Teacher comments: Chris is a very slow worker. Chris can not tie his shoes yet. Reading comes easy to Chris but he needs to be pushed or he doesn't do his work.

And second grade…

Teacher comments: Chris' work is done accurately but is often not done neatly. Also, he does not use his working time wisely and often is not done on time. Chris has continued to do well with his school work, but he tends to be disorganized.

And third grade…

Teacher comments: Parent-Teacher conference. Christopher has shown an improvement with his school work. I'm sure he would receive straight As if he would finish all assignments and hand them in. He tends to dawdle away his time and accomplish nothing. Christopher continues to have the same work habits. He needs to change them for the better.

And fourth grade…

Comments are very long. Excerpt: Chris' ability is excellent. However, his efforts tend to be below expectations. Hopefully he will work to improve this problem. Chris is a nice boy!

Sometimes I wonder what the next 40 years would have been like if I’d gotten some help instead of just getting yelled at for being lazy.

      • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 months ago

        I’m old and learned cursive from grade one and I still find it horrible to decipher hahaha

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          It strongly triggers my “let’s do anything other than this” response when I go to read it. The printed one doesn’t trigger it at all.

      • xkforce@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Why is it that whenever cursive comes up the main argument in its favor always boils down to avoiding reading or writing longer than absolutely necessary? I read as fast as I want to and I can type faster than anyone could possibly write legibly so I am not sure what the appeal is.

    • samus12345@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I always forget that cursive isn’t really a thing any more until something with cursive gets posted online.

  • DrownedRats@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    “Rats is chugging along in second when he should be cruising in fifth”. I’ve had countless reports like that but that one stuck with me, probably for being so much more creative than the others.

    I think it was the year following that report that they stuck me on my own desk facing a corner so that “you won’t keep getting distracted by other students”. I guess that teacher just really liked euphemisms. At least I always had a set of stationary for myself lol.

  • SuzyQ
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    6 months ago

    I just had parent rage remembering how my oldest’s 1st grade teacher wanted to hold them back just because their handwriting was “awful”, and their 2nd grade teacher decided to put all the talkative kids away in their own section so they “wouldn’t disturb the good kids” because THEY ALL TALKED TO EACH OTHER! This was also the same teacher that wrote “did you even study?” on a second graders spelling test when they came home with a D (that particular week had been so hard).

    Sorry for ranting, but this was prior to oldest being diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia, and dysgraphia. Sometimes the teachers just see flaws and lable the ND kids as trouble makers or lazy instead of thinking they need extra help. Occupational therapy helped so much with their handwriting, medication and psychotherapy helped with the ADHD, and blue light filters helped with the dyslexia.

    I’m sorry you went through all that as a child.

  • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Sadly… probably not much different if you got the help. My kid has all the help there is, since we know what it is like. The help isn’t very effective until they reach the age of reason.

  • quinkin@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Teacher preparing to write report cards: Gets out the “Could work harder” stamp and a large glass of red wine.

  • N3Cr0@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    3rd grade was apparently the only one where you didn’t have a teacher with an awful handwriting.

    • analwound@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I don’t understand? Is it because 3rd printed and the rest are cursive? All the penmanship seems fairly well done to me.

      • N3Cr0@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Exactly this. The cursive looks so unmotivated to me, while printed is easy to read.

  • enbyecho@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Some of my teachers thought I was “mentally retarded” (they still used that word back then) and others wanted me to skip grades. Sometimes literally in the same subjects. I’m still traumatized.

  • xkforce@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Now I kind of want to look at mine again. Mostly their main complaint was that I didn’t do my homework. I did well enough on tests to mostly compensate for that. My grades suffered but this wasn’t really seen as a big enough problem (read: I am inattentive not outwardly hyperactive) to do anything about. It was only in my final semester of undergrad that I was diagnosed after college broke me. “Congrats you now have accomodations! Shame your degree is basically already completed anyway.”

    • Mine was all about not doing homework but my grades only dropped 1 level because of it and I was an otherwise straight A student (except in math; I got Ds in math). I wasn’t even in school anymore when I was diagnosed on just a routine checkup where I was looking to get a referral for a therapist. Didn’t think it was ADHD because it only became problematic years after high school. And I didn’t even know about Borderline Personality Disorder at all until they said I had that too.

  • Ms. ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    My second grade teacher managed to get away with this gem on one of my report cards: “Getting Armored to read is like having teeth pulled without anesthetics” lol

  • orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts
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    6 months ago

    I thought I was reading my own report cards for a second lmao. I got help in the 90s but it didn’t do much for me. None of the meds they tried helped at all. I basically just had to try and learn habits for keeping notes/journals (off and on for years, even today in my early 40s) and other things to try and keep me engaged.

    • DelightfullyDivisive@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I was diagnosed at the age of 56. It might be worth you trying meds again. I have found Strattera to be extremely helpful to me.

      And I followed every productivity guru in the world for decades just to try to keep things going for myself professionally. I have so internalized that I am just lazy and need to rail on myself to keep myself in line, that even though I know it isn’t true I still do it to some extent.

      • orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts
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        6 months ago

        I actually found meds that work! Non-stimulant but they help my focus a ton. I’m actually taking the same as you, it’s just under a different name.

        Laziness definitely playing a part for me lol. That and adjusting to getting older. I still do solid workouts and feel like I’m in my prime, but it’s still hard to fight the exhaustion of life.