Must try harder

When I was in primary school, every year, my report book would say the same thing. "She needs to try harder." or "She is capable of better work." I was. According to my mother, I was a bright little girl with a great imagination but for most of my primary school life, I couldn't be bothered. I was busy dreaming up stories in my head that I was going to enact once I was free from the shackles of school. So I hid a lot of my homework.

Jordan, I am afraid, takes after me.

The one observation that the class teacher has made to me more than once was that she doodles. And she doodles All. The. Time. And because she is doing this, she isn't as focussed in her work. It takes time for her to switch out of the art part of the brain and into the academic-non-art part. So that switch has to happen and when I look at her, I can actually see the gears shifting in her head.

One teacher's opinion is to leave it be as long as it doesn't affect her work. And according to her, it hasn't. Another teacher's opinion is to encourage her to distinguish between her work books and books that she can draw on. And that makes a lot of sense to me. She needs to know where she can draw and where she shouldn't. Wall- no. Paper- yes. Glass- yes. TV- no. Grounds outside (with chalk)- yes. Floor in the house - no. So similarly, workbook- no. Sketch book- yes.
























So far, it seems to have worked albeit requiring constant reminding on my part.























But everyone does seem to agree that she is an artistic and creative little girl who is dreamy and in a world of her own. I am convinced if we could have a peep into what she was thinking some of the time, it would have to do with princesses, fairies, mermaids, rockets, crabs and a weird confluence of things.

My only hope is that as she progresses through school, the teachers understand that about her and that while it is important that she learns to multiply, divide and figure out how pulleys work, it really isn't going to be where her strengths lie. For that, they have to look toward Evan.


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