Lest...
...The maybe-six of you who read this blog and didn't go to high school with me think yesterday's post was complete hubris, let me elaborate.
I was the latchkey only child of a divorced woman with Major Issues and a downward mobility urge. When given the choice between buying a two-bedroom house in town a block and a half from the school or a 14 x 70 mobile home in a park a mile outside the city limit, she picked the latter just before I began seventh grade. The following summer my father stopped paying child support and my mother preferred to get by without rather than do anything to alter that situation.
By the time I hit high school I'd figured out that scholarships were my only ticket out of the madness.
Which isn't to say I wasn't a seriously pencil-necked geek before, 'cause I was. My mother still has at least two years of all-A-all-the-time report cards and a bunch more dotted with the occasional B. I think the biggest thing that helped in that regard was being a skilled reader by the time I hit kindergarten--so if you've got a kid who's actually interested by all means get them started on phonics early.
Not that it will help with anything non-academic though...what my mother doesn't have is any picture of me from about age ten to 14 because I've hidden or destroyed them all.
I was the latchkey only child of a divorced woman with Major Issues and a downward mobility urge. When given the choice between buying a two-bedroom house in town a block and a half from the school or a 14 x 70 mobile home in a park a mile outside the city limit, she picked the latter just before I began seventh grade. The following summer my father stopped paying child support and my mother preferred to get by without rather than do anything to alter that situation.
By the time I hit high school I'd figured out that scholarships were my only ticket out of the madness.
Which isn't to say I wasn't a seriously pencil-necked geek before, 'cause I was. My mother still has at least two years of all-A-all-the-time report cards and a bunch more dotted with the occasional B. I think the biggest thing that helped in that regard was being a skilled reader by the time I hit kindergarten--so if you've got a kid who's actually interested by all means get them started on phonics early.
Not that it will help with anything non-academic though...what my mother doesn't have is any picture of me from about age ten to 14 because I've hidden or destroyed them all.
posted by SamD | 12:22 PM
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