The progress reports arrive. In our school district, progress reports are sent out a couple times during a semester before the final grades arrive. The progress reports are only sent out for classes where a student is in danger of failing. In the course of one week, my daughter found out she’d scored in the 98th percentile on her PAST exam and got a progress report showing she is struggling in four classes. Talk about your roller-coaster week.
I am not the type of mom who puts a lot of pressure on my kids about grades, or even school performance overall. I remember school and I remember how subjective classes and grading could be and I remember trying to create a life with some balance. But, I do stay on top of things and would rather they not fail classes. My daughter is taking a particularly challenging course load and the amount of homework and assignment requirements are more than I would probably even attempt. Still, she is stressed and upset about the progress report. As it is, she’s brought home armloads of books over winter break to try to catch up and get a head start on January. She even has a decent bunch of homework assigned to be completed over the break. Enough, I think, is enough.
There is so much focus and pressure on kids to get good grades and get into a good college. Learning and experience and challenge seem to have taken a back seat to grades on a piece of paper. There are so many benchmarks and tests that the pleasures of discovery seem to have completely disappeared from a high school curriculum. I understand that grades do matter. But so do a lot of other things, and you’re only seventeen once. I struggle to find a way to convey to my daughter that while I value education, I also support her taking on tough classes where there may not be easy “A’s”, learning to make friends and date, and competing with the jazz band, and all the other teenage experiences that really prepare our kids for taking on the world. I want her to know that grades really aren’t everything.