Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Bad Advice and a Meeting

Good morning! In the document that I type these things into before I post them, I am on page 90; only ten to go. Considering that the first day was January 30, I think I’ll finish in less than six months.
Last night I went to pick Cedric up from scouts and thought I’d get a head start on today’s blog post but couldn’t remember what it was I wanted to write about. I thought I’d start anyway and see if the memory muscle didn’t begin some connections. It did.
Joanna registered for two summer classes: biology and a children’s literature class. The literature class isn’t bad; classes aren’t exhorbitantly long and there is homework but not so much that it’s impossible to get it done on time. The biology class was 15 hours of in-class time and the instructor fully expected students to spend twice that much on homework and studying. Using her rule of 2 for 1 (hours of homework for hours in class), the literature class should take 21 hours each week (14 to 7).
Add to that 40 hours of working each week and eight hours of sleeping each day, and you have something that looks like this:
                sleeping              56 hours
                working              40 hours
                biology               45 hours
                literature             21 hours
                total                 162 hours
total hours in a week                  168
hours broken down above        - 162
                                                   6
Six hours left for the entire week for eating, showering, travel, etc. A bit unrealistic, I think.
Joanna didn’t think she’d be able to complete the class and get a good grade so she decided to drop it. However, the last day to drop a class for a full refund was the second  day of classes which was last Tuesday (the 3rd). The last day to drop for a partial refund was something like the 4th or 5th day of classes. Due to this unfortunate state of affairs, she thought she’d give it a go anyway. Until Sunday night/Monday morning anyway.
After asking me to do a lab report for her, well, helping a LOT, anyway, and doing some homework far too late, she decided to drop the class and asked my opinion. I said a good grade later and sanity now were worth the price she would have to pay.
Soooooo, she went to the Mount to drop it and whomever she spoke to gave her some terrible advice: stay in the class until the teacher drops her. Sure, she’d get an F and sure, she’d be on academic probation, but she wouldn’t have to pay anything right then and when she retakes the class, the better grade would replace the F. Are you kidding me? That is absolutely the worst academic advice I have ever heard. I have a hard time believing this woman is getting paid to give students such awful advice and surely she must be working, as opposed to volunteering, for the college.
I am curious to see how much space this takes typed up. I filled three pages (about five by eight inches. Right now it’s getting late and dark and I’m going to go collect Cedric because it’s also incredibly buggy.
Yesterday I had an IEP meeting for Seth at Hubbardston Center School. I got there two minutes early and was told to wait and they’d come down to get me. So I sat and I waited. And waited. And waited. My phone vibrated but I didn’t recognize the number so I didn’t answer. I did listen to the voicemail that was left. It was Kim Wyszynski telling me that Seth’s IEP meeting was scheduled for 10:15 and it was now whatever time it was when they called. I didn’t even listen to the whole thing but did say, “Is it okay if I just go up? They just called to find out where I am.” And I went up. I’d been waiting for 12 minutes at that point and was, quite honestly, beginning to be somewhat annoyed because we’ve had to wait to start the meetings before, but not because I was late. I do have some thoughts about what was discussed in the meeting and from the papers I brought home with me but I do not have time to expound right now as I need to leave at 8:30.
Therefore, have a wonderful day and I may get back to you today but might not until tomorrow because my whole day is rather full and busy.

By the way, I hate sunscreen and bugspray. They make me sneeze, produce copious amounts of mucous and make my eyes water.

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