Richard Morris43 said:Here’s my take on things, coming at this from the perspective of a mom with a kid just starting first grade.
So, the other day he comes home with a C in art... which, honestly? That grade totally rubbed me the wrong way. I mean, how do you even give a first grader a C in art class? To him, it doesn't even matter because we already had a long talk about how grades are just numbers on a page for kids.
As far as reading goes, he started the school year just spelling out individual letters, but man, has he made leaps and bounds since then.
Their last assignment was reading a book and having to write down the plot summary in their journal—which, if you ask me, feels a little early for a six-year-old.
I didn't mind much when they just did verbal Q&A sessions where the teacher would ask questions after they finished a book.
But then they had a reading comprehension test. And guess what? Another C. He actually got all the answers right, but apparently, he didn't write them out in full, complete sentences. Oh, and get this—the teacher was also nitpicking whether they used periods and commas in the right spots.🙄
Call me crazy, but that whole thing just seems a bit much to me.
From where I'm sitting, he's actually making incredible progress, and we are working our tails off with him at home. He's grasping basically everything, yet he keeps racking up these Cs. It’s frustrating us, not him.
Look, a C is fine. Would you have given him a B or an A instead? If you did, what would the kids who actually used full sentences and perfect punctuation get? Or the ones who wrote full sentences but messed up the commas? There are differences for a reason.
It's great that he's improving, but a grade isn't a measure of a kid's personal growth—it's just how their knowledge stacks up against everyone else.