<p>Hooray Modadunn! Glad you had a nice chat. Hope he heals quickly and his confidence grows. Will keep him in my thoughts and prayers!</p>
<p>Thanks TheAnalyst. Gotta love those group projects! Made me laugh with your “plays well with others” comment! Gotta give him credit for returning to the lab!</p>
<p>lindz…still thinking of you and D and sending positive thoughts. How wonderful that her transition is going well! She deserves it!</p>
<p>Hey…anyone hear from #theorymom??? I am starting to worry. Hope all is well.</p>
<p>missypie… I’m sure you can’t be that uncoordinated! I so admire you for training and then hiking the GC this spring! On a graduation year to boot! Truly inspirational!</p>
<p>insomnia has returned…must be more worried than I thought re today’s doctors appt! I hate thinking about possible knee surgery. Ahhh…does that mean I am getting old??? Wonder where owlice is??? I sure could use a nice big mug of her famous hot chocolate so I can fall back asleep!</p>
<p>Thanks for the hugs woody and rrah…they were great and much appreciated! :)</p>
<p>If I remember correctly from the “Great WPI Meet-up,” after dropping off #TS she was going to be back out of touch for a few more weeks. She should be back in the virtual world soon.</p>
<p>Modadunn, I’m glad you had a good chat with your son. I think it would be an amazing experience to play a sport in college. Our older one wanted to play soccer in college but blew his knee his junior year in high school, missed key tournaments, and just lost his drive at a very critical time. He still talks about what could have been and misses playing serious soccer. He plays pick-up games in the park in Rio all the time but it’s not the same. </p>
<p>Our younger one doesn’t have the size or speed to play DI football and has had his share of injuries (broken femur, weak ankles, torn ACL, separated shoulder, and a few concussions), but we would have been fully supportive if he had wanted to play in college. He would have been a good fit at a Christopher Newport, for example. But he didn’t want a small school. We’ve asked him how it feels to not be playing this fall and he says “it’s straight” which I guess means it’s OK.</p>
<p>I admit I miss watching the boys play their sports. That was a huge part of our life. Watching H run a marathon just doesn’t have the same zip as a football, soccer, or basketball game.</p>
<p>Thanks for the support, peeps! I too loved the “plays well with others” comment but totally get both sides of the group project coin… especially when you’re not sure of someone else’s strengths and weaknesses. Son cannot remember calc I. He knows the names of the rules and the functions (whatever that means) but not how to apply them. Fortunately he already knew a few kids in his class and so was hoping to get some direction. Talk about the other side of the coin!!</p>
<p>Alot of stress seemed relieved by his buying himself a new backpack. Continuing to search for the other one was proving more stress than it was worth - even if the thing was ridiculously expensive. I am sure someone just picked it up thinking it was theirs and with nothing inside it (both good news and bad news in that one), now it’s impossible to track down.</p>
<p>I am definitely going through field withdrawal since younger D forwent soccer this year. However, yesterday we went to the boys soccer game (she’s on the newspaper and agreed when I suggested it wasn’t a bad idea to take some pictures). Then last night I let her bounce ideas off of me for their assignment meeting this morning. She is really hoping to become editor in chief as a junior, and I am glad she has set such a lofty goal.</p>
<p>Today I am putting together a care package to send to son along with a few things he’s requested. I would bake cookies, but I think it might throw my kitchen into complete shock.</p>
<p>LOL, horribly unalthletic, but I am able to put one foot in front of another to hike. Of course, it wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized that one could be fit without ever throwing, catching or chasing a *ball.<a href=“PE%20classes%20in%20school%20were%20so%20bad%20and%20at%20least%20in%20our%20area,%20haven’t%20improved%20over%20the%20years.”>/I</a></p>
<p>Son doesn’t mind group projects but D hates them… When will they learn that it’s actually NOT a good idea to do group projects with their friends?</p>
<p>As for facing the reality of not being the star in their sport…I bet that they all know this intellectually, but if they’ve always been the best before, it’s impossible to really grasp until it happens.</p>
<p>Funny after I wrote the above D 1 texted, I am alive but am busy I will skpe you tomorrow. I think its also easier at the moment because she seems ok. I would be more stressed if there were issues and complications and would want to get to the bottom of it. As Lindz says its all individual. Sometimes with skype I feel sadder as then I want to be with her when I actually see her, but she also looks happy.
