Lavish Praise

We went to Athena's second parent teacher conference of her 1st grade and I couldn't be prouder of her. It was nothing but praise on top of praise from her teachers and the picture they painted revealed a remarkable well-roundedness and ease to her many strengths.

Her report card was "E"s straight down the line for the third time this year. With the exception of a third "P" for "Listening and paying attention" and a first "P" in Handwriting, it seems her letters have become quite "free form" as she is getting more adept at writing. The teachers praised her for her artistic ability, her writing, her reading, her testing, and her social graces - she's friends with everyone and well liked.

Then the Math teacher chimed into say that she never pegged Athena for being a "Math kid" - as she is such a creative type. And she sometimes has a problem keeping her attention during the Math lesson, so she wonders if Athena is really getting it, but then always always always finds her on the top end of the curve in Math Assessments, getting a 90-100%. This she finds so wonderful - the ease at which Athena grasps her Math concepts, and her ability to be top of the class in both creative and analytical areas.

Her writing is also a big bright spot. Her other teacher has the kids write three or four sentences multiple times a week and struggles with the ones who write "It was fun" every time. Athena, she says is always imaginative and very creative with her sentences.

They did mention they felt she may be a little behind in her speech. She still struggles with her "TH" and "R" sounds, so they suggested an assessment. It effects her phonetic spelling and the teacher will often find her in the "F" or "D" for sounds that are "TH" - that kind of thing. They then went on to say they have decided to award Athena the class Core Virture award for showing the most "Compassion" to her classmates and she will be honored at assembly next Friday. Hmmm, wish she could show some of that "compassion" to her little siblings...

So that was awesome. And Chris and I were pretty much bursting with pride throughout the whole meeting, it was almost a little awkward the lavishness with which they praised her. She is certainly setting the bar pretty high.