Addams Family Values!
Mar. 13th, 2008 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsYamaraashi-chan has been having a little trouble at school focusing. While Der Ex continues to rant and rave that there's something serious going on, all of the other people in Yamaraashi-chan's life, like her teacher, her counsellor, and so forth are all basically telling me "It's puberty," which is what I kinda figured. She has no problem being engaged with math; that's easy and fun for her, but the reading assignments have been hard on her.
After ripping through most of the Xanth books last year, the general reading material offered by her classroom just doesn't engage her. (Although when I was speaking to her teacher I spotted a YA novel I'd never seen before, a big thick book about a young boy born of a genetically engineered cow, who learns that he's the clone of a Mexican drugs and arms dealer. He also learns that he's basically walking spare parts, and tries to escape his fate.)
One of the things her teacher has is a bulletin board of "pizazz words," words kids encountered in their stories that were so cool they had to share them with the classroom. A year ago I had angsted about whether or not Yamaraashi-chan should read Lovecraft. I finally decided that she should: the vocabulary, style, and subject all hold her attention. She's gleeful about the hundreds of pizzaz words she's already found: rugose, squamous, scabrous, tenebrous, eldritch. We'll see if this improves her book report scores.
After ripping through most of the Xanth books last year, the general reading material offered by her classroom just doesn't engage her. (Although when I was speaking to her teacher I spotted a YA novel I'd never seen before, a big thick book about a young boy born of a genetically engineered cow, who learns that he's the clone of a Mexican drugs and arms dealer. He also learns that he's basically walking spare parts, and tries to escape his fate.)
One of the things her teacher has is a bulletin board of "pizazz words," words kids encountered in their stories that were so cool they had to share them with the classroom. A year ago I had angsted about whether or not Yamaraashi-chan should read Lovecraft. I finally decided that she should: the vocabulary, style, and subject all hold her attention. She's gleeful about the hundreds of pizzaz words she's already found: rugose, squamous, scabrous, tenebrous, eldritch. We'll see if this improves her book report scores.
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 05:19 pm (UTC)Yeah, that puberty thing....gets ya every time. She'll sort it all out in a few years.
~Erin
no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 07:04 pm (UTC)[parent looks at iCal school listings]:
"Is assignment X done and in?"
Stone : "What's that?"
Parent : "It's for class X. Is it done?"
Stone : "I don't know what it is."
Parent : "It's due tomorrow.]
Stone : "Oh yeah...yeah, I think I did that."
Parent : Ok, what is it?"
Stone : "I don't know."
*head-desk* (mine or Stones -- flip a coin.)
I'm told this is ENTIRELY normal. The vaunted evaluator said so. So did a friend with two kids Stone's age+. So have others. I have NO idea how the species has survived. Then again, this is perhaps precisely how the species has survived...
no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-13 10:36 pm (UTC)She even told Yamaraashi-chan that she "has symptoms of depression," and Yamaraashi-chan's been using that as an excuse for her inattentiveness in class. Except that her counselor and her teacher and everyone else watches her get all gleeful over the things she likes and says, "She's not depressed. She's going through puberty. They do this."
Even Yamaraashi-chan admits to the scam. She said to me yesterday, "I'm bored all of the time. Except recess. And when I'm talking to my friends on the phone." Yep, full-scale rewiring going on upstairs into the "You're a social animal now: time to figure out how that works."
*Snort* Yeah, right, I think Yamaraashi-chan is "a bad kid." She's such a great kid. You should see how her face lights up when we read Lovecraft aloud together. (See? Addams Family Values!) She's just about to enter that phase of life where, as one teacher explained to me, "aliens take out their brain and put it in backwards. In a few years it re-orients back the way it's supposed to be, but in the meantime you just have to live with it."
no subject
Date: 2008-03-14 04:33 am (UTC)On the other hand Bellingham cousin (in her 20's) is realizing I actually know a thing or two.
You'll survive.