The Report Card Meltdown That Changed My Life
By Joe Acton
My report cards always fell into two basic categories: bad and restriction.
"Joe can't seem to remember directions very long. He often is more interested in what others are doing and forgetting his own work. When Joe develops good work habits and makes good use of all his time he will make better progress. Too much daily time is wasted. There is much room for improvement. Miss Luedtke."
This little gem pretty much shattered my parents hopes for med-school. Let's face it, the last thing we need are doctors who can't follow directions and are more interested in just about anything else except what they're supposed to be doing.
Hey, but when you're in the first grade the only people who really care about your grades are your parents — and their co-conspirators — your teachers. So I was pretty darn proud of the fact that of all my friends, my teacher wrote the most about me. All things considered I thought it was a pretty good report card.
After all, I told my parents, what 'ol lady Luedtke was really trying to tell them was that I wasn't one of your garden variety show-offy-know-it-all kind of kid. I figured that should be good news if you're a parent. Of course, when you're six, you don't figure like your parents do.
I learned two things from my very first report card: 1) Homer and Edna (my mom and dad) had very little in common with Ward and June Cleaver, and 2) parents are not necessarily as dumb as the kids they raise.
I also learned that parents have certain pre-conceived notions that are very hard to get out of their heads. Like their kid is smarter than everyone else's. Or their kid is at least as smart as everyone else's. Or their kid can be as smart as everyone else's kid if every one else's kid has been drinking out of lead cups for a couple of years.
Or, as my dad used to put it at report card time, "With a lot of effort and private tutoring maybe we can teach you to pour sand out of a pair of leaky hip boots if the directions are written on the heel in seven different languages and you're standing in the middle of a translator's convention with hundred dollar bills sticking out of your pockets and wearing a sandwich board that says 'Help me I'm stupid.'"
Parents also figure that there's some central filing system that the Rhodes Committee checks each month to see if they still have your kid's name in the hat. After all, everybody knows that whenever you get a bum report card "IT GOES ON YOUR PERMANENT RECORD AND YOU'LL NEVER GET INTO A GOOD COLLEGE OR GET A GOOD JOB AND YOU'LL WIND UP WORKING AT A SERVICE STATION THE REST OF YOUR MISERABLE LIFE UNLESS YOU JOIN THE ARMY SO THEY CAN MAKE A MAN OUT OF YOU."
Wow. Mom. Chill out. Have some de-caf. Try to keep things in perspective. Remember what my teacher said: I can't follow directions — so a career in the Army is O-U-T, out. And I waste too much daily time to keep up with a bunch of cars that need to be fixed. So the only thing left is college.
Well, Mom had been to college and knew that the word "party" was supposed to be used as a noun, not a verb, so she had some real concerns about my future. Not me. I knew where I was heading. Unfortunately, so did my teachers.
"Joe could be doing so much better if he forgot foolishness during work time. I am disappointed in Joe's work lately. He has gotten lazy and didn't put forth much effort. Perhaps he will understand better next year."
Actually, after Homer and Edna read this one, I began to understand much better almost immediately. You see, they tended to use the left-foot-right-foot approach to child rearing: if you don't get the results you desire from your kids, you kick them in the rear with your left foot and then with your right foot and you repeat the process until the desired results occur.
Now I'll grant you this wasn't the Dr. Benjamin Spock approved method, but mysteriously enough, the word "foolishness" never again showed up on any of my report cards.
Which is not to say I got any smarter.
"Joe could do much better with more concentrated effort. He still has difficulty with oral reading. Maybe the glasses will help."
He docked me for poor oral reading? What kind of deal is this? Isn't he the one that told me not to move my lips when I read? I get that down solid and now he docks me because I'm not good enough at moving my lips when I read. Look, pal — make a decision — pick one and go with it. But let's have some consistency here, okay?
Alright, Mom, looks like we've finally solved our problem: I needed glasses all these years. Yeah — if ya can't see the blackboard ya can't do what's on it. Right? Heck — give them four-eyes and I'm on my way to Yale to be a locksmith (which is what I figured they must teach the most of there since they obviously invented the Yale lock on our front door).
Well the glasses did help — but not my grades.
"Joe just doesn't seem to be interested in what's going on in class. He spends a lot of time looking out the window and working on his own projects and could care less what the rest of us are doing."
