Childrens Personalised Books

I recently had an opportunity to have a talk about homeschooling and grades. Wow grades I have not given much thought about it since I was in college and took an American Culture class where the Professor stated we would all get A’s in his class as long as we participated in his class. When he stated that all of us who got 4. + could not believe what he was saying. Remarks were made and he defended his belief, what do grades mean. When you graduate do they look at your grades and say WOW you got a 4. +, do you get a pay increase for graduating with a 4. and so on. Another professor stated he would rather have a C student taking care of him in the hospital then an A student. His rational thinking was that rarely do you have a book smart person with common sense which is needed in life. I understood both of them and respected their beliefs. I worked my booty off to graduate with honors at the top of my class which I have to say has not given me any extra privileges though I’m sure it would’ve helped if I continued on but it was not in the cards for me.

I had a daughter who would get upset and depressed if she did not get 100% on all of her school work. We took family skip days when she started getting stressed out. Her teacher and the school councilor were in agreement about the skip days.  Needless to say she is like me with grades.

My wee ones are homeschooled. Their homework is sent in and graded and emailed to me. They have no idea what their grades are nor do they ask. They get all A’s but don’t even know it. They simply get to enjoy their studies and be kids with no worries about their grades. We concentrate on making sure they understand what is being taught. It makes our job of teaching easier and it is less stressful for them. It is a win-win situation for us.

To me grades do not make a person and grades do not have to control a person’s outcome. There have been many people who graduated at the top of their class and they never amounted to a hill of beans and others who barely passed who have become very successful. They had ambition and the will power to succeed. Some extremely smart people I have known committed suicide because they could not handle failure and the need they had to be on top. One cannot help but to think this may have been focused on at an early age because of the stress to be at the top of the class. Many kids are bored in school for one reason or another which diminishes their ambition to learn. Everyone has their own way of learning that works best for them and schools are set up for kids who can sit at a desk quietly and work. For everyone else, it makes it a bit harder to learn. The main thing is not everyone who gets ‘good’ grades comes out on top and not everyone who barely passes is stuck at the bottom of dead beat job.

One step closer to becoming deliriously happy. ~Ann Marie (A&A Workingmoms)