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Here We Go Again . . .

All has been quiet on the school front for nearly 72 hours, mostly because Saturday and Sunday sucked up 48 of them.

Tomorrow it is going to hit the fan.

As much as I would like to derail it here and now, I don't know if I should.

What is more important, the grade on a stupid piece of homework, or the creativity the "mistake" delivers?

The Boy has been criticized for his handwriting -- messy and sprawling.

He's 6 -- he's permitted.

He frequently gets points taken off because he only uses half of his lines. Usually the bottom half, with swashes extending into the top half.

First grade teachers do not appreciate swashes, by the way.

I offered to teach him Chancery Italic, with the assumption that he would be less offended by learning a different style than by having his current style criticized.

His response?

He brought me his homework to check.

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

"What did you do?"

"I wrote with my left hand. Since my handwriting is messy, and I use my right hand, my right hand must be the messy one. I thought I could learn to use my left hand."

"And what about this?" I asked, pointing at the paper.

"I thought it would be interesting to write forwards and backwards. This line ends here, and this one goes backwards."

And it did.

It's really messy -- very soft and angled.

But . . .

He's teaching himself to use his left hand.

And he's writing backwards . . .

When he comes home with his bad grade tomorrow I plan to tell him that some people just don't understand art.

3 comments:

Anne said...

I'm lucky the G/T teacher just attended a convention concerning this sort of thing, and has a billion and one ideas she intends to implement ASAP.

Her concern is that the school will "lose" kids like ours before they even really get started . . .

The Boy may get to do sudukos in class . . .

Anne said...

Reij, I keep telling you -- parenthood means you get to re-experience all your childhood traumas from the parental perspective.

I usually ask myself what my parents would have done, then do the polar opposite.

Anonymous said...

arggggggggggh....

I think some teachers are just too full of themselves.
Your son is smart, creative and witty...

I got screamed at for my messy handwriting as a kid. I had hoped the teachers had moved beyond that, or at least tried to help the child improve their writing instead of punishing them into better penmenship.