My 12yo is sitting at the dining room table on the very edge of tears. He's been working on math since he got home from Scouts. First Elwood was helping him; now I'm walking him through the last few problems. I just learned that this isn't a homework set: his teacher wanted them to complete all of these practice problems so they would be ready for a standardized test tomorrow. He didn't happen to mention whether they'd be graded or not.
"Please don't email him," said Pete, inching closer to tears. But I'm telling you: this guy deserves an email. Too much homework for any weeknight, too many disparate half-forgotten topics cram-jammed into one assignment, and too little clarity about his expectations, so that kids are left thinking, "If I bail, I might fail."
"Have you ever had trouble because of an email I've written?" I asked him, surprised. (I write very few unhappy emails to teachers; this would be the second for Pete in his eight years of school.) "No," he said, his voice wobbly. "But please don't."
"Some boats need rocking," I told him, but I also told him that for tonight I would write a crabby blog post instead. Some boats need rocking, I tell you.
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