Now, I have always been very particular to never claim that my daughter is either above-average in something or that she is smarter than the regular student who attends school. I have, in fact, gone out of my way to state again and again that Kymaia is an academically average child and there are subjects she loves (and is therefore good at) and subjects she hasn’t started to love yet (and is therefore not very good at). The reason is that most people who hear about our homeschooling her through the pandemic and marital upheaval wonder if we are doing so because she is some kind of a prodigy. That is why I make it a point to state at every opportunity that she is nothing of the sort and that our motivations for pulling her out of the regular formal schooling system have had little to do with the presence or lack of academic brilliance. Indeed, I have written extensively about our motivations and what brought us where we stand today, as also how we reached here. I think anyone who has been reading my blog for long enough will testify that I rarely gloss over anything and most of what is happening in my life, and Kymaia’s, is open to the public, and quite willingly so.
Anyway, not to labour the point: Kymaia is a regular child, like most other children, just being brought up differently.
Which is why when the teacher said she would give her an actual annual exam, we were not as excited as most parents are about their ward’s first-ever real exam (even though she is in the equivalent of Std II, ICSE). So, why am I telling you this? Because she’s scored consistently and well in all her papers, bar her Social Studies, which was conducted today.
But before we get there, it needs to be noted that she received a ‘surprise’ from her mum today who decided to take her and me out (after her morning hill run and workout) to a buffet breakfast at the Hyatt, which was an absolute blast. Her chess class was pushed to the evening as the Bear family stuffed themselves on waffles, pancakes, baked beans, eggs, bacon, sausages, chicken, doughnuts, fruits, milkshakes, and coffee, in no particular order before literally waddling out of the place (where, given how much we managed to clean up, we are afraid we may not be welcome for any all-you-can-eat deals) and somehow driving home. Later in the day, she surprised us when she used the word ‘scrumptious’ (apparently, copied from her copy of ‘Mary Poppins’) in her daily email to us.
Anyway, returning to the Social Studies test, we, as her parents, have come to expect spelling mistakes, because, ‘English is a funny language, Baba bear. I can never understand why we don’t write it like how we pronounce it.’ So, when she lost 4 marks just on account of bad spelling, we were unmoved. She’ll grow and learn, as she reads and the same words keep falling on her retina. What surprised us was her losing 4 marks on factual answers that had nothing to do with spelling.
Apparently, she has no clue that a ‘Mosque’ corresponds to ‘Muslim’ or a ‘Temple’ to ‘Hindu’, she does not know what ‘Langar’ means (though I am surprised she knows that Diwali and Goddess Laxmi are connected some way), and when questioned by the teacher, claims she finds it difficult to remember such useless stuff!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is one of those things that reaffirm my faith in our process of bringing her up and validating everything we decided to do differently.
The kid’s growing up all right, I tell you.
P.S: Just realised that she actually scored 42/50 and not 32. The teacher made a calculation error. THAT is how little we care about these marks. Just saying.
