Phoebe continues to be a challenge scholastically, shall we say. At the parent-teacher conference the message was that Phoebe needs to work on her focus and practice, practice, practice. Which is similar, but not quite the same as the goals Amanda and I have as parents. I'm all for focus and practice, practice, practice but I'm trying to steer shy from it becoming push, push, push. We really do want her to love reading, not have it viewed as something you only do for school when Mom and Dad force you to do it. We'll see. Her report card (ouch) reminded me of me in high school where you could say my problems also boiled down to focus, and practice, practice practice.
At the parent-teacher conference we also got back the fall writing exam, and speaking of a frustrating experience. The instructions for the writing test were:
"After hearing about Alexander's very bad day, think about a specific time when you had a bad or frustrating experience. Write a personal narrative about this event. Be sure to include how it made you feel and why it made you feel that way."
Phoebe's paragraph, mind you, covers three sheets of paper on the school age ruled paper (a top line, a bottom line and a middle dashed line):
Title: My Sister is Frustrating
My sister is rilly frustrating when I am doing my homework. First, My sister stop's me from thinking. She stop's me from consintrating. She stop's me from working hard. also, my sister allwase wan's me to play with her when I am working. I do not like it when my sister want's to play with me when I am working. I do not want to play with her when I am working. Last, my sister allwase bother's me. I do not like to play with her when she is bothering me. I do not like to be bothered. My sister allwase bother's me.
Score: 0, "Off Topic".
That's right, the ol' donut hole. You've got to love process. In order to increase objectivity of the scoring for the fall writing exam they had an anonymous teacher (other than the student's) grade the exams. The funny part of course, when the grader is anonymous, they took the easiest, quickest possible path of course and simply checked the "Off Topic" box, graded it a 0 and moved on. There are literally no other marks on any of the sheets Phoebe turned in. They didn't even correct the spelling. I didn't think it was possible for a teacher to restrain from marking spelling and grammar mistakes :)
My mark for this grader: 0. Still, it's always amusing to see the typical roll of student and teacher reversed. We still haven't told Phoebe what her grade was for this test. She was so excited about this we can't quite do it.
Nor will we ever tell her the "grading" she received.