I am REALLY impressed with Ben’s recent grades.  He brought home a midterm progress report, so granted: its not an actual report card.  But there were five subjects and each subjects had four different categories like:

• Academic scores
• Class participation
• etc

So that’s twenty total categories.  Ben got the very highest grade in 19 out of 20!!  There was one missing assignment which Ben could account for.  It was like getting a 3.95 GPA!!  HOLY TOLEDO!!

In January I had gotten a call from his teachers - they wanted me to come in and talk with all four of them about Ben’s lack of progress.  It was disheartening to sit there listening to all of his teachers complain that he wasn’t doing work and wasn’t participating in class.  Across the board it was the same in each of his classes.  They all liked him and knew he could do much better.

His home-room teacher has a reputation for being a real battle-axe.   Ben said she was mean.  One of the sweetest girls I know said she was awful  I also heard from a couple of other parents about how tough and unreasonable she was.  And in my meeting with all the teachers she didn’t really seem interested.  I got the impression she thought they were going to too much effort for Ben.  This woman wrote on the science section of his report: “High interest, High aptitude! :)”  (note the smiley-face)  I was thrilled!  He had managed to impress the battle-axe and completely changed her opinion of him.

Since I had that meeting with his teachers I have been checking Ben’s homework every night - not so much for content as for completeness.  Since I was looking it over anyway, I would spot-check his math and whatnot, but mostly I was reviewing it to make sure it was done and that his agenda was filled out so he would know what to do.  He wasn’t allowed on a computer or the Wii until I checked it, which meant he had all afternoon, every day, with no electronic games.

It totally worked.  I have to give Ben full credit for turning himself around.  What a great kid!  His previous report card was good, but he had gotten a low grade because he neglected to do a project.  After I saw this report I told him that i didn’t need to see his daily homework anymore but that if he ever brought home another report card like the one with the C’s (and worse) that we would go back to me getting involved in his homework.

So four gold-stars to Ben for excellent academic achievement!

Tags: Uncategorized //