Easier is Not Always Better
It is that time of year when everything gets crazy, and I am just hanging on until summer when I can get a break. I don't actually know if that will be the case this year, but I am hoping it will be less stress.
Jacey is gearing up for her senior year, and most everything is falling into place for her. I absolutely do not understand how some students have enough open slots in their schedule to have home release (or whatever it is called). Jacey is having to make sacrifices in order to fit it all in.
For instance, if all goes well, Jacey will graduate Summa Cum Laude with a Medical Legion Pathway. In order to get the classes she wants and needs to take, she has to sacrifice her chance for the Regence scholarship. She just doesn't have enough space in her class schedule to take it. So she is electing to drop the class that is responsible for pulling her GPA down. That would be MATH. It was either this option, or camp out at her cousin Haley's house to get one on one tutorial time. We are hoping to find some other scholarship that will in part help her in the future.
But here is the exciting news:
Jacey is going to have the chance to do an internship at Mountainland Physical Therapy next fall. While filling out the paperwork, we realized that we needed to have contact numbers to give to the school for them arrange the internship. We kind of thought they had resources to help us with this. We made a few calls and ....WHALLAH!! The next thing we know she has two opportunities. It is hard for me to reinforce to her how hard this journey is going to be and how hard she is going to have to work to make this happen when so far it is falling into her lap.
I also told her that even though some of her trials have not been part of her plan, they have laid a pathway to help her in the long run. For example, this internship was an opportunity that arose out of her struggles with her Facet Syndrome . She was able to go into the interview with a familiarity of the company and tell them the reason she decided to go into physical therapy was because of the influence of the PT's that worked with her. The man interviewing her remembered her and offered her the internship on the spot. She was even told she gets to decide when to do it because she is the first one chosen. It will be super fun for her to learn by watching and helping not only in the office, but also on the sidelines of football games, or by helping patients during water therapy. What a great opportunity!! She has worked hard for this.
She even had her Medical Anatomy teacher come to her and tell her she is one class short of getting her Nursing Legion pathway. Unfortunately for her, the class she is missing is a two period class, and she has no more room.
Okay so after bragging about my cute daughter, here is the explanation why I titled this blog what I did. I had a friend of mine at my house the other night talking about the frustrations she is having with her daughter. She was complaining to me that her daughter is taking too many hard classes, and she has had enough. Why would she take hard classes when she can take easier ones? If she took the easier classes her grades would look better, and more scholarship opportunities would fall into place for her. She went on to tell me all she does is come home from school, go to her room and study all night, and then gets stressed out when it is testing time.
I listened to her nodding at the right times, and totally not agreeing with her. From my perspective, if you are intelligent enough to fit into an honors class, why would you not push yourself to learn? You are surrounding yourself with other students who have placed education as a priority, and they can lift you to be better. Why would you not take harder classes to prepare yourself for the future? I absolutely want my kids to learn good study habits and be able to deal with life as it gives them challenges. If they can learn now that they, through their own determination can do hard things, than they will be better prepared for the next stage of the game. Why would you ever encourage your kids to take the easier route?
So after looking at the options for Jacey next year and trying to put on paper how to accommodate a student government class, I sent Jacey a text which said, "You might need to drop Physics too." I was so please to get her reply "OH NO. Why?"
LOVE HER. She is definitely not taking the easy road.
By the way, I was wrong, she can still take the physics class.
Jacey is gearing up for her senior year, and most everything is falling into place for her. I absolutely do not understand how some students have enough open slots in their schedule to have home release (or whatever it is called). Jacey is having to make sacrifices in order to fit it all in.
For instance, if all goes well, Jacey will graduate Summa Cum Laude with a Medical Legion Pathway. In order to get the classes she wants and needs to take, she has to sacrifice her chance for the Regence scholarship. She just doesn't have enough space in her class schedule to take it. So she is electing to drop the class that is responsible for pulling her GPA down. That would be MATH. It was either this option, or camp out at her cousin Haley's house to get one on one tutorial time. We are hoping to find some other scholarship that will in part help her in the future.
But here is the exciting news:
Jacey is going to have the chance to do an internship at Mountainland Physical Therapy next fall. While filling out the paperwork, we realized that we needed to have contact numbers to give to the school for them arrange the internship. We kind of thought they had resources to help us with this. We made a few calls and ....WHALLAH!! The next thing we know she has two opportunities. It is hard for me to reinforce to her how hard this journey is going to be and how hard she is going to have to work to make this happen when so far it is falling into her lap.
I also told her that even though some of her trials have not been part of her plan, they have laid a pathway to help her in the long run. For example, this internship was an opportunity that arose out of her struggles with her Facet Syndrome . She was able to go into the interview with a familiarity of the company and tell them the reason she decided to go into physical therapy was because of the influence of the PT's that worked with her. The man interviewing her remembered her and offered her the internship on the spot. She was even told she gets to decide when to do it because she is the first one chosen. It will be super fun for her to learn by watching and helping not only in the office, but also on the sidelines of football games, or by helping patients during water therapy. What a great opportunity!! She has worked hard for this.
She even had her Medical Anatomy teacher come to her and tell her she is one class short of getting her Nursing Legion pathway. Unfortunately for her, the class she is missing is a two period class, and she has no more room.
Okay so after bragging about my cute daughter, here is the explanation why I titled this blog what I did. I had a friend of mine at my house the other night talking about the frustrations she is having with her daughter. She was complaining to me that her daughter is taking too many hard classes, and she has had enough. Why would she take hard classes when she can take easier ones? If she took the easier classes her grades would look better, and more scholarship opportunities would fall into place for her. She went on to tell me all she does is come home from school, go to her room and study all night, and then gets stressed out when it is testing time.
I listened to her nodding at the right times, and totally not agreeing with her. From my perspective, if you are intelligent enough to fit into an honors class, why would you not push yourself to learn? You are surrounding yourself with other students who have placed education as a priority, and they can lift you to be better. Why would you not take harder classes to prepare yourself for the future? I absolutely want my kids to learn good study habits and be able to deal with life as it gives them challenges. If they can learn now that they, through their own determination can do hard things, than they will be better prepared for the next stage of the game. Why would you ever encourage your kids to take the easier route?
So after looking at the options for Jacey next year and trying to put on paper how to accommodate a student government class, I sent Jacey a text which said, "You might need to drop Physics too." I was so please to get her reply "OH NO. Why?"
LOVE HER. She is definitely not taking the easy road.
By the way, I was wrong, she can still take the physics class.
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