MetaChat - Finding your pre-school evaluation in your mother's old papers

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18 January 2007

Finding your pre-school evaluation in your mother's old papers - priceless. →[More:] I'm going through papers in the study tonight - New Year's resolution and all. I came across this gem. I think I'm going to frame it and hang it up at work.

It makes me feel old not because I was once four and five, but because of the writer's tone.

Check it out. I am not making any of this up.

"J has been a student at the Fairhaven School for one and one-half years. She is a delightful, well-coordinated girl of tender feelings whose manner suggests someone much older. However, this facade can disintegrate rather quickly under presure; e.g., an abrupt change of routine.

J reads independently and well. She spells fairly well when doing creative writing. Her cursive writing has much improved although not yet beautiful. She works with the concrete materials in addition, subtraction and multiplication, both with the teacher and independently.

J perfers working with or by a friend, but is able to manage quite well by herself or with the other children. She needs reassurance at times, but then continues very well with her work.

Rilla S. Ledgard,
Directress
The Fairhaven School"

Mom gets one point for keeping everything.

post by: rainbaby at: 19:40 | 18 comments

Her cursive writing has much improved although not yet beautiful.

Oh, good grief.

posted by jonmc 18 January | 19:45

(although, according to my mother, I actually bit my nursery school teacher (preschool hadn't been invented yet), so I have nothing to brag about. I don't remember the incident.)

posted by jonmc 18 January | 19:47

My mastery of motherfucking cursive got me kicked out of motherfucking pre-school.

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 18 January | 19:51

To this day I have the handwriting of a serial killer. Directress Ledgard was being terribly circumspect.

posted by rainbaby 18 January | 19:57

For the record, it was a simple Montessori school, before that became all toney. The end of my private school career. I assume my parents sent me because our house burned down when I was three or so, and I needed some stability.

posted by rainbaby 18 January | 20:01

they taught you cursive in pre-school? I don't remember learning cursive until 3rd grade.

posted by jonmc 18 January | 20:07

Writing in cursive means you could spell words.
You could spell words in preschool?
Like, "cat," and similarly easy words, I assume/hope?

posted by CitrusFreak12 18 January | 20:13

I could read in nursery school*. Or at least, I remember reading this book called 'Search For Sammie' about a lost dog in what seems like a nursery school. Unfortunately, because I was a December baby, I missed the age requirement for kindergarten and spent another semester playing with blocks. I joined kindergarten midway through. Something happened during that first semester that I missed. I still haven't caught up.

*oddly my very Catholic parents sent me to the nursery school at the local Presbyterian church. Don't ask me why.

posted by jonmc 18 January | 20:18

Yeah, I could read and write before I went to first grade - I went to this joint instead of kindergarten. I learned to read at home, I guess I learned to write there.

No telling how I was shaped by Montessori school, but I remember doing kids theatre in my twenties, and once in a while doing q & a's after, and you could always tell if a Montessori school was there because all the little hands went up.

jonmc - my parents ran out of money for Catholic school by the time I came around, thank goodness. That could explain it. My oldest sister went till she was fifteen.

Hu. My dad was a public school teacher. Hmmmmm.

posted by rainbaby 18 January | 20:25

In nursery school, I just remember playing with the kitchen set, with playdough, toy dinosaurs, some sort of clay-like substance which we used to make handprints for our parents... I don't think I learned a thing there. Especially not cursive!
Wait.
I remember now there was one day at least where I learned something. There were different "work stations" set up in the building, and I remember walking past one titled "The Alphabet," and upon reading all the letters, it was then that I made the connection between letters L through P, and my version of saying "H I J K EMMA-EMMA P."

So I guess it wasn't a complete waste.

That was one of three epiphanies I have had in my life. The other two being the day I realized in my mother's car that the songs on the radio contained WORDS, and the day I realized that funkyass symbol in Walt Disney's signature was actually a D.

posted by CitrusFreak12 18 January | 20:30

My dad was a public school teacher.

Heh. My mom is a Catholic schoolteacher(and both my parents are products of Catholic education, my mom the whole way through, Dad up until high school, then the NYC public schools. God help us all). One year we bought her a boxing nun handpuppet for Xmas. She used to take it out whenevr the kids acted up.

posted by jonmc 18 January | 20:32

My Dad was a Crazy, Mean Motherfucker, but he taught me how to read with the funny papers on Sundays.

posted by rainbaby 18 January | 20:38

By making you read them or swatting you on the nose with the paper when you messed up? I still have a dim inprint of Sluggo on the tip of my proboscis from those days...

(I actually don't remeber learning to read. I just don't remember not being able to read.)

posted by jonmc 18 January | 20:44

He just read them to me, and one day I read along.

He was a math teacher. Not my strong suit. Caused some conflict/swatting in the algebra years.

posted by rainbaby 18 January | 21:07

I love the "primness" in that evaluation, rainbaby... heh!!

My dad was a math guy, too, and I definitely was not. Caused some grief in my elementary school years, but by high school I'd learned just not to discuss homework when he was around.

posted by BoringPostcards 18 January | 21:17

I think my pre-school evaluation was "Will grow up to be a serial killer". Yet another thing I was a failure at. Sucks not living up to expectations.

Oh, and neat post rainbaby.

posted by eekacat 18 January | 22:24

That's precious rainbaby. What a find. Cursive and multiplication at that age? Impressive.

In my early years I always had reports that said I was a wonderful student, but talked too much. :D

jonmc, the Presbyterians must put on a good preschool, because I send/sent my kids to one and we're not religious in the least.

The sentence that cracks me up from my baby book, I was around 4 or 5 months old: "Lori loves bacon and ham." Ha! Thanks mom, I blame you for my battle with fat and my love of pork products.

posted by LoriFLA 18 January | 22:31

I have all my old school reports. There's one from when I was 7 or 8 that says: "Jan is the class bookworm. Her reading will stand her in good stead in the future".

Books were my escape as a kid. I learned through reading that I could have a different life than the one mapped out for me by my upbringing and background.

posted by essexjan 19 January | 03:45

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