I think it would be so nice to be on a first name basis with my children’s teachers and I think, thanks to the efforts of my twelve year old daughter, I’ve finally worked out a way to do it.
On the weekend, my sister-in-law took it upon herself to make us feel like better parents. We were standing around enjoying a meal when the conversation turned to the high school both of our twelve year olds are attending this year.
I have to say, so far I’ve been super impressed. The teachers are right onto it, even sending emails to parents if an assignment is overdue. I think we received four emails this first term, which resulted in the sort of ranty lectures which cause a sore throat.
I can totally understand a night’s homework not being finished, because we do get busy here, but assignments are fun, dammit, and you have lots of time to research and complete them. And kids these days have the internet! We had to leave the house and go to a library to look up catalogue cards and books.
Having said that, I do get the difficulty she’s having. Her and her friends’ text messages come up on my screen and sometimes there’s so many of them running down the right hand side of my computer I can’t see what I’ve written. Seriously, there’s a couple of her friends who spell out words one letter per send.
Which is also why, as well as periodically losing my shit at her, I happily confiscated every electronic device she owns.
A fair punishment? I’d say yes.
Self-serving? You have no idea how much of my night I got back.
So if my sister-in-law was hoping to have us help shame her son into better marks next term, she’d come to the wrong house.
“Tell Uncle Bruce what your Civics mark was last term,” she called out to him.
“I got an E,” he said. To his credit, my young nephew looked like he’d let the whole extended family down. “I forgot to hand my assignment in.”
Miss12 had just the thing to cheer him up.
“Me too! I got an E in Civics too!” she exclaimed, and they grinned triumphantly at each other before smashing out a spirited high-five.
“Why are you two celebrating?” I wanted to know. “An E doesn’t stand for excellent.”
Unless it does and the teacher was handing out her mark like Miss12’s friend texts – one letter at a time.
So I’m sorry, dear wonderful teachers, for your having to take the time to message us last term, and especially for it not making an owl hoot of difference. Let’s pretend these are teething issues and it’ll all go smoother from here on in. Meaning…
…I look forward to your emails.
And please, call me Bruce.
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Raising a family on little more than laughs
