Saturday, January 12, 2013

Teachers make terrible mothers

One of my pet peeves, as a teacher, is bad handwriting. We mark essays 100 at a go and it is, for the want of a better word, exhausting. What makes it even worse is bad handwriting. When faced with one of those, at the end of a long day, it is akin to the straw that broke the camel's back.

Jordan came back with some work already done. It was all correct but it was written terribly. I saw it at night, after Jordan had fallen asleep. But it bugged me through the night. The next morning, I showed it to her and whipped out an eraser and cleaned off everything, having her do it again.

Of course, she argued that it had already been done and it was all correct so why did she have to do it again? I used it to explain to her the things my mother explained to me; that any work I did had to be to the best of my ability and it wasn't about just getting it done, but to actually get it done properly. All those things that didn't mean anything at that point but must have ingrained themselves into my sub conscience only to be brought to surface when I became a teacher and then now, as I parent school going children.


That said, Jordan has beautiful penmanship. It is the other reason why she got told off; because her handwriting was messy, it was slip shod and she thought it didn't matter.

Unfortunately for her, I am a teacher and I wouldn't want her,  Evan or Muffin for that matter, to contribute to any teacher's angst.

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3 comments:

  1. me too!

    i make the boy read some of my students' work . when he cannot read the stuff because of the bad handwriting, that's when i do the "see? that's why you have to write neatly for your teacher!" spiel. :)

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  2. Thank you for the honest read. :) I can understand the rationale behind it and I am firm in some similar ways too. I feel bad of course when she turns the doe eyes on me but sigh, a mum's gotta do what a mum's gotta do! :p

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  3. Well, I guess it builds character if nothing else. And I'm willing to bet that she will do it to her own kids too! Mwhahaha!

    What a family tradition to pass down!

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