I’m writing school reports at the moment. It’s something I hate doing. We have a system where you’re expected to write 50-100 words per student so that in the end over all your reports you’ve written tens of thousands of words most of which begin or end with “Johhny needs to be more focused in class” or “Jane is a pleasant student”.
But I came across a website recently where there was a whole list of supposedly real report comments. I’ve got my doubts about that claim, but here are a selection:
• “While Daniel remains at school a village somewhere is being deprived of an idiot.
• Sandra sets low standards for herself and consistently fails to achieve them
• Dylan contributed to his biology class this semester by providing a perfect example of a primate.
Nowadays we’ve got to be very careful what we write. It seems that, while parents want honest reports in plain language, when it comes to some of their little darlings you can’t be too honest. There was even a directive from the department of education telling us that we can’t criticize a student just in case we’re sued, just in case it damages their self-esteem.
It’s all tied in to this little “self-esteem” idea. It’s the idea that we’re all supposed to know we’re important, worthwhile, valuable. And even more than that – that we’re inherently good and skillful and super
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