• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

letter from the school. daughters grades. am i wrong?

waggy

waggy

No Lifer
sigh.

We just got a letter from my daughters Spanish teacher. She is getting a C-/D (it goes up and down). complaining about her grade. The teacher is putting all the issue on the fact my daughter does gymnastics.

Her other grades are great:
Math: A+ (she loves math. she even does extra for "fun")
science: A-
reading: A
Social studies: B+


she scored in the top 90% in the state and nation on the Testing.

Yes she does a lot of gymnastics (just went to state! took 11th on beam and 13 AA!) and spends a lot of hours on it.

Is it bad that i just don't give a fuck that she is getting a bad grade? It's spanish class after all. Yes i am going to chew her out for it but i just don't care that she is getting an D.

Am i wrong on this? i really feel conflicted lol.
 
Grades are meaningless. If she's trying and getting something out of it, that's good enough. I wouldn't chew her out if she's working. That accomplishes nothing except breed hostility. If she needs help, it's time to learn some Spanish and help her.
 
how old is she? and is she only taking spanish to fulfill the school requirement? that may be why, she simply does not enjoy it and is only taking it to get it out of the way.
 
Getting a C or better in 4 years of high school spanish may waive the language requirements of many universities. Taking a year of college spanish is much harder than 4 years of high school spanish.
 
She might need the foreign language credits to graduate, not to mention it might tank her GPA. So yeah.. it's important.

Teacher is wrong to blame it on extra-curricular activities though. Seems like your daughter just doesn't like the class.
 
Balt said:
She might need the foreign language credits to graduate, not to mention it might tank her GPA. So yeah.. it's important.

Teacher is wrong to blame it on extra-curricular activities though. Seems like your daughter just doesn't like the class.
Click to expand...

Foreign language credits to graduate HS? I don't think so. GPA doesn't matter except for ivy league. She might not even want to go to a University.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
Foreign language credits to graduate HS? I don't think so. GPA doesn't matter except for ivy league. She might not even want to go to a University.
Click to expand...

Depends on the school. I have no idea how widespread this is, but my (private) school required additional classes to get a diploma with their name on it. Taking the state-mandated curriculum wasn't enough, though obviously I still would have graduated and received a generic diploma.

And GPA is important if she intends to go to college, regardless of whether it's Ivy League. Particularly when it comes to cost (scholarships) and if she want to go to a private university or a public university that's out of state.
 
I would be more angry that the teacher blames gymnastics. Does the teacher provide any proof that gymnastics is the cause? Because with the information you presented, it doesn't seem to be an issue.

It just seems like your daughter doesn't like either Spanish in general, or the teacher. Unless it's required to graduate or she's worried about her GPA, who cares. Many colleges recalculate your GPA based in the classes you took that they care about. If she loves math and pursues an engineering degree, its likely Spanish will be completely irrelevant anyways.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
Foreign language credits to graduate HS? I don't think so. GPA doesn't matter except for ivy league. She might not even want to go to a University.
Click to expand...

My high school offered 3 different diplomas.

The one with the lowest requirements required 1 year of any foreign language.

The one with the highest requirements (this is the degree you got if you planned on going to college) required 3 years of the same foreign language.
 
Learning Spanish is a great idea; it's important to be able to properly communicate with the people who cook our food, clean our hotel rooms and bathrooms, do our gardening, and whatnot.

Realistically, though, you might want to have a frank discussion with her to try to find out why she's not doing well in this class particularly, since otherwise it sounds like she's an excellent student.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
Foreign language credits to graduate HS? I don't think so. GPA doesn't matter except for ivy league. She might not even want to go to a University.
Click to expand...

2 full years of foreign language required here. With 4+ recommended. They start offering Spanish and French in 6th grade.
 
Tell her not to worry about the D, with her gymnastics background, she's always got a fallback to the pole.

If that doesn't motivate her I don't know what will.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
Foreign language credits to graduate HS? I don't think so. GPA doesn't matter except for ivy league. She might not even want to go to a University.
Click to expand...

Most states require at least 1 year of foreign language to graduate high school.

Some states require 2.

Its obvious the OPs daughter just doesnt give a fuck about Spanish. Thats probably why the Spanish teacher is complaining.

OPs daughter sounds like my nephew. Smart but didnt care about classes that didn't interest him. He did not do so well in College. It ultimately comes down to maturity and responsibility. Blowing off "pointless" classes in high school leads to blowing off "pointless" classes in college.

Edit: If OPs daughter is 10 and not in high school nothing of the above applies. 10 is what 6th grade? Nothing before 9th grade matters.
 
Last edited:
Pics of daughter and we'll decide if she's doing too much gymnastics.

Edit: nevermind, had no idea she was 10.
 
Last edited:
waggy said:
Is it bad that i just don't give a fuck that she is getting a bad grade? It's spanish class after all. Yes i am going to chew her out for it but i just don't care that she is getting an D.
Click to expand...
Not really.

I had to take a language as a kid for many years. I always felt it was going to be a waste of time and it was continually my last grade, I scraped by for year after year. And guess what? I was fucking right. I still resent the time I was forced to waste on that shit.

Your daughter is doing well in the subjects that matter. As long as these grades don't hurt her elsewhere (e.g. college acceptance) OR make her think that mediocrity is acceptable EXCEPT on stupid useless shit (when of course it should be), then by all means carry on IMO.
 
Spanish was pretty lame when I was in school. We HAD to take it. Either that or French. I placed in 3rd year Spanish going into College and I still didn't take it then. I switched languages.


My Spanish sucks now and it hasn't held me back.


So no, I don't think you should care.
 
Interesting. We had foreign language class every year starting with kindergarten. I assumed that the was the norm everywhere.

They constantly switched languages on us.
K-2: french
3-5: spanish
6: french
7-9: latin + choice of spanish or french
10-12: choice of spanish, french, latin, or german

FWIW, I can't speak any of those languages.
 
Spanish 1-2 is just this:
vocab memorization
simple sentence construction
class participation

if you don't get an A or B, you aren't trying hard enough
 
I agree with mizzou, at the beginning you just need to memorize the vocabulary to get very good grades.
She probably doesn't care.

Nickbits in high school there are people that struggle even without being retards, they're simply arms stolen from agriculture who would have fared better in a dual education system.
In maths you can't just start studying and get good grades instantly, you have to pick up the old stuff and study consistently before you see results. In language courses you go over the same stuff multiple times during the years while you do literature on the side.

You should care about it if it can damage the requirements for university/scholarships.
 
Last edited:
Doppel said:
Not really.

I had to take a language as a kid for many years. I always felt it was going to be a waste of time and it was continually my last grade, I scraped by for year after year. And guess what? I was fucking right. I still resent the time I was forced to waste on that shit.

Your daughter is doing well in the subjects that matter. As long as these grades don't hurt her elsewhere (e.g. college acceptance) OR make her think that mediocrity is acceptable EXCEPT on stupid useless shit (when of course it should be), then by all means carry on IMO.
Click to expand...

I was forced to take a language when I was a kid and hated it, and never really got into it.
Now I wish I had tried, and had continued with it, as it would be good to know another language (and would also have had practical applications at work).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top