Time for report cards. Usually, report card conferences have my stomach in knots.  When I go to Ryan’s conferences they are long affairs where they used to declare their worry for him not doing the school work and learning the material.  This year it feels like they have just given up.  I get the line “he can do better”.  I know this, they know this, and I am doing my best to make sure he succeeds in school, but for his intelligence he is not. Ryan has ADHD, he has a language processing disorder, and sensory processing disorder. He is unable to take the magic bullet medicines and I am screaming and kicking for more behavioral support in school.  I work with Ryan at home but the classroom is a chaotic place where little learning happens for him or else he is just a shitty test taker. They love to tell me he just “won’t take the tests right”.  Which of course puts all the blame off of them and onto a learning disabled third grader. This meeting will be different.  I know what his grades are already, I saw them online.  I know about the D in Social Studies, I also know about the C’s in Math, Reading, and Science.  I know about the A in Computers. I know.  I am fighting for different ways to teach this kid and it is hard but for once, my stomach is not in knots because I know what I am walking into.

Aaron is a different story. The kid has straight A’s except for Writing which is a B.  When he finds out about the B he will feel he has to try harder and will say, oh I have to work harder in writing because I NEED straight A’s.  Yeah, he is that over achiever and believe me we have talked about trying your best but we put no pressure on him at all.  The pressure all comes from inside himself.

I am liking these online grades.  I am not walking into any surprises, and soon enough the conferences will be all over.