I knew that it was beyond her reach, but I said nothing.
It turns out that the same encouraging teacher who stated that she would be there to help my child was always out. Meetings, off for the day . . . The supplementary help K had bargained for didn't quite work out as she thought.
It is here that I pause and say that K is certainly not the teacher's only student and I didn't expect her to hold her hand.
Time went on, K worked and worked. She did what she knew, checked in with the teacher as she could and the end of the quarter came.
She bombed the project. It dropped her grade from a low B to a middle D. K cried and cried. "Mom, I really tried." M and I didn't question that she did try. She wasn't in trouble.
It was more important for us to have K challenge herself and falter than to choose an easy project and learn little to nothing.
K's previous advocating for herself had kicked in and at the last hour, a project that K wasn't terribly successful in, but had permission to do again gained enough points to tick her up to a C. The teacher had the re-grade in her possession for over a month and I am thankful that she allowed a redo and that she remembered that grade before grades closed. But . . . if K walked away with a D, the world wasn't going to give way. She chose to challenge herself and while the end result on paper didn't look to be a success, it didn't kill her and she learned. She did her best. Her projects were turned in on time. She learned.
Will she dodge a challenge for a safe grade next time? Nope. She'll make the same choice and we will encourage her.