Not true — not true — not true, I told my parents. The correct phraseology is that I "couldn't care less" what the rest of them were doing. "Couldn't" in this case being proper over "could care less" because my level of apathy could not be any less than it already was. To say that I "could care less" creates the unwarranted inference that I have a higher level of interest than I actually do, i.e., that with some effort perhaps I "could care less." So you can see, Mom and Dad, the teacher has not only misjudged my interest and thus academic performance in her class, but has also engaged in poor usage of the English language — something that all of us intellectuals find appalling. You can follow this, can't you?
Rule: if you're going to smart off to your parents, do it in front of the mirror just like you do when you're challenging the tough kids to fight you after school. Aw, come on — you remember standing in front of your parent's mirror sneering, "Oh, yeah? Are you talking to me? How would like to be wearing your lunch pail for a hat? Oh, yeah? One more crack like that and you'll be up to your knees in playground."
Anyway, this little outburst bought me a two month stretch in "the pen" (my room) and did little to convince Mom and Dad that I was making any real formidable progress in my language arts skills.
And so it went from Report Card Day to Report Card Day. Each successive report card inspired in me a greater appreciation for the process of nuclear fission because I watched Mom and Dad go through Parental Meltdown as they read my report card.
And then, on a day destined to be like all the other Report Card Meltdown Days, the gods unexpectedly smiled. That was the day I brought home my usual menu of dismal grades. Except this time, Dad noticed that my psychology teacher had spelled his own subject "psycology" and my P.E. teacher had given me a grade for being a "P.E. Aid," as opposed to a "P.E. Aide."
From that day on my Dad's theory about school was that if they weren't paying attention I didn't have to either.
And it was on this very propitious occasion that my father imparted two pieces of timeless information which have guided me ever since: a) never let school get in the way of your real education; and b) "Son, if you are ever going to amount to anything in life remember to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you -- and in your case, it shouldn't be that hard to do." Tell ya what -- you set the bar low enough and even I can jump over it.
So if your kid keeps bringing home average grades with nasty-grams from the teacher that says he's not paying attention and seems bored — hey! — chill out. Have some de-caf. Lighten up. Show some restraint. Get up some backbone.
And then enroll him in the first military school that will take the lazy little crumb-snatcher or you'll wind up with a kid that grows up to be just like me.
And then you'll find out the hard way that . . .
Sometimes it goes on like this for days and days. And then your daughter marries someone like me. And then it gets worse. Much worse.
By Joe Acton
My report cards always fell into two basic categories: bad and restriction.
"Joe can't seem to remember directions very long. He often is more interested in what others are doing and forgetting his own work. When Joe develops good work habits and makes good use of all his time he will make better progress. Too much daily time is wasted. There is much room for improvement. Miss Luedtke."
This little gem pretty much shattered my parents hopes for med-school. Let's face it, the last thing we need are doctors who can't follow directions and are more interested in just about anything else except what they're supposed to be doing.
Hey, but when you're in the first grade the only people who really care about your grades are your parents — and their co-conspirators — your teachers. So I was pretty darn proud of the fact that of all my friends, my teacher wrote the most about me. All things considered I thought it was a pretty good report card.
After all, I told my parents, what 'ol lady Luedtke was really trying to tell them was that I wasn't one of your garden variety show-offy-know-it-all kind of kid. I figured that should be good news if you're a parent. Of course, when you're six, you don't figure like your parents do.
I learned two things from my very first report card: 1) Homer and Edna (my mom and dad) had very little in common with Ward and June Cleaver, and 2) parents are not necessarily as dumb as the kids they raise.
I also learned that parents have certain pre-conceived notions that are very hard to get out of their heads. Like their kid is smarter than everyone else's. Or their kid is at least as smart as everyone else's. Or their kid can be as smart as everyone else's kid if every one else's kid has been drinking out of lead cups for a couple of years.
Or, as my dad used to put it at report card time, "With a lot of effort and private tutoring maybe we can teach you to pour sand out of a pair of leaky hip boots if the directions are written on the heel in seven different languages and you're standing in the middle of a translator's convention with hundred dollar bills sticking out of your pockets and wearing a sandwich board that says 'Help me I'm stupid.'"
Parents also figure that there's some central filing system that the Rhodes Committee checks each month to see if they still have your kid's name in the hat. After all, everybody knows that whenever you get a bum report card "IT GOES ON YOUR PERMANENT RECORD AND YOU'LL NEVER GET INTO A GOOD COLLEGE OR GET A GOOD JOB AND YOU'LL WIND UP WORKING AT A SERVICE STATION THE REST OF YOUR MISERABLE LIFE UNLESS YOU JOIN THE ARMY SO THEY CAN MAKE A MAN OUT OF YOU."
