The Test

The week passed at an excruciatingly slow pace - no one knowing quite what the next day would bring. Our 40 pound 3rd grader came home to let us know that we'd need to rent a trumpet for her to play in the band as she had committed to 3 years of trumpeting on Wednesday. Our first grader declared himself unable to read the majority of words as a placement test of some variety revealed a new found inadequacy in this area.

Friday, our trumpet playing daughter disembarked from the bus crying. After great prodding, she revealed with humiliation and horror that she had a Spanish test that day which hadn't been announced and no homework had been given in the subject all week. She got 1(that's one, yes) point out of 10 on the test. So that you don't have to get out your calculator, that's bad. According to her experience of the event, the teacher said he was disappointed in her, that this grade would be in the permanent grade book, and that her class was the worst class in the school.

Now surely the words of an 8 1/2 year old can't be taken without a grain of salt (not sure what the salt will do but I'll take one if it'll help). Salt and all though, this is a girl who is already emotional about a huge school change. This is a girl who has never experienced homework (no, take-home weaving does not count), who has never taken Spanish before, and who has never taken more than a spelling test for which there were multiple dry runs and do-overs. Her single greatest fear is inadequacy and here it is, week 1 and she has been humiliated by a 1 on a test.

And so there are tears on disembarkment. Somehow tears shed over private school inspired righteous indignation (we pay for THIS?!) where these tears strike a much guiltier chord (we should have paid for THAT).

On Saturday, she practiced Spanish all morning and selected her school t-shirt for reasons that I'm sure extend beyond it being the only clean shirt she had. Maybe I give her too much credit but I want to believe that she chose that shirt to assuage my guilt and to rekindle the spirit that she had been working so hard to build.

Here's hoping she achieves both goals - I suspect that she will, she's just that kind of girl.