If it makes me a bad mother, so be it.

There is a strange phenomenon in schools today. Perhaps you could call it Celebration of Mediocrity. I don't know if it's all the sinister, but it's annoying as all get out. (however annoying that is)

Last fall a big deal was made about my daughter getting some sort of whoop-dee-doo recognition for some reading thing. We went to it and gave her a lot of praise, not even knowing what the thing was about. Later when I met with her teacher I found out that my daughter had been most improved on a reading evaluation in the first marking period. That would normally be great EXCEPT for the fact that the test that was given is a speed reading test. Basically each child sits down with the teacher and reads a story out loud and they are scored based on how many words of the story they can read in a given amount of time. The trick is that for some reason the teachers aren't allowed to tell the kids that speed is the point of the test. So, when my little girl sat down to read she was very precise and slow, taking time to be sure of her words and to use good expression during the story. Needless to say, she didn't read very fast. AFTER the test the teacher was allowed to tell the kids that the point was to hurry and not to worry about mistakes and expression. Well, duh! she was a lot faster the next time she took the test.

....and that is what she was recognized for! instead of an actual achievment. ugh.

What are they thinking?!

The other thing that drives me batty are graduation ceremonies for preschoolers, kindergarteners, and so forth. What on earth are we doing this for?! Tell me why a 4 or 5 year old needs to sit through a program and get a fake "diploma." I figure it's probably fueled by parents that want an excuse to dress their kid up and take pictures.

All of these mock graduations seem to me like they take away from a REAL graduation later on in life where a student has actually struggled to achieve something. I'm sorry, but my kid doesn't need a pat on the back for making it through two years of preschool!

Tomorrow is Doodle's "preschool graduation." They don't even have school on Fridays, so this means that all the parents and kids need to shlepp into school for this special event, to watch the children scream out their "ABC Rock" song (I have seen it twice already), and to do cute and awkward things while they walk up to get their rolled up paper made to look like a diploma, and then to eat cake and drink soda at 9:30am.

As I was thinking about the logistics of going to this event I had a sudden revelation: We don't have to go!

And then I had to ask myself, If we skip out on this does it make me a bad mother?

My kid hates stuff like this. He's the child that slouches in his seat with his arms crossed in front of him, the one that will only reluctantly walk up to grab the diploma while rolling his eyes, the one who will not sing a single word of ABC Rock. This is not his kind of thing.

So why put him through it? Why put any of us through it? It's fine with me if other people want to dress their kid up and act like getting out of preschool is an accomplishment. Really! It just doesn't seem worth the hassle to me.

So, there it is, for the whole world to see--we're skipping out on the graduation. I'm letting the chips fall where they may.