Wow. Mom. Chill out. Have some de-caf. Try to keep things in perspective. Remember what my teacher said: I can't follow directions — so a career in the Army is O-U-T, out. And I waste too much daily time to keep up with a bunch of cars that need to be fixed. So the only thing left is college.
Well, Mom had been to college and knew that the word "party" was supposed to be used as a noun, not a verb, so she had some real concerns about my future. Not me. I knew where I was heading. Unfortunately, so did my teachers.
"Joe could be doing so much better if he forgot foolishness during work time. I am disappointed in Joe's work lately. He has gotten lazy and didn't put forth much effort. Perhaps he will understand better next year."
Actually, after Homer and Edna read this one, I began to understand much better almost immediately. You see, they tended to use the left-foot-right-foot approach to child rearing: if you don't get the results you desire from your kids, you kick them in the rear with your left foot and then with your right foot and you repeat the process until the desired results occur.
Now I'll grant you this wasn't the Dr. Benjamin Spock approved method, but mysteriously enough, the word "foolishness" never again showed up on any of my report cards.
Which is not to say I got any smarter.
"Joe could do much better with more concentrated effort. He still has difficulty with oral reading. Maybe the glasses will help."
He docked me for poor oral reading? What kind of deal is this? Isn't he the one that told me not to move my lips when I read? I get that down solid and now he docks me because I'm not good enough at moving my lips when I read. Look, pal — make a decision — pick one and go with it. But let's have some consistency here, okay?
Alright, Mom, looks like we've finally solved our problem: I needed glasses all these years. Yeah — if ya can't see the blackboard ya can't do what's on it. Right? Heck — give them four-eyes and I'm on my way to Yale to be a locksmith (which is what I figured they must teach the most of there since they obviously invented the Yale lock on our front door).
Well the glasses did help — but not my grades.
"Joe just doesn't seem to be interested in what's going on in class. He spends a lot of time looking out the window and working on his own projects and could care less what the rest of us are doing."
Not true — not true — not true, I told my parents. The correct phraseology is that I "couldn't care less" what the rest of them were doing. "Couldn't" in this case being proper over "could care less" because my level of apathy could not be any less than it already was. To say that I "could care less" creates the unwarranted inference that I have a higher level of interest than I actually do, i.e., that with some effort perhaps I "could care less." So you can see, Mom and Dad, the teacher has not only misjudged my interest and thus academic performance in her class, but has also engaged in poor usage of the English language — something that all of us intellectuals find appalling. You can follow this, can't you?
Rule: if you're going to smart off to your parents, do it in front of the mirror just like you do when you're challenging the tough kids to fight you after school. Aw, come on — you remember standing in front of your parent's mirror sneering, "Oh, yeah? Are you talking to me? How would like to be wearing your lunch pail for a hat? Oh, yeah? One more crack like that and you'll be up to your knees in playground."
Anyway, this little outburst bought me a two month stretch in "the pen" (my room) and did little to convince Mom and Dad that I was making any real formidable progress in my language arts skills.
And so it went from Report Card Day to Report Card Day. Each successive report card inspired in me a greater appreciation for the process of nuclear fission because I watched Mom and Dad go through Parental Meltdown as they read my report card.
And then, on a day destined to be like all the other Report Card Meltdown Days, the gods unexpectedly smiled. That was the day I brought home my usual menu of dismal grades. Except this time, Dad noticed that my psychology teacher had spelled his own subject "psycology" and my P.E. teacher had given me a grade for being a "P.E. Aid," as opposed to a "P.E. Aide."
From that day on my Dad's theory about school was that if they weren't paying attention I didn't have to either.
And it was on this very propitious occasion that my father imparted two pieces of timeless information which have guided me ever since: a) never let school get in the way of your real education; and b) "Son, if you are ever going to amount to anything in life remember to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you -- and in your case, it shouldn't be that hard to do." Tell ya what -- you set the bar low enough and even I can jump over it.
So if your kid keeps bringing home average grades with nasty-grams from the teacher that says he's not paying attention and seems bored — hey! — chill out. Have some de-caf. Lighten up. Show some restraint. Get up some backbone.
And then enroll him in the first military school that will take the lazy little crumb-snatcher or you'll wind up with a kid that grows up to be just like me.
And then you'll find out the hard way that . . .
Sometimes it goes on like this for days and days. And then your daughter marries someone like me. And then it gets worse. Much worse.