Originally posted by Ripsnort
The F was in a daily homework assignment (currently this thing called a "Moon Calendar" where they just look up what phase the moon is in, and color a moon calendar chart) This is a roll up to many assignments that account for 40% of the overall Science grade. I probably won't hold him back from the trip over this, but I'm certainly going to talk about how small, easy tasks are just as important as larger assignments.
About online grades...I can't imagine waiting 2.5 months only to see a kid is failing a class, or finding out during teacher conferences that they are failing. The instant online grades allows to correct for behavior before bad habits take over.
The corrective behavior plan (CBP--I love acronyms!) I will implement beginning today will be a daily report and daily homework status that he'll begin reporting to me. Of course, there will be take-aways for negative values (grades going down, or assignments not turned in) however there will be incentives for improvement too. I've already created a spread sheet that he'll complete each day for his status reporting.
I'm going to try to manage this like a failing project. I've revived a few failing projects, and perhaps its time for alittle "Daddy Project Management".
Just a thought on it Rip, and this is from someone who struggled with his oldest son and school right up through his graduation. There was never any question of my son's smarts. But he was never good at school. He just didn't learn well that way and this is a kid who was reading before he started school, could draw complex machines and aircraft from an early age etc. But he'd forget work, get the work done and forget to turn it in or what have you.
I rode him mercilessly to the point we could barely stand each other. It didn't change. I work with kids for a living. My boss asked me after I'd grumbled about it one day, "are his grades for you or for him?"
The question caught me off guard. He then asked me how my relationship with my son was at that point. I told him that I got tense as soon as I knew he was coming home from school, and that my son was barely talking to me at that point and looking a bit like a dog who'd been kicked too many times.
He then asked me which was more important, the relationship or my son getting the grades I wanted. I had to take a long hard look at that and in the end the relationship was far more important. It wasn't as if Drew was a defiant, disprespectful kid breaking rules. He was anything but that and he and I were always close until I'd decided that i was going to make him get good grades.
In the end he graduated, well towards the bottom of his class, but he and I were close again and he always talked to my wife and I about things. He worked full time after High School and on his own decided to go to community college. He was out on his own finally and was going to make it.
Then he was killed in a car wreck and I lost him at 21.
I know that slants my thinking so keep it in mind. But I have no regrets about stopping on the hammering him about school. I never quit having expectations of what kind of man he would become and in the end he did not disappoint me in that regard. It was his life and his grades. They weren't my grades.
I'd give my left arm for one more hunting trip with him. That bond you create with times like that will be far more important as he gets older then anything grades will do.
Hope that makes sense.
