Academic Award Ceremony

This morning we attended an Academic Award Ceremony, one honoring the students for their performances last semester.  Madison had all A's, so she was there for that first group announced, and you can see her proudly showing off her certificate, along with her pencil.  The group for all A's has gotten a bit smaller over the years.  Back in elementary school, I'm estimating it was twice as big.  Things are a little more separated as the kids grow older, with the classes being of varying degrees of difficulty.  For Madison it was a lot of hard work last semester.  She's naturally bright in some areas, but in other areas she was self motivated to learn as best she could, or do as best she could on her assignments.  As always, I resent the implication that she's just born with this innate ability to do math well, knowing the quadratic formula before she's even in pre-school.  In fact, there have been a lot of math concepts that have been frustrating to her early on, as she struggled to understand how to solve this, that, or the other.  But she persevered, and continues to do so, and really wants to succeed. So today she got this award, and it was somewhat exciting for her, although she knew she had all A's over a month ago.

But it was nice anyway, and it was nice to go to school there.  We sat in the front row, as if God were saving us a seat up there to watch the proceedings.  There were awards for all A's, then honor awards for A's and B's, and then the perfect attendance awards, which I do actually resent a bit.  Madison missed two classes, leaving school early, and for that she does not have perfect attendance.  Which is somewhat annoying, because she actually didn't miss school that day.  But that's not what is most harmful about these perfect attendance awards:  The simple fact is that in order to get a perfect attendance, you've got to go every day, even when sick with some contagious virus that will infect everyone else.  So congratulations to all our perfect attendance winners, and special thanks to all those parents who overcame having to drop off your sick child at school to infect all the other students.  Great job!

I digress.  Anyway, Mommy and Daddy were there, and it was nice, and then we were off to go to home.  Mainly because this is middle school, and we're not supposed to be there at all.  The hardest part about middle school is how much of a separation it is from elementary school, where we're there all the time.  In middle school, the teachers hardly talk to you and the administration eyes you suspiciously when you walk in the front door, as if we're terrorists or something!  Whereas the elementary school - even now a few years later - the teachers all know us and still will stop to have a conversation.

Yet, that's the way it is supposed to be, from what I understand.  When asked, Madison repeatedly says that she prefers middle school much more than elementary school, which at one point she was devastated she'd have to leave.  It was a scary new future for her, and now she's perfectly at home.  She may not be queen of the castle here, but she's fairly cozy at school, with friends, and having a good time.  And getting good grades too.

Daddy had work to do tonight at KidPak, of course, and there was a lot of disco going on.  We did this one hand/foot game set to "Love Liberty Disco" that was just a lot of fun. We were still talking about the Soul Train, and still talking about Peter and Cornelius.  It was a pretty fun night with lots to talk about, and lots of illustrations.

Madison took a bath tonight, and did her homework and also some piano class.  For homework, they're studying the religions of China, which include quite a bit, but do not currently include much of Christianity.  There are some teachable moments there.  We can't say much about the Christian we met there, but once upon a time while we were there, we met a shopkeeper, a sweet and quiet Chinese lady who recognized that we were Christians by the cross that Mommy was wearing.  We had a long conversation there, one about the need to keep things a bit more quiet.  It was as if we were reading the New Testament, where Saul was out looking to persecute any Christian he could find, and Romans were imprisoning Christians, or worse.  She gave us a refrigerator magnet that we still have on our refrigerator to this day, one that is a red map of China, one with a small golden cross painted on it.  It's a reminder to pray for China.  We could tell her faith was sincere, and there was certainly some risk even talking with us about such things.  We purchased a few items from her, a few more than we probably needed, including some wall hangings that we have in our dining area to this day, one that represents each of the seasons in China.  They're beautiful souvenirs, and treasured items in our house.  And they're further reminders about this very topic that Madison is studying in school.

We prayed tonight, and we read a bit from our book, "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon."  Daddy got home a little later, but Madison was still working on some of her homework.  She's a bit stressed again, so hopefully we can help in some areas.  Maybe if we can't help her with the actual assignments, we can help her with some chill time coming up soon.  No matter what, we're so very proud of her.