In Which I Am the Kind of Mother I Am Absolutely Determined Not To Be

I am going to complain about M's grades. Even worse, I am going to complain about M's A-'s. I am going to attempt to cloak my complaint about M's grades in a meta-complaint, but really my point here is that the stupid teacher does not appreciate the brilliance of my brilliant child. Feel free to stop reading now.

M is very pleased that she gets letter grades this year. She says it is easier to know how you're doing with A's and B's and the like, rather than numbers (last year I believe it was 4, 3, 2, and 1, and 1 meant unacceptable, 2 meant needs work, 3 meant acceptable, and 4 meant proficient, or something like that; she is also comparing to the scale of 100 on which her tests are marked). I wring my hands in despair at the failure of my attempts to bring up a non-competitive, learning-for-its-own-sake, Type B kind of child. (You can all laugh now.)

It's ridiculous to give fourth graders letter grades. (There, that was the meta moment.) It's even more ridiculous to give fourth graders letter grades with pluses and minuses. (OK, a bit more meta-ness.) I mean, how much distinction can there be between a fourth grade B+ and a fourth grade A-? Certainly these fourth graders are not misquoting Foucault, or forgetting that they were supposed to square the circle.

But the grades were given. The report card was full of A's, regular A's, straight A's, as it were, except for the A-'s. The A-'s were in reading and writing.

Let me tell you about M. M does not ever not read. M has read A Midsummer Night's Dream and can discurse upon it. M reads cookbooks and novels and biographies and Blake poems. M understands pretty much everything she reads and has strong and interesting opinions about it. M writes endless hilarious stories and carefully thought-out book reports. The letters she sent home to her class from London were classics. You should see the dialogue she wrote with S where he is a chef and she is a pan. Even her spelling sentences are creative. Reading and writing are M.

Math is not so much M. She does math fine, but she grumbles a bit and we help her a bit and basically the math accomplishments are intelligence and determination. Social studies, art, science, gym, sure, M does fine with those, and she likes them fine, but they are not her passion, and they are not where she stands out from any other kid who does fine. She stands out in reading and writing.

BUT she does not like to follow the template the teacher sets. Her punctuation is dubious. Sometimes she writes fast and that means sloppy. Sometimes she is slow, because she likes to find the perfect word. In other words, if you are an unimaginative teacher who cares most about the rules, you are going to give M an A- (whatever the hell that means) in reading and writing. And you are going to show not her weaknesses, but your own.

So there! Take that, you teacher, you!

[What did I say to M about her A-'s? "That's fabulous, sweetie. I am SO proud of you." Because, of course, I am, and I want her to know I am. Even if fourth graders shouldn't be getting grades.]