This piece of paper had been taped to my fridge for the last several months until this morning, when I finally recycled it. It's been a constant reminder to continue to make education a priority in the Maven household.
The paper was initially taped to my son Intrepid's back in grade 6. If I remember correctly, it was an exercise in complimenting and compliment-taking.
See anything interesting?
Other than the obvious - that my child is very bright and talented like his mother - there is an underlying tone of, well, kids who can't write good.
A local friend of mine went to a parent-teacher interview recently, and was told by her daughter's teacher that our school board doesn't really fail anybody. I'm not sure exactly what that means or whether or not the teach was being facetious, but looking at that paper, I think there may be some truth to it.
There are little errors. For example, one girl (and I'm saying "girl" because she wrote in pink and has pretty handwriting - frankly I'm surprised she didn't dot her "i"s with hearts) misspelled "intelligent." It's an honest mistake, and one that most adults would easily make. Heck, I would, too, if I didn't have to type the word every time I describe myself.
But there are other, more disturbing errors hidden in these compliments.
You the coolist: Seriously? You at least eleven years old and you don't know the 'est' rule? Not good.
Your always happy: Apparently Intrepid owns the word 'always' and it is happy.
Good drawen: I can't figure out if the student meant to write 'good drawen' or 'good drawer.' The second would be slightly more acceptable. And I suppose I can't fault the kid for making an 'r' look like an 'n' - it was written on my son's back, after all. It's not a bloody calligraphy contest.
Oh, but my absolute favourite - the one that makes me laugh every single time - is this one:
I remember back in the day when I never know you
Not only is there a tense error so blatant it makes my skin crawl, but I honestly can't find the compliment in this sentence. He should have failed the back writing test, dammit.
Anyway, I think these grade six writings are proof that we need to rethink our touchy-feely approach to education. I am all for preserving the tender self-esteem of our youth whenever possible. However, I do not think we're adequately meeting the needs of our children and community as a whole if we don't hold people up to a higher standard. It's preposterous (I had to spell check that word) to allow these kids to go on to a higher education if they can't formulate a decent sentence.
Do we want our lawyers to make typos in our legal documents? I don't know about you, but I want my doctor and/or pharmacist to be able to do basic equations well enough that she won't get my medication dosage wrong. I like the idea of tomorrow's librarians being able to understand the concepts in books before they share them with my grandchildren at story time. And if the carpenter putting in my new bamboo flooring (a girl can dream, right?) can't figure out the area of each room, I will wedge a rudimentary geometry set where the sun don't shine.
When I hear that a teacher has several kids who are not deemed "special needs," and yet read and write a full three grade levels below where they should, that worries me tremendously. And when she apparently says she can't fail them due to board policy, that worries me even more. I hope we're being misinformed, and that kids do get held back when there's a problem. That would be the sensible thing to do. Sure, some confidence might be shaken for a little while, but a lot less than seeing red pen all over your thesis paper or getting turned down for jobs because you spelled it 'rezumay.'
In the Maven household, there is little worry when it comes to literacy and education as a whole. Geekster and I run a tight ship, which includes instilling a love of reading, sitting with the kids when they do their homework (or at least nearby when Intrepid does his), getting the boys hooked on museums and other fun learning places, and generally being proactive in our gremlins' education. After all, we can't expect the public system to do everything - it is government-run, you know.
I'd send this blog post to the board of education, but I'd likely have to copy it in triplicate and attend 37 different subcommittee meetings to see any action. In the meantime, all that red tape might suffocate me. Instead, I'll probably just ask the principal for clarification.
Taking the easy route is the coolist.
Maven out.