Wizard of Oz

Wizard of Oz was Em's school musical this year. She had a chorus part initially but had to withdraw because of academic struggles—parenting can be such a joy sometimes.

We had fun, though. She wanted to be Glinda, but if she couldn't be, she wanted her friend Ali to be, and she was: and she was perfect for the roll.

After intermission, Mo was super agitated. I had explained the show wasn't over, we'd be coming back in, but she wasn't having it. Corinna offered to take her to the car and see if she'd calm down and come back in. I felt my phone buzz about two minutes later and as I was reaching to see if it was a text from Corinna, she tapped me on the shoulder.

Mo had a seizure before she got half way across the school's foyer. Then, when she came out if it, she made a bee line for her home room (the special ed room for kiddos with communication issues such as autism). It turned out to be unlocked and she and Corinna spent the next hour coloring and having a generally good time.

As far as the academic struggles, they continue but I've had to step back from my assumption that they are all on Em. She's had peaks and valleys in her academics since grade school despite being a great kid and scary bright. But this year it wasn't a valley it was a Mariana Trench, and there was no peak to balance it out.

I still maintain that some of it is a lack of study skills born of her native talents. She's been able to coast in enough situations that given a real academic challenge, she doesn't know what to do. But when she asked if she could sign up for AP U.S. History and AP English, I said, "Sure." They were positive experiences for me and dirt-cheap college credit to boot.

But when I took them you had to prove your way in. There were tests, previous honors courses, all that. I assumed, foolishly, that this was still the case. When I met with Em's APUSH teacher, I learned that a few years back a class action lawsuit had forced schools to allow open enrollment in such classes. It is, according to the courts, unfair to discriminate against people who have no business taking an AP course.

In my entirely not-humble opinion, this is the good kind of discrimination: if you don't know any Spanish how is it discriminatory (in a legally meaningful sense) to bar you from signing up for a 300-level Spanish course in college?

But then, as the Scarecrow pointed out, a lot of people without brains do an awful lot of talking.