Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Let me tell you about my day.

I drove downtown for a rehearsal, drove back to Newtopia, whoops, I mean, went directly to school for conferences, then took my son to his cello lesson, then picked him up, then got my daughter ready for dancing school, then got my son ready for dancing school, then left them pasta to zap because I had to drive to the high school for my first meeting there ... yes, my baby boy is growing up, and guess what?

He has an IEP, so I had my first special education meeting, and how frabjous is that? All you IEP parents out there--you can imagine how fun that was, right?

Then I get home after 9:00 p.m. to discover that my daughter has basically plagiarized her latest book report. As in, she typed the entire thing in verbatim, having changed four words and two punctuation marks.

But I can hear her literally skipping around upstairs because she got so many compliments on her dress at dancing school tonight.

And I can't bear to pull her off her happy cloud of best-dressedness.

And I want a glass of wine and a new episode of Grey's Anatomy, STAT.

So as soon as I hit "publish post" I'm off to send an email to my daughter's teachers to let them know that the child has no idea what constitutes plagiarism, and even though I do, this is a public school, and since our property taxes just went up another $3,000, I consider them very well paid--certainly paid well enough to take on the task of being bad cop in this particular situation.

So Newtopian middle school teachers? As far as I'm concerned, you can be the Mr. Blackwell of book reports. I'm done.

8 comments:

  1. Not fun. My sister has been through the loop with the schools in her area about my nephew. Hopefully the people in your area aren't as big of buggers.

    Enjoy the rest of your night.

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  2. Ah, the IEP, you're singing my song. Did you bring donuts?

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  3. I think you're doing your part by being a supportive parent. AND I think so many kids have no idea what plagiarism even is these days. Your response was very appropriate (and yes, I was in fact a high school English teacher for over a decade).

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  4. Trust me. We don't look forward to IEPs anymore than you do. Donuts or not.

    And that plagiarism thing? They don't get it when we explain it, either.

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  5. Maybe in 20 years she can be the vice president.

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  6. Okay, so I worshiped you before, but NOW? I am not even worthy to live in the same region of the country as you.

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  7. My kid "wrote" an article like that for the school newspaper once. "Ugh," is right. He never did it again, if it is any consolation.

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  8. Callooh! Callay!*

    *copywrite Echo

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Gentle Readers:

For the time being, I have turned off comment moderation. Please don't spam; it's not nice.

xxx, Poppy.