Yamaraashi-chan's Student-Led Conference
May. 24th, 2010 08:42 amFriday was what I call a shatterday; both kids had the day off, sort-of, but it was also one of those days I work at home, and I ended up with my attention span completely shattered by the constant need to go somewhere and do something.
It started with Omaha and I going to Yamaraashi-chan's school for the quarterly "student-led conference." (This is like a parent-teacher conference, only without the teachers.) I met again her teachers in math, science, art, history, language arts, and health.
I must have a skewed collection of expectations about my children's educational success. Yamaraashi-chan, for example, has beautiful handwriting and perfect spelling. She's one of those kids who does look up a spelling when she doesn't know it. So I winced when I read many of the posters and student projects pinned up along the walls. An example: "Psychiatrist is the oly counsoling job that let your prescribe pills." There were hundreds of equivalents; that's just the one I wrote down.
In the social studies classroom, the student project posters were of miniature nation-states, where the students had to come up with a map and a constitution. Yamaraashi-chan's group had a 70x100cm sheet of posterboard, one side with a fanciful map and the other side covered with the constitution and a collection of laws, over 40 in count. I had a lot of questions about the way the judiciary works, and she didn't really have answers.
Still, that's better than many of her peers. Three students had put together a very sparse poster, one side with a cartoonish map and the other side with what looked like a trivial mission statement and a handful of laws, the one in biggest, boldest letters reading "NO BEASTIALITY [sic]." I wonder what's in that kid's experiences that led him to be so adamant.
I spoke with her health teacher. They'd just finished sex-education. One of the points I mentioned to him was that one of the pamphlet's I'd seen on sex education said that "by middle school, kids know everything," making the point that it's the responsibility of their elders to make sure the right things are emphasized. I pointed out that Omaha and I had been AIDS intervention educators in the 1990s and our idea of "everything" was probably a lot broader than the writers of that pamphlet perceived. He demurred that was probably true.
In language arts, there were posters from the "propaganda techniques" lesson plan on the walls. There were a lot of "Abortion in Bad" posters, making me sad and reminding me of the "Red state abortions: why mine is okay, yours was evil" stories from a year ago. Yamaraashi-chan's "unwed pregnancy is bad" poster was a little weak.
My assessment of Yamaraashi-chan is simple. She's way ahead of most of her peers, and she's a typical seventh grader: she hates homework, but when she does her schoolwork she excels.
It started with Omaha and I going to Yamaraashi-chan's school for the quarterly "student-led conference." (This is like a parent-teacher conference, only without the teachers.) I met again her teachers in math, science, art, history, language arts, and health.
I must have a skewed collection of expectations about my children's educational success. Yamaraashi-chan, for example, has beautiful handwriting and perfect spelling. She's one of those kids who does look up a spelling when she doesn't know it. So I winced when I read many of the posters and student projects pinned up along the walls. An example: "Psychiatrist is the oly counsoling job that let your prescribe pills." There were hundreds of equivalents; that's just the one I wrote down.
In the social studies classroom, the student project posters were of miniature nation-states, where the students had to come up with a map and a constitution. Yamaraashi-chan's group had a 70x100cm sheet of posterboard, one side with a fanciful map and the other side covered with the constitution and a collection of laws, over 40 in count. I had a lot of questions about the way the judiciary works, and she didn't really have answers.
Still, that's better than many of her peers. Three students had put together a very sparse poster, one side with a cartoonish map and the other side with what looked like a trivial mission statement and a handful of laws, the one in biggest, boldest letters reading "NO BEASTIALITY [sic]." I wonder what's in that kid's experiences that led him to be so adamant.
I spoke with her health teacher. They'd just finished sex-education. One of the points I mentioned to him was that one of the pamphlet's I'd seen on sex education said that "by middle school, kids know everything," making the point that it's the responsibility of their elders to make sure the right things are emphasized. I pointed out that Omaha and I had been AIDS intervention educators in the 1990s and our idea of "everything" was probably a lot broader than the writers of that pamphlet perceived. He demurred that was probably true.
In language arts, there were posters from the "propaganda techniques" lesson plan on the walls. There were a lot of "Abortion in Bad" posters, making me sad and reminding me of the "Red state abortions: why mine is okay, yours was evil" stories from a year ago. Yamaraashi-chan's "unwed pregnancy is bad" poster was a little weak.
My assessment of Yamaraashi-chan is simple. She's way ahead of most of her peers, and she's a typical seventh grader: she hates homework, but when she does her schoolwork she excels.
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