Granddaughter school update,

[Hatchdog]

Congrats to your granddaughter for a job well done. Not an easy task I’m sure.

[BigAl52]

Quite an accomplishment. Congrats to her

[rickhem]

Congrats to your granddaughter and also to her family for the support that kept her on track. That second part matters more than people think.

Here's another one of my stories: My son was always very studious, and always got good grades. Remembering back to an "open house" night when he was in middle school, one of those nights where you walk through your kid's schedule, and meet with the teachers and the parents of all the other kids in that class with your kid. My son was in the 'academically talented" program, and had advanced classes in everything. As we went from class to class, we were in those classes with parents that we knew well from other town activities. It was pretty much the same group of parents in every class, the same ones that help run the home and school associations, the sports coaches for the town recreation programs, the scout parents, all of them involved in multiple activities themselves, just as we were too. We ended up talking and staying through an extra period for lunch in the cafeteria, and missed my son's Algebra class, so we decided to to skip the art class and go the next period to the math class, just to meet the teacher. That next math class was a remedial class, and there were two adults there, one was a mom with two little ones in tow, and she kept apologizing about not being able to get a babysitter for them. The other was a much older grandmother that didn't speak English very well, but wanted to come for her grandson. The teacher asked us who our kid was and when we told him, he said we were in the wrong class, which we knew, but we didn't want to miss meeting him.

So what struck me in that class, was that only two parents of the 30-something kids in remedial math were there. In all of my son's classes, there was standing room only for the parents and grandparents that came to the open house. That huge disparity in the attendance was glaringly obvious, and it hit me like a "chicken or the egg" deal. Are some of the kids doing better because of the support they get, and some doing not as well because of the lack of support, or do kids not performing well lose support due to poor performance and kids doing well gain support because of their success? I'm sure that people working shifts, or other conflicting obligations played a part, but a class with over 30 students getting two parents, and others with less than 20 students getting over 30 adults attending the open house still sticks in my memory.

Anyway, the fact that you are celebrating her success here shows that she's got a strong support network, and that she'll keep pushing forward.

[brm4450]

Rickhem figure this out: had a son that was getting better than 4.00 in all his weighted classes. AP physics, AP chemistry, calculus, Spanish etc. Parent-Teacher conferences come around and the only teacher that requests to meet with us is the English Comp instructor. Apparently he is getting a “D”. Make a long story short, when we’re discussing this with him, he says English Comp just don’t make sense, he doesn’t understand where all the punctuation marks go. He says the only thing he has learned is don’t dangle your participle! I told him an “A” in Spanish, you speak English and you’re getting a “D”. He did bring the grade up to an “A-“ by the end of the semester. He went to college in Mechanical Engineering, he had a girlfriend for all 4 years, she was an English major, imagine that!

[rickhem]

brm4450, been through similar stuff with my son when he was in elementary school. My son is a very logical thinker, and being able to get a concept to fit in a box in his head is how he learns. It's how I think as well, so I was good for helping him with some stuff. There isn't a lot of logic that applies with English composition. I can remember reading some of the reports that my son handed in and sentence structure and grammar were atrocious. He killed everything with effort though, and just never quit. Sounds like yours was the same.

[graywolf]

SHE DID IT. Graduated yesterday and starts her first full week on the job Monday. Don't know which one of us is happier, her or me.

[Hatchdog]

SHE DID IT. Graduated yesterday and starts her first full week on the job Monday. Don't know which one of us is happier, her or me.

Wow, just a little bit different from some college students I’ve seen on TV here recently. Enough said!