2002-11-12 - 7:34 a.m.
This piece really is the November 11, 2002 entry. I just did not get time to post it last night due to a late school board meeting.
MAKING KOOL-AID
In this day and age, children get lauded for all manner of unlikely feats. The self-esteem movement demands it. But yesterday�s praise takes the cake�or more likely the soda. My older daughter is brilliant. How do we know? Her child guidance teacher believes it. And what is the evidence? Kat can make Kool-aid.
Now, those of us who know her and love her agree that the teacher should have been amazed. Kat? My creatively incompetent Kat who insists she cannot find the stove or the kitchen sink can make Kool-aid? Will wonders never cease! Only drinking the stuff would have been more out-of-character (although drinking it surely would not have demonstrated brilliance.) Still, I refuse to believe that the ability to make Kool-aid demonstrates brilliance. I set my standards a bit higher than that.
But Kat is not pleased with this praise. She is uncomfortable with being singled out. She was preparing to teach the nursery school session today as part of a group. Kat has never cared for group work but, she informs me, when a teacher forces you into group work she should treat you as part of a group. True, Kat was the one who came up with the bowling at blocks idea for their �carnival.� True, Kat was the one who figured out which door would work for the fishing game. Still, Kat believes that her group is capable as a group of deciding what snacks to serve and what flavor the Kool-aid should be.
Kat says that she tried to steer the teacher to thinking of the group as a group and not as Brilliant, creative Kat and her minions. Knowing Kat tells me that her steering was not subtle. That child may have subtlety in her right pinkie but, if so, her right pinkie is the only place it resides. Apparently, sledgehammer tactics did not get the teacher to think of the group as a planning group. And Kat was outraged. (As a dramatic child, she would never be anything less. Mere annoyance is not sufficiently passionate.)
So, Kat can make Kool-aid. Little does the teacher know that her making the Kool-aid is not the most amazing part. The amazing part is that my daughter believed that the flavor of the Kool-aid ought to be a group decision. I think she�s growing up.
LAST YEAR: Enemy of the People
LAST FIVE ENTRIES:
What Parents Think
Not Keeping Up With the Cohens
Fighting Over Money
Terribly Sad Just the Same
The Man I Married
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Copyright 2006 by Ellen |
