Permanent Record

Today is a new day. I received a few nice comments on yesterday's blog, in which I mused on the toil of working with a captive audience. The sun is out and I feel better. Part of the reconciliation came from sitting down at the kitchen table and writing twenty-two report cards. I have no illusions about the comments I wrote and the checks, pluses and minuses in boxes affecting any child or parent in a profound way. I hope that I will connect with at least one. This student has made a conscious effort to change an attitude that was making learning difficult. The kid still has room to grow, but I am watching this person start to forming a world view. Pretty heady stuff for ten years old.
With this in mind, I sat down this morning to talk to my son. I said that this would be the first of a seemingly endless string of conversations that we would be having as long as I was around to bug him about things like this. He will be getting his own third grade report card this week. He's pretty certain that it will be all good news, and I don't have any reason to doubt it. He told me that one of the girls in his class had "two red cards, and it's going on her permanent record." I flinched a little and thought about the permanence of elementary school. I told him that if he kept getting good report cards, when he got older he cold have his choice of where he went to school, and later he could have his choice of jobs. "I think I might like to be a fourth grade teacher." I said I thought he could be a very good fourth grade teacher - and smiled a proud father's smile - then he finished, "Or maybe a fry cook."