I am more stressed about D2 who got the math teacher no one wants to have, is taking 4 honors but if she cant get out of his class plans to drop to regualar. We had a very bad experience with him last year with D1 and it had a serious impact. As wimpy as it sounds under the current circumstances i am trying to minimize her stress and she it a type AAA. She auditioned for a dance class and hurt her foot, so did not do well, was so upset 'I didnt do my best" I said you did your best that day with a hurt foot.not every day is a perfect day. Always trying to simmer her down. I think the transition to college will be more stressful with her. (will deal with that later she is a sophmore) Anyway allowing her to drop to reg math is prob not a good CC choice, but the man is a disaster and we can only do our best under the circumstances we currently have.</p>
<p>You are making a good decision. Freshman year D had the Pre-Ap Geometry teacher from hell. (I posted about him at the time - he’s the guy who threw chairs and called them “■■■■■■■” for doing badly on a test.) </p>
<p>We tried to get her transfered to the good teacher. Couldn’t do it. At the semester break, half the class dropped down to Regular for the sole reason of escaping him. I made D stay; the assistant principal insisted that the horrible teacher’s students did better in Algebra II. Not. In middle school, D was great at math and had oodles of confidence. That year with the terrible teacher destroyed her confidence … by second semester of Algebra II, I let her drop down to Regular.</p>
<p>LOL, missypie! that’s me! I can walk and I can pedal a bike </p>
<p>dte - I agree that you’re making the right call. Fortunately for the younger siblings, we’ve all learned from the older ones’ difficulties. Slightly different situation here: D1 kept telling me that no one at our HS takes the APUSH exam even though they’ve taken the class, because they don’t do well, the teacher doesn’t teach to the test, etc. Did I listen? No. Did I make her take the test? Yes. Did she get a lousy score? YUP. Will D2 be taking the APUSH test? Not likely.</p>
<p>CBBBlinker- thanks for the report on #tm. I too had been wondering about her. </p>
<p>D’s calls and texts have tapered off considerably, mostly because she is busy, I think. She did call the other night asking for advice about joining a sorority. For this graduate of a LAC with zero Greek presence, I am clueless. But it sounds like she is asking the right questions…</p>
<p>downtoearth—I also agree–if you already know what this math teacher is like from d1’s experience it may be best for your d to move out of there… Her confidence and your sanity are too important. My d dropped down from APUSH due to a teacher issue (2tests per class/no teaching) and she was so glad she did. she felt empowered to be able to make a choice for herself and as it turned out it freed her up to put more energy into other classes and to be and feel successful overall. (and now in college I see her continue to operate from “I have choices” belief.</p>
<p>Looking at the bigger picture, Life (as opposed to cc world), showing our kids how to respect their personal need to balance demands, and de-stress will help them manage in the future more than perfectionism. once they are in college and managing independently, especially for our type A kids.</p>
<p>I also agree that a bad teacher should be dropped. We went through a disastrous year in 10th grade English with a teacher who should be shot, not just fired and I am generally a pacifist. When our son was given her again as a senior, I told the school he would be home schooled if they didn’t take him out of her class as taking that teacher again simply was not going to happen under any circumstance. I also had the demand put in writing and made sure my husband used his best lawyerly verbiage. (They have a policy of not allowing students to drop this teacher because otherwise she would have no students.) Anyway, they allowed him to drop to the unhappy cries of unfair from every other parent. S2 made an A in English. One of his friends failed to graduate because this teacher failed him and two other A/B students received Ds. I can trace the English phobia both of my boys carried into college to this single teacher. It is beyond me how schools can allow things like this to happen.</p>
