Monday, September 22, 2008

Self-Aware

This is something my daughter wrote for school. I've redacted the name of the school.

Colorguard is a sport not many people know about and some who do don’t really care. But the (school) colorguard is something to be proud of. They have won many first place trophies, are the current group three champions for the past three years and hold the record score of 98.8. But pride is not always good since it can lead you to slack off and be lazy.

As you now know from the first paragraph the (school) colorguard is a very good organization. They work at least eight hours a week to improve but that doesn’t mean that during the eight hours a week that they should be practicing, they are. Last out door season in (school) colorguard me and two other people had approximately five sets of work in the whole show while almost everyone else had at least thirty set of work even the other people who were just as new as I was. So while the other people were working on the many sets of work they had me and the other two people would stand in the back near where my prop was just talking or singing songs o
ur pride told us that after all the time and practice that we had on our one part we were so much better at it than all of the other people while in reality we were just as good may be a little bit worse than them.

I am usually slightly irritated to read things that she's written and find how badly she writes. Good lord, I think, this sounds like an eight year old wrote it. What are they teaching in these schools?

This time, though, I thought: I think she's developing a sense of awareness about herself, and about the results of her efforts. I was particularly taken by the last part --"our pride told us that after all the time and practice that we had on our one part we were so much better at it than all of the other people while in reality we were just as good may be a little bit worse than them. "

Hmm...

1 comment:

Sweeti said...

This brings me back to my own...
In the beginning I wished while looking into my babies faces that they would be healthy, strong and grow up more intelligent than I ever was.

As they grew, I seen milestone after milestone reached.

Pretty soon they were strong, and healthy as I wished and also achieving the levels of education that I wanted for them.

Soon they became aware through their own self awareness oh, about the ripe 'ol age of "Teenager" that the thought they were smarter than most adults.

Soon the bloom began to fade as the challenge they faced had a new set of requirements.
They then met them, but were a little more humble about it.

Then came the time that they actually looked to us for advice and actually used it.

Now, comes a time that we feel they really are surpassing our level of understanding and wow the bloom is back without limits, and we are aware enough to see it.
until they have their own...