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| Puzzling with Sofia Puzzlemonster. |
Reports! Or Personal Profiles as our school has dubbed them, complete with pages of photographs of children working in the classroom, samples of work, and then the lovely, detailed written reports.
Sofia's report is due next week, but Annika's teacher got his in early, and it has been read aloud, snorted at, highlighted, reread, analysed and deconstructed. And that's just by Annika.
In reading it myself, I have to wonder if teachers take special courses to produce those delicately phrased, subtle rebukes that suggest your child is wonderful, brilliant, spectacular ... but needs to do it more quietly. It's OK, Michael - I KNOW Annika can be a ratbag. I'm her mother!
To be fair, it was a fairly glowing report. Annika was annoyed she didn't get full marks - five trees! - for everything, but when I explained the concept of effort, and trying your hardest, and always working to your full potential, she accepted that maybe she didn't always do those things. "School is meant to be about having fun, Mum!" she pouted. Oh, my darling, sheltered, Montessori child. So unaware of your own privilege.
The need for effort, and persistence, are hard lessons for everyone to learn, but for bright kids, it's that bit harder. Things tend to come easily, and they get a bit too familiar with being good - or the best - at things. So much is easy for them - and when its not, with my child at least, the walls go up. She's dumb. She's stupid. She's slow. She's younger than the others. It's difficult not to sigh deeply at the melodrama. I try to be sympathetic and understanding as I explain she might not have been doing it as long. She doesn't try as hard, or practice as much, I point out. She can't expect to do well at something when she hasn't put any time or effort into learning how.
There's a fascinating contrast between my puzzlemonster (Sofia) and her older sister, who likes to do puzzles, but finds the sustained attention required for the larger puzzles just that bit too boring. Where Sofia is patient and carefully checks piece after piece for a "click", as we call it, Annika wants to see the picture emerge, and be guided by that. The systematic approach that her sister accepts as a necessary part of doing jigsaw puzzles is not in her skill set.
But we're working on it. Thank goodness for physical pursuits. Annika has learnt more about persistence and practice at swimming and ballet than anywhere else. She is tall and gangly, therefore swimming doesn't come easily to her, but it is coming slowly and surely. She is persevering - and that, for us, is a victory. Ballet is a slightly different story. She has a level of natural ability that, combined with her memory skills, means she does well, and is fairly confident, but in ballet, there is no such thing as good enough. Miss Linda wants her young ballerinas to practice until they are perfect, and to listen, and to watch carefully.
It's not a Montessori experience, but its a valuable, real world lesson for a girl who needs to learn that sometimes in life, its not about how clever you are. It's about how well you pay attention, and how much work you are willing to put in.
