8th grade

Steven begins 8th grade soon. I am praying for a new year, a refreshed Steven. He has become much more serious about football recently and with band. This make me hope that will help him stayed focused with a goal. He has to make grades for those classes. It is not that he makes horrible grades but he forgets to turn his work in and as we all know(except Steven) not turning it in is really bad on your grades. He has just finished his summer reading book and we are going to start on the questions asap. Plus, now that he finished it I will allow him to watch the movie. It was The Hobbit. I know, blah. I remember reading this type of stuff that is boring and hard to read but it is all for a purpose. There are some classics that some grow to love. I love Hemingway, Shakespeare, and E. Dickinson. Steven is just at the age where he has the opportunity to learn and enjoy what he is learning. I am going to work more one on one with him with his work. Just to be sure that it is getting finished properly. He does have a teacher who was a teacher when Gare, Blake, and I went through school and this teacher is a toughie but he can do it. I just know it.

He does have issues taking tests. Especially timed ones, like the standardized versions. I remember tons of people who had a hard time with that though in school. He missed one area of his testing by 3 points. 3 people! That was like 1 answer. He is a slower reader than me and probably some other people. However, he can read. The school is wanting us to make him quit band and put him in a reading initiative program. That is great but he did these classes last year one day a week during band and it didn't make his score any better than the last. He always freaks out with tests that are timed. His semester grades are not bad, he is an A/B/C student. I did not allow them to take him out of band completely! He likes band and enjoys playing the drums. I also believe that a musical education is just as important as coursework. There are many people I know who use music as their jobs. So, Steven will be on lockdown with studies this year and hopefully he will absorb these study habits so he will make it one day on his own.

I did talk to Steven about this and he really doesn't want to drop band. Yet, this is a make or break year and he must do better or he has a list of threats that he knows that me and his daddy are not afraid of….