<p>yes this guy had a serious impact on the grades that went out to schools for D1 admissions too complicated to get into but had consequences, he also was very deprecating and mean. D1 was a pretty loved student at her school, but H and I talk about how a couple of teachers did not like her, one we laugh at because it was her fault the teacher although pompous did not like that she fell asleep in his class twice oops and this math teacher who should not be teaching. It is very frustrating to have teachers like that-Why be a teacher if you dont love kids and want to impart knowledge?Its such an important job not a default position. I’m a pedi nurse I love kids and will do anything to support them, I just dont get it. I know everyone here feels the same.</p>
<p>Every time I think of that teacher, I become enraged. Tenth grade was such a critical year. Our son entered that year totally motivated to do well so he could get into a good college. Then he got this teacher, ended up spending all of his homework time trying to please her, letting every other grade suffer, lost all self-confidence when he couldn’t please her, and just became an angry, unwilling to try student for a long time after as a result. He turned it around senior year so at least entered college with some self-esteem back in tact but that certainly wouldn’t have happened if he had her again. When his friend (who is very smart kid with a twin who was given a different teacher) didn’t get to graduate with his brother, we were all just heart-broken. His brother wouldn’t go to any of the parties and the twin’s joy in graduation was ruined as well I’m sure.</p>
<p>The reason they cant get rid of them is met with two words: Teacher’s Unions. While I am a huge fan and supporter of a lot of teachers (my best friend, both sister in laws, and one of my sisters was a teacher). I know that not every teacher likes every kid (so when teachers told me they never had “personality issues” with students, I was like, “bull!”). But my sister actually retired because her heart wasn’t in it like it used to be after 25 years in teh classroom. My best friend teachers 3rd grade and every year ends up getting about 5-10k in grant money for various projects she takes on to benefit her students. I think some start out with great intentions, but then become jaded and burned out or worse.</p>
<p>However… </p>
<p>One of the story ideas my daughter had was to question what was behind the math department practically turning over every year. The schools policy is that for the first year and up to the third, there is nothing to guarantee your job and so I think they weed them out pretty quickly. Why is it so hard to find math teachers? Now I get that people who are good at math might also not be that good at using language skills to explain it, but a bad English teacher? I’ve seen boring ones, I’ve seen checked out ones, and I’ve seen some who don’t know the rules of grammar (and I don’t think she appreciated my giving her a book on the subject at the end of the year), but to crush kid’s love of literature? Truly bothers me. I know my sister in law who mostly teaches freshman english at her University really pours herself into those kids and their ability to write better. However, some think they write “good enough” which tells you right there they don’t write well enough. :-)</p>
<p>By the way… i tried to make oatmeal raisin cookies. They were completely flat and frankly, seemed to have too much oatmeal in that they didn’t really hold together well. I hate failing every time I step into a kitchen!</p>
<p>Son had a wacked out teacher freshman year who fortunately made some racist remarks. I say “fortunately” because has she just been wacked out without the racist remarks, I’m sure she would still be at the school, but the racist stuff was enough to give the district grounds to fire her. When D had the bad geometry teacher, I was so hoping he’d include racist stuff in his rants, but he just called them other names instead.</p>
<p>But in the karma department: I had a law prof the last semester in law school who hated the students and hated the world. He really wanted to fail some students. We all tended to graduate with exactly enough credits - no more - so failing his class would have meant not graduating. However, he had a stroke the month before school got out, we all missed the last month of class and no one failed. (And he made a full recovery. Don’t know if his attitude got better.)</p>
Gotta give him credit for returning to the lab!</p>
Wonder where owlice is??? I sure could use a nice big mug of her famous hot chocolate so I can fall back asleep!</p>
I too loved the “plays well with others” comment but totally get both sides of the group project coin… especially when you’re not sure of someone else’s strengths and weaknesses. Son cannot remember calc I. He knows the names of the rules and the functions (whatever that means) but not how to apply them. Fortunately he already knew a few kids in his class and so was hoping to get some direction. Talk about the other side of the coin!!</p>