"I think being a woman is like being Irish." — Iris Murdoch

On Friday, Nelson and I went to a meeting at Emma's school.  We were afraid she might be dyslexic, because as smart as she is, she still changes b's for d's and q's and p's.  She'll ask me how to spell "saw" and last week she spelt "try" as chry.  She'll tell me that she knows how it's supposed to be, but doesn't care.

Well, it turns out that the testing shows she's smart.  Smarter than I thought.  Way above her grade level in everything but spelling.

It was nice to get so much professional attention on my daughter.

We don't want an overachiever.  We're happy with average.  We want her above all to be a happy kid.

One thing they told me was to quit doing homework with her.  She'll ask me how to spell words.  They told me to quit telling her.  They said, "Mom, you say you want her to be independent and know how to teacher herself.  She can't do that if you're giving her the answers."

Okay.  They told me to get Scrabble to play with her.   One thing that was interesting was that Nelson, who is not a native speaker of English, and his spelling is *worse* than Emma's.  (Don't tell him I said so!)  So they suggested that Emma teach Nelson to spell!  I love the idea, but I think I have to back away from it so Nelson can suggest it himself.

The big thing here is that this all happened in a Boston Public School.  It was one of the best things I've done in my life.