Maybe I was just trying to avoid the subject.
Got there right at 5:30, where the first hour was spent in the auditorium with a parent meeting about changing from block schedule back to seven periods.
My only question (which had to remain shouted inside my head) was WHY CAN'T YOU GO AHEAD AND DO IT NOW!
For those who aren't familiar with the concept, block scheduling is a bit like college, where you take four courses in a semester, two semesters in a year. It does have some advantages, or so I'm told. But none of them have anything to do with making sure surly, time-wasting, hormonal high school students actually learn anything. They were the last school to adopt it when the county made the changeover several years back, and now that we're an independent system, there's a lot of sentiment for a return to the traditional schedule. Fine by me, and the sooner the better.
Next hour was spent going to the various classes. I missed the first one (choir) since I was waiting on Miss Reba to get to the building (she having had to work late), so we just went on to the next one a bit early. Speech class--the teacher seems like the perfect person to teach it. Witty and full of life, and thankfully she seems to enjoy having opinionated students in class who are not afraid to speak out. Meaning that's one where Oldest is in her element, since being opinionated and willing to speak out do not require a basic command of factual information but merely style and volume.
Next up, Honors Geometry. Very sweet girl who seems to be highly capable and willing to help anyone willing to put in the effort to learn. "Effort," however, seeming to induce a reaction in Oldest similar to that exhibited by Maynerd G. Krebs whenever he heard the word "work."
Hard to believe it, but according to our source, this attractive young teacher is apparently an ogre of the highest order and hates everyone with a white-hot passion and is mean and cruel and unfair and barbaric and most especially toward Oldest.
::sigh::
Next up, Honors Anatomy and Physiology. I thought this one would be a pretty good one for us, seeing as how Oldest has now taken to telling everyone she will be going to med school. What better place to get a leg-up (so to speak) on the intricacies of the human machine, to plumb its depths in detail with a teacher who has enough experience to teach college!
A very nice woman who seems to enjoy her work and her students. And afterwards as we met her, one who expressed sincere words of concern that Oldest seems to miss out on so much of class--even when she's IN class--for the most transparently absurd excuses. "I know she has problems with her health--she's told me, several times, but, well..." Her voice trailed off, signalling that same disappointed tone we've heard before that indicates a good teacher who sees tremendous promise squandered.
Come to find out, though (again according to a source close to the situation), this teacher is mean and hard and unkind and brutal and hateful and unfair and selfish and harsh and evil and expects too much, and hates Oldest more than all other children in the world.
::sigh::
Thank heavens med school will be so much easier.
Posted by Terry Oglesby at January 27, 2006 03:22 PM