My first grade report card from 1982

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.

36 comments

Yup I'm also an "if only they apply themselves" person.

38
- Every year, almost every teacher.
  
  I am applying myself, Jane you ignorant slut (SNL reference).
  
  I was embittered before 2nd grade because teachers wouldn't answer my questions and acted like I was being a smart ass.
  
  No, YOU just did a shitty job explaining why something is done a certain way. "Just because" isn't a fucking answer.
  
  College was just as bad, maybe worse.
  
  Most teachers suck. As in about 95% of them.
  
  29
  
  Math in particular. I can't just memorize all the shortcuts, I need to know why they work and what they're doing
  
  12
  
  As a tutor I run into the consequences of this all the time. Teachers throw details at students and are either shit at explaining why things work or don't see how it is relevant to teaching the information then I end up breaking concepts apart and showing why things work because its the only way for students to actually understand things rather than just learn what buttons on the calculator to press.
  
  1
- Me too. I always did kind of OK in school but i could never be bothered to really try hard.
  
  6
- I always thought of it as more of a "give me something interesting to do and I'll apply myself person". I did great in science because we were always doing experiments and shit. Math not so much because it was just here's how to do X. Now lose an hour of your free time doing that 80 times. Fuck that.
  
  5
  
  It does not help that most teachers don't know how to make math relevant and interesting because at some level they don't think it is either. And even if you actually do find math to be interesting, school more or less beats that out of you.
  
  1
- Same both from the school system and my mum. It's led to a large chip on my shoulder and a very nuanced ego and lack thereof at the same time. I am making almost 200k a year and still a large part of me feels like a failure thanks to a childhood that didn't recognize my challenges.
  
  4
Cursive was a mistake

37
- I find cursive handwriting faster to read because the words are grouped together better.
  
  9
  
  I’m old and learned cursive from grade one and I still find it horrible to decipher hahaha
  
  15
  
  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.
  
  1
- I always forget that cursive isn't really a thing any more until something with cursive gets posted online.
  
  5
- Yeah, I miss hieroglyphics too
  
  4
"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.

21
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.

16
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.

13
3rd grade was apparently the only one where you didn't have a teacher with an awful handwriting.

12
- I don't understand? Is it because 3rd printed and the rest are cursive? All the penmanship seems fairly well done to me.
  
  19
  
  Exactly this. The cursive looks so unmotivated to me, while printed is easy to read.
  
  3
Teacher preparing to write report cards: Gets out the "Could work harder" stamp and a large glass of red wine.

11
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

10
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."

9
- 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.
  
  3
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.

9
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.

8
- 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.
  
  5
  
  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.
  
  2
Eh, don't worry too much about what "would have been". I was diagnosed at a young age and still struggled.

6
Other than tying shoes those comments could have come from my report cards.

6
Apparently I've forgotten how to read cursive

6
- Second grade teacher has the cursive where every letter is a variation of the letter O.
  
  13
- The older generations won't admit it but their cursive isn't as legible as they think it is.
  
  10
  
  almost like a script that is specifically made to be written quickly has a tendency to devolve into scribbles
  
  1

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