Pictures in Your Head

Aiden got his mid-quarter progress report from school today.  For him, it was good….an F (but a high one!) in Science, a D in Math, a C in Language Arts, and B’s in Reading, Computers, and History.  When I say good, I mean exceptional.  With the exception of PE, in which he got an A+, his highest grade last quarter was a 71. 

So why am I having a hard time being happy?  I, of course, told him how proud I am he brought up his grades, but I have to admit that the sentiment really isn’t there.  I know he is a smart kid, and his grades just frustrate me.

A big part of it is that our education system just really isn’t a good fit for “outside the box” kids.  Granted, when there is one teacher and 25 kids, you can’t cater to different learning styles, so you use the one that fits the majority.  Unfortunately, that leaves a lot of bright kids at a disadvantage.  Despite my frustration with my son’s performance, I understand.  I have the same learning style as he does.  I got scholarships to high school and college based on entrance exam scores, but I certainly did not have good grades nor did I do much homework.  Heck, in college, I went to class the first day to get the syllabus, showed up on test days, and spent the rest of the time at the pool!  Bless my mother for having more patience with me than I do with my child.

 I’m not an audio learner, and neither is he.  Over the years, I’ve developed my own strategies to overcome that, I connect “facts” to things.  I am a visual learner, so I have to make a picture in my head, and I remember the picture.  When I recall, I actually go through a process in my head of connecting the dots, a very strange process in which I recall.  “I had just watched a movie that really made me sad and I was sitting in that chair and you were wearing that blue shirt….and you said the key is in the desk drawer.”  A strange side effect of this compensation is that I can tell you what I was wearing on just about any day in my life because it’s part of my picture!

I’m trying to get Aiden to create the picture, but at this point in time I think he thinks I’m just strange.  And well, how do you convince a kid that creating a picture about an Algebra equation is something you want to spend your time on?  History test tomorrow, pictures for that is easier….and he already does some of that himself for that subject, thus the reason it is the only class he has had passing grades in all year.

Off to enforce study time.  And then it will be time for wine.