It was Chloe’s turn tonight. She had to write a paragraph about her favorite animal. A short paragraph, with few rules other than the subject, and the need to include a topic sentence and conclusion. Easy, right? Nope. Complicated as hell.
She struggled for an hour. Losing patience, shedding tears and getting increasingly frustrated. She didn’t want it to be boring. But she didn’t want to do something that was too original out of fear the teacher wouldn’t like it. In the end, she went the boring route. Because it was easy and safe. She wrote about pandas. And told me it was all a bunch of crap, anyway. Yes, she used the word crap.
So, I hope this isn’t a harbinger of what’s to come. Is she going to be bored the whole year? Will she be in tears every time she has homework that doesn’t inspire her? Maybe she was just tired and cranky. I hope she was just tired and cranky. If not, we’re going to have a very long year.