Burgundy worked her tail off all afternoon yesterday. Immediately after school, she checked out a textbook from her Algebra II teacher and took it to another teacher for tutorials. I picked her up from tutorials and 4:00 PM, and we stopped in to chat with her debate teacher.
As I suspected, Burgundy had vastly over-complicated the paper due today in debate. The teacher asked for a 7-10 page paper on accountability. Burgundy chose financial accountability, and proceeded to prepare a dissertation on the various angles and implications of financial accountability from the church's appropriation of funds to personal choices in Starbucks. Happily, the teacher backed up everything I'd told Burgundy about paring back her paper, and Burgundy left re-invigorated to finish her paper.
Meanwhile, she has a test today over Great Expectations, and she had three chapters left to read yesterday. She read on the way home from tutorials, then worked on her paper until her private tutor, our friend K, arrived at 6:00 PM to help her prepare for today's quiz over the last three sections of her current chapter. They worked until 8:00 PM, then Burgundy went back to the computer to finish the paper for debate.
She finally wrapped that up around 10:00 PM and picked up Great Expectations to finish that off while I gave her final paper a once-over for major errors. Now that I'm "in the real world" using what I learned in high school, I understand that it's a Best Practice to pass your writing to a friend or colleague before handing over the final copy. As a result, I feel -zero- guilt providing this kind of review for my daughter on her papers. It helps to know that she does the same for her friends. Knowing she'd finished the book, I printed off the Spark Notes section on Analysis of Major Characters. At 11:00, she finally finished the book. I asked her whether she wanted to incorporate my redlines before going to bed or before school today.
She chose the latter, and I bet she was asleep by 11:05. At 5:30 AM today, I dragged her out of bed and to the computer, where she began integrating my comments and redlines. I made her a breakfast "taco" with beans, onions, garlic, corn, and a ton of spices; basically, I fed her last night's dinner for breakfast today.
At 6:25, she ran to her room to get dressed. We usually leave at 6:45. Mark packed her lunch. At 6:50, I discovered she hadn't printed her extemporaneous articles for debate, also due today. Happily, this took almost no time, and by 7:00 AM, we were on our way to school.
Her Algebra II quiz is first period and likely already is complete as I type this. We won't know for a couple of days how she did on it. I'm holding my breath and praying. I'm also worried about the Great Expectations exam, but not nearly as much. Even if she bombs it, she'll still do fine for the nine weeks. This Algebra II quiz and the upcoming test when she comes back from break are her only hope of passing Algebra II this nine weeks.
Please keep her in your prayers!
Showing posts with label homework. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homework. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
I Hated High School the First Time
And now we're doing it all over again. I hate so much the turmoil Burgundy's suffering. She's a really bright girl who enjoys learning, and in the right environment, she'll break her back to make the teacher happy. I feel so much sadness when she has teachers who don't or can't recognize that, but I don't know if I would be able to recognize it either, in the teachers' shoes.
Regardless, we're trudging through. Last night was the Winter Concert for Burgundy's band. As we sat through the first two bands and listened to their selections, we all agreed: The Junior High band directors were just better. Even the lower level bands at the Junior High sounded better at times. Now there are logical explanations. The bands have spent the bulk of the semester in marching band and region band preparations, and they've spent relatively little time working on the carols for the winter concert. All the same, I really believe that Burgundy is not getting everything she can out of band anymore. She's not being personally challenged or personally encouraged. Sure, the music is difficult and frustrating for her, but it isn't personal. And I don't think she cares whether she triumphs over it. This is Burgundy's dilemma to resolve, of course, and it's all a part of growing and becoming more mature. All the same, I'm a little disappointed.
For what it's worth, Burgundy's band still sounded fantastic. They played a gorgeous rendition of Carol of the Bells, and then they played the famous classical setting of Jingle Bells (with the sound of hoofs and the whip cracking and everything; darn those percussionists are good). They wrapped up with a really lovely setting of several different carols and songs, but I'm not sure what the name of the piece is. Apparently, the Symphonic Band usually doesn't play it. Usually, that falls to the Wind Ensemble, but they're going to Chicago instead.
We spent every other waking minute of the evening working on a paper due tomorrow in debate. She has everything she needs to write it except the confidence to tie it all together and say what she really wants to say. The topic is financial accountability, and I know that she has strong opinions on it. She's researched it to death and is trying to hit it from all angles. She's researched it so much that she thinks she hasn't researched it enough. This morning I told her to pretend one of her friends has told her that she's about to get her first credit card. Burgundy can't respond verbally at all; she can only hand her friend the paper. What would she want the paper to say?
Julia spent most of the evening baking with one of her friends in preparation for her French Club's Christmas party tonight. She said they had trouble because they did the baking at the other girl's house. Both girls are German exchange students, and they other host family didn't have the crazy plethora of baking tools that I have. Most notably, they don't have a scale that works with either grams or ounces, so the girls couldn't figure out how to do the recipe conversions from gram to volume measurements. She said they decided to wing it. Throw a bit in: Does this taste right? Does it look right? How's the consistency? Based on the deliciuos samples that Julia brought home, I'd say both girls should be bakers, because they demonstrated a profound ability to bake scrumptious goods on the fly.
That's it. I'm off to construct traceability matrices!
Regardless, we're trudging through. Last night was the Winter Concert for Burgundy's band. As we sat through the first two bands and listened to their selections, we all agreed: The Junior High band directors were just better. Even the lower level bands at the Junior High sounded better at times. Now there are logical explanations. The bands have spent the bulk of the semester in marching band and region band preparations, and they've spent relatively little time working on the carols for the winter concert. All the same, I really believe that Burgundy is not getting everything she can out of band anymore. She's not being personally challenged or personally encouraged. Sure, the music is difficult and frustrating for her, but it isn't personal. And I don't think she cares whether she triumphs over it. This is Burgundy's dilemma to resolve, of course, and it's all a part of growing and becoming more mature. All the same, I'm a little disappointed.
For what it's worth, Burgundy's band still sounded fantastic. They played a gorgeous rendition of Carol of the Bells, and then they played the famous classical setting of Jingle Bells (with the sound of hoofs and the whip cracking and everything; darn those percussionists are good). They wrapped up with a really lovely setting of several different carols and songs, but I'm not sure what the name of the piece is. Apparently, the Symphonic Band usually doesn't play it. Usually, that falls to the Wind Ensemble, but they're going to Chicago instead.
We spent every other waking minute of the evening working on a paper due tomorrow in debate. She has everything she needs to write it except the confidence to tie it all together and say what she really wants to say. The topic is financial accountability, and I know that she has strong opinions on it. She's researched it to death and is trying to hit it from all angles. She's researched it so much that she thinks she hasn't researched it enough. This morning I told her to pretend one of her friends has told her that she's about to get her first credit card. Burgundy can't respond verbally at all; she can only hand her friend the paper. What would she want the paper to say?
Julia spent most of the evening baking with one of her friends in preparation for her French Club's Christmas party tonight. She said they had trouble because they did the baking at the other girl's house. Both girls are German exchange students, and they other host family didn't have the crazy plethora of baking tools that I have. Most notably, they don't have a scale that works with either grams or ounces, so the girls couldn't figure out how to do the recipe conversions from gram to volume measurements. She said they decided to wing it. Throw a bit in: Does this taste right? Does it look right? How's the consistency? Based on the deliciuos samples that Julia brought home, I'd say both girls should be bakers, because they demonstrated a profound ability to bake scrumptious goods on the fly.
That's it. I'm off to construct traceability matrices!
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