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Last Thursday was back to school night, a night for parents to tour the classrooms and experience part of their child’s school day.  Prior to departing the house, I told Dale I would attend Gabe’s 3rd grade class and he could attend the middle school classes.  On the first day of school, we had done the opposite.  After committing to that schedule, Gabe informed me that I would be tested in 3rd grade.  Abby then informed Dale that her teacher was baking cookies for the parents.  Dale, of course, then refused to let me swap.  Once I was in the class, I had to take a math speed test.  It was 100 problems of addition facts that I had to complete in 30 seconds.  I finished 27, not even 1 per second.  After my unsuccessful math test, I received something much worse…a handwriting sheet.  I had to fill out an entire practice sheet with the letter f in cursive.  Handwriting is not exactly my strong point.  In fact, other than my sister Marie, all Meloch siblings have horrible handwriting.  My handwriting problems go back to second grade and my mean teacher Mrs. Walters.  I hold the pencil wrong and she would periodically come by and smack my hand with a ruler to get me to correct it.  I held it correctly until she turned her back and then out of spite switched back to the incorrect way.  I was proud of my stubborn defiance.  Of course, my stubborn defiance resulted in a life of horrible handwriting.  So, maybe my pride was misplaced.  As I carefully wrote and erased and rewrote the letter f in cursive, I thought only of the lecture I had given Gabe hours earlier about taking more time and care on his handwriting pages.  He corrected mine and found 61 errors.  I told him he was being a bit tough on me, but he showed me no sympathy.  He’s learned from the best.

Meanwhile, Dale was enjoying his cookies.  His middle school visit was not without controversy, however.  He sat in on a special math briefing from the principal.  As school approached, I had heard grumbling from other parents concerning the math curriculum.  Two parents had pulled their children out of the school because of the math curriculum.  In Josiah’s class, it was because the school didn’t offer Algebra in 8th grade.  Therefore, the students would not be able to take AP Calculus in twelth grade.  This is apparently a big deal.  I was not very concerned about this fact, because I had gotten accepted into university with Higher Math being my hardest class.  Higher Math was below the level of Precalculus.  It was the most difficult math class offered at my high school.  If you didn’t take higher math, you took business math where you were taught how to balance a checkbook and make change.  I get calls on the phone offering Josiah SAT study courses and brainiac event attendance.  I inform them that he is in 8th grade and tell them to call back when he is in high school and those things matter.  However, Dale came home from the meeting with a flow chart of math classes.  He and Josiah began to seriously discuss which track Josiah should be on.  The next day, the principal called to inform me that the school would now offer Algebra and Josiah could take it if he wanted.  Now that both Dale and a flow chart are involved, I apparently need to get out of the way.  No one wants math advice from someone who gets a 27 on a 3rd grade math test.