It's the end of January, and my son is furiously trying to finish his science fair project at the last minute despite my warnings (pleadings!) weeks early to finish it early “or you’ll be sorry.” The end of term occurred just days before and I had the pleasure of listening to not one, but two teenagers give me passionate speeches ranging from “The teacher must not have entered the grade in right,” to “Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered, and I won’t really learn unless I handle this on my own,” and my personal favorite speech: “Grades don’t really matter because it’s really about the learning process.” (I keep telling my kids that I WAS a jr. high and sr. high teacher. I know their tricks and I know students, and 9 out of 10 times, I’m going to be on the teacher’s side. Sorry.)
