Going through their stuff has been a real eye opener, especially Taylors. I have been irritated at his teacher for most of the year because he seems to lack organization and communication skills. I am used to getting notes home about upcoming activities and assignments. I like homework sheets and detailed outlines for what each assignment entails. Nothing like that has come home from Taylor. He pretty much has no homework, and the homework he does get has had no real directions. Taylor will come home and say I have to do a book report, or a project or something but doesn't know what it all entails. We have emailed the teacher and spoken to him at parent teacher conference about this. He says that he does give out homework and that he outlines the assignment's and gives them to the kids. The teacher said they are trying to teach the kids independence by letting them keep track of their homework and assignments themselves. While this sounds like a good idea, I don't know if I am ready for him to take control of his school life yet. I like to know exactly what is going on and manage it for him. He is just not ready - or I maybe I am not ready for him to be ready. But I just don't think he is very responsible yet. I guess I just like to have control in everything he does. But I am his Mom that is my job - right.
A prime example of this was a couple weeks ago, the Saturday before I left for Ohio, I was chatting with a friend who has a son in Taylor's class - she mentioned the wax museum assignment they had coming up. Well I had never heard of it, I came home and ask Taylor. He said they had to choose a Utah Hero and do a report on him. He said don't worry I already got it taken care of. I was surprised so I asked him what he had done. Well he had chosen his hero and looked him up on the Internet during computer time. He had chosen Scott O'Grady and he knew that he was a famous air force pilot. That is it - that is how he had it "taken care of" it, well he also had an idea for a costume. So we spent the next 2 days madly trying to get done what we should have been working on for weeks. I ask him exactly what he was supposed to have - he said a costume and some facts about Scott O'Grady. So we got it done, or something done anyway. Tuesday night as we were putting the last coat of paint on his costume (I was leaving Wednesday so we had to be done by Tuesday) he said "Oh yeah I need a brochure too." A what - I said. What is it supposed to look like, what does it need to contain. I was blown away by this. Why hadn't he told me before, why hadn't his teacher sent home a note about it. Why was it 10:00pm when all this came to light. So Rick found a template for a brochure on line and we threw in some text about Scott O'Grady and a couple pictures and called it good.
On Thursday they invited the parents and had their wax museum. He said he thought his was the best there, a couple of other people told me his was really good. I was in Ohio so I didn't get to go and see for myself.
Anyway today as I was cleaning out his backpack I came across several assignment sheets clearly outlining what needed to be done for each assignment. There was great detail involved. I read over the one for the wax museum assignment. As I read it I was stunned, immediately filled with fear - I thought Oh, no - he is going to fail - he is probably going to have to repeat the whole year since he hasn't been doing anything right. Then I remembered that so far his grades haven't been too bad - which was a bit confusing. The thing is we didn't do the vast majority of the things listed on the assignment sheet and the things we did we didn't do like we were supposed to. So I went online and checked his progress report. He got 100 on it. For some reason this always happens with Taylor. (Kind of like his Uncle Jeff, everything seems to always go right for them even when it shouldn't.) I am not sure how he got an A, he definitely didn't deserve it.
Anyway so maybe I have been over reacting. On one hand I am angry and frustrated that Taylor hasn't brought home his assignment sheets and hasn't been doing them like he is supposed to. He says he just forgets. But on the other hand maybe he won't become independent and responsible unless he has some responsibilities. So maybe I should back off and let him just worry about his homework, assignments and projects himself and see what comes of it. I guess I just stress out over it because he doesn't seem to give it a second thought and I feel like someone should worry about his academic career. But maybe it is time to let go, if he fails he might learn a good lesson, if he succeeds I will have learned the lesson.
I also found the following little essay that he wrote. I found it amusing and insightful so I thought I would share it.
Hair
I had a life which everybody pretty much has. But this is my 1-5 life, no, not your life, my life ok. Ok, it all started when I was born, which always comes in the picture. I was born with a lot of hair. Mountains and mountains of hair. Hair, hair, hair one other weird thing about me is my first words were trash and yucky. Now somethings I threw away were good for me to have done. But the rest were new and not helpful. Like mom's new shoes, silverware, and clothes. Well you get the point. When I was about 3 years old my brother was born. I exploded like a volcano. I was always asking my mom can I hold the baby, can I sleep with the baby. But no, no,no was all she would say and I cried out with tears saying please, please? A couple years later. When I was 5 I went to school. I had heard Mom and Dad talking about it. But me, I, me. At first I thought school was some place with pink flowers and butterflies. But it was horrible. But its gotten better.
The end
That's quite the essay. I am glad "its gotten better." I'd say he's well on his way to becoming a writer; it reminded me of Ulysses by James Joyce. But it made much more sense than that.
ReplyDelete"Kind of like his Uncle Jeff, everything seems to always go right for them even when it shouldn't."
ReplyDeleteI have my share of problems. They are just less public than others'.