I've mentioned before that middle child has a disability that affects her learning. In order for her to succeed in school, I spend every night helping her with her homework, mostly studying for quizzes and tests. Our school system has an online grade book that tells you exactly how your child is performing in each class. A few days ago, I noticed that middle child had received a 0/10 on "Video Quiz on The Rena" in her World History class. When she came home, I questioned her about this. She told me it was a true/false quiz. You are probably saying to yourself, "that defies the laws of probability." However, you do not know this child; she defies the laws of gravity every time she eats a meal. A 0/10 on a true/false quiz isn't all that shocking for her.Anyhow, I asked her about the video, trying to determine what the problem had been. Normally, she will lose interest and zone out if a video is about war, politics or any other vast number of things she could care less about. Specifically, I said, "What was 'The Rena'?" She had no idea. I threw out my own guesses: was it a ship? a Russian word for peace agreement? some sort of archaeological expedition? Still no clue! She said da Vinci was mentioned, but that's all she could remember. I gave it up and proceeded with version 876 of the speech, "you need to pay better attention in class, blah, blah, blah." We then move on, spending the next two nights studying for an upcoming history quiz on, according to my daughter, "the stuff we've been learning over the past few weeks." That quiz is today.
I log onto her grades once again this morning and see that the history teacher has listed the quiz for today as, "Reading/Lecture Quiz on 'The Rena'." Yes, I about hit the roof. I'm all, "I cannot believe we wasted two nights studying chapter 5 in the book. There was no information on this Rena anywhere in the textbook, her folder, or her spiral notebook. I'm going to have to contact this teacher and find out what is going on in there." Grrrrrr.......
After a few minutes of ranting to myself, it finally dawns on me: the teacher must be using the abbreviation of 'The Rena' for the topic of chapter five.........the Renaissance.
And that, my friends, illustrates how the blind lead the blind in our house.
Funny story, C. . .
ReplyDeletelol, keeps it interesting doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteUm, who exactly decided to abbreviate Renaissance to 'The Rena'? How lazy are these teachers? I've never heard someone be referred to as 'A Rena Guy' instead of being 'A Renaissance Man".
ReplyDeleteI think your Middle and my Eldest were separated at birth.
ReplyDeleteOh boy! I got quite a few flash backs of the near same dynamics that use to go in our house when the kids were young. OYE!!
ReplyDelete:)
I can relate all too well. Our oldest needed constant help through middle school and, well, we had similar experiences. Keep at it, and good luck with the teachers!
ReplyDeleteYour conversations are the same ones I have every night in my house. "You have to pay attention," "You have to write down the assignments," "What do you mean you don't know what to write down? The teachers write them on a board that looks exactly like the page from your assignment book," "Do you WANT to kill me?"
ReplyDeleteA few weeks ago, faced with a failed quiz and a kid who couldn't even tell me anything about the subject it had been over (sample - "Why is the experiment referred to as a Black Box Experiment?" "Because it's black." Um...), I turned to the Internet and someone in the know heard my plea and responded! Yeah, Internet!
Middle school will kill me. I'm almost positive.
Trooper - that's exactly what Husband asked me. Maybe the box in the online gradebook only allows so many characters?
ReplyDeleteLaggin - my sympathies to you then.
C-Marie - the sad part is, she's not that young - a sophomore in HS.
FADKOG - yeah, middle school IS going to kill you. But the internet is your friend in these situations. I've googled just about everything and am always able to find help. You're going to want to bookmark sparknotes.com!
Desmond/Lime/Xavier - Thanks!