Coulda Woulda Shoulda

Yesterday the shit hit the fan with Miss Thing's schooling.

A couple of weeks before the school break, I received the usual letters to request interviews with both her and Sparky's teachers. I must admit it can be difficult, and it was in Sparky's case, to know which teachers I should put in a request for and which I shouldn't bother with as the mid-semester report cards aren't released until the last day of the term. With Miss Thing, however, it wasn't difficult; I ticked them all. Given her grades last year and her attitude at the start of this year, I knew I'd have to see all of them. I even wrote a little note at the bottom of the form to ensure I'd get to see them:

Miss Thing came perilously close to failing most of her classes last year, and I would appreciate the opportunity to speak to all of her teachers this semester. Thank you.

School holiday's roll around and I was handed their report cards. While I was prepared for the worst, part of me was hoping Miss Thing had gotten the message we all tried to get her to accept - that she was on thin ice and it was time to buckle down - and her pledges of going "nerd style" and doing it "her way" would pay off in a pleasant surprise. Anyone want to guess what happened?

Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over yet expecting a different result. Despite her cries to the contrary, Miss Thing hadn't changed her habits and so I was presented with a report card that contained 3 D's, 2 C's and a lone B. Her grades for effort, which is really important to me because I'd be a lot more understanding of poor grades if she (or any of my kids) were seriously trying, were much the same with one D, 3 C's, one B and one A. Comments frequently contained reworkings of the phrase "more effort needed" and "attention to detail".

Therefore I wasn't surprised when I received a second letter requesting a separate interview with the Associate Principal to discuss Miss Thing's options. I had a similar interview last year with a guidance counsellor whose advice Miss Thing declared "too hard" after a week and a half. See the Einstein quote above. We had that interview yesterday afternoon.

My attitude coming into the interview was thus: what do we have to do to see that Miss Thing receives her Queensland Certificate of Education (also known as Queensland Senior Certificate), which is the equivalent in the US of a high school diploma. Forget OP, never mind about university - what does she need to do to graduate high school? Miss Thing's attitude was different - show them she has a plan and all will be well.

Needless to say, Miss Thing never got to show the AP her plan; there would be no more chances. The AP's attitude was in line with mine - let's get Miss Thing enough credits to graduate. Miss Thing seemed to go along with this until she was told, very directly, that she needs to go down another level in math to pre-maths or basic math. Doing this makes her OP ineligible, which if you didn't read the above link severely limits her options for university. Well, Miss Thing's face fell and the seriousness of the situation, the thing we've been trying to get into her head since Grade 9, hit her square in the face. She tried to protest, asking a lot of "what if's" as concerns her math class but the bottom line is her history is against her and she should not take the chance, especially as she has to focus on bringing those other D's up to a C in order to receive the necessary credits to graduate.

I wouldn't say she stormed out when we were done, but it was very obvious that she was hurting. And a huge part of me felt for her - she's my daughter after all. I wanted to tell her it'd be okay, but the reality is she dug herself this hole and refused all of our help to get her out of it. I knew I said she'd have to learn the hard way, and it seems she finally is, but it still hurts to watch it happen.

She later tried to convince me to agree to keep her in her current level, to take a "wait and see" approach but I held firm. We've been doing that and look where it's gotten her. It's not a chance she can afford to take. With that certificate, she can take classes at TAFE (and if you're not Australian and reading this, really it's much easier for you to follow the link than for me to explain) and continue to to university later. Without it, well she's pretty much stuck in entry level jobs for the rest of her life, or she can take up an apprenticeship - which she says she doesn't want to do. She claimed changing her maths would "completely mess with " her current timetable - I told her to let the AP worry about that.

"This totally sucks!" she whined. Yes well, you should've thought about that sooner. Not like we haven't been telling you this would happen.

She is supposed to be seeing the AP at lunch today in order to see if that math class can be changed mid-semester or must wait until July. We also have a meeting in a few weeks with the Australian Defence Forces to discuss their Gap Year program. For the record that was Miss Thing's idea, however I'm 1000% for it as I hope, if accepted, she'll gain some self-discipline and life skills to help her decide what she wants. Of course she has to graduate first...