thinks she's not doing as well as she could be. English teacher things she's doing well -- She's just who she is. She's not the type to pipe up, until you've known her for a while. I'll have to talk to her, and to all her teachers, and see if it can't all get sorted out. I think she'd better go to a small high school, or if to a big one, to one that has a special track for the smart kids, which she will have to be in, so that she is around the same 7 kids all day long so she'll feel comfortable, and her teachers will know her. Basically, though, he had nice things to say about her. Part of it, I think, is that she has not yet realized that how she does depends to a large degree on how hard she works. If she stdies for a test, she does well. if she doesn't, she doesn't. Why should she care about this? Well, I'm all for a person being intrinsically motivated to work, and I sort of think people are. But there's a lot to be said for extrinsic motivation as well. If you get good grades, you have a lot more options. Grades are a standard for you to measure yourself against. If you're a smart kid, with nothing else going on, if you work hard, you should get good grades, and if you don't get them, it probably means you weren't working hard enough. I don't think people are ever sorry about working too hard. I know from personal experience that they can be sorry about not working hard enough. So -- there you have it. But it takes a while to figure that out. I think she is figuring it out, though. Now Maddy is a whole nother story -- Okay. Got to go. Bye.
find me! - 2008-02-12 |
design by simplify.