Day Three Hundred Fifty-Nine
Wednesday, March 10, 2021
burghbaby

One of the really interesting aspects of "legit" cyber school is that I get frequent calls from the girls' teachers to check in. It's like parent-teacher conferences, but more like monthly and generally more helpful because there's no sense of "I have other people at the door, let's wrap this up." I'm not saying that the girls have had bad teachers (... well, Mila's kindergarten teacher wasn't my favorite), but in our district, if kids are doing well, it's really hard to get time with a teacher. In fact, the last time I was offered a conference for Alexis was about 4th grade or so. Straight A's don't get follow-up.

Except now.

Both girls are hitting the straight A's. This is not at all surprising for Alexis, but Mila? Mila. Mila inherited my procrastination skills but added a healthy dose of not giving a hoot about consequences. She really super doesn't care about getting in trouble or anything like that. So grades? And school?

Let's just say the next ten years are going to be SUPER fun.

There is a lot of negotiation that goes into every. single. day with Mila. It doesn't matter that she's cyber schooling it, there would be just as much negotiation if she were getting on a bus every morning. Add in the fact that somehow She Who Procrastinates REALLY Well is somehow allegedly done with her school work every day by noon and ... huh? How is it that I keep getting good calls from her teacher?

Seriously.

I don't understand how the kid who SUPER doesn't care, the same kid who spends every minute that she's in class or doing schoolwork spinning in her chair, is somehow doing really well? As in her teacher GUSHED for ten minutes about how much of a delight she is and how well she's doing and ... I'm so confused.

The spinning in her chair thing. EVERY SINGLE DAY I threaten to take away her half-decent office chair if she doesn't quit. She waits until I walk around the corner and starts again. She spins so much and so fast that she has ripped cords out of the wall when they got caught in her chair, dropped her laptop, and broken the printer that is behind her chair about 4000 times.

Every day. Every day I ask, "What did you learn today?" and she replies, "I dunno?" SHE MEANS IT. She can't remember what she worked on because she was only half paying attention. Because spinning.

But Mila is doing well. And her teacher thinks she hung the moon. So ... win?

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