Would you say something?

[basil]

DS is 9 and in 3rd grade. He's a very bright boy but...he has never been very motivated by grades or approval from teachers. He is usually most interested in getting work done just adequately enough to satisfy the requirements, then going back to playing or reading.

Over the past few weeks, his class has been working on an oral presentation. They were to be a historical figure from our state and give a short 3-6 min presentation to the class, including props and costume. DS is (IMO) a naturally talented presenter. He's enthusiastic and animated and not shy. With a fair bit of prodding from me, he worked pretty hard this weekend. He wrote out his own notecards, designed his own costume, made his own props and practiced at least 10 times. He was Ben Franklin and he found a picture of a DIY wig online made of pantyhose and yarn, so I sewed that for him, but otherwise didn't help other than remind him to work on it. He practiced over FaceTime last night to my dad, who is a career public speaker, and he said it was really good.

Today, I got an email from his teacher -

Hello,

Just want to let you know [DS] did a good job sharing his presentation this morning. He had good information to share and did a good job sharing it. We learned some information from him.

-[Teacher]

I guess I'm sort of reading between the lines, but that seems like it's saying "He completed the assignment and did a barely adequate job". I know if I wrote an evaluation for one of my students or trainees or staff that said "this person did a good job. they learned some information." and ended it there, it would definitely be looked at as a red flag/negative eval!

I don't know if I'm supposed to reply to her? Half of me feels like I should write back and ask if there is specific feedback I should pass on to him, or ways to improve. Half of me feels I should leave it alone. My main concern is I would like DS to develop the association between working hard on something and getting good results. I'm afraid if he gets poor or mediocre marks on this, he will figure it isn't worth working hard on any school work in the future.

[Globetrotter]

Is this the teacher’s normal style? I doubt She’s sending notes like this to all the kids who are doing an average job. It seems to me like she’s singling out his performance in a positive way, and that makes sense based on his practice run, but I agree that I would’ve been more enthusiastic in my wording.

[Globetrotter]

My kids had a middle school teacher who wrote like this. Even her Facebook posts are written at third grade level…

[ezcc]

I think you are reading too much into it- I would take it at face value as a compliment and would pass it along to ds as such. I get that it could be more effusive, but I don't think she is trying to be negative/unenthusiastic. I would just say thank you and move on :). If he gets a bad grade on it that would be worth following up, but I doubt that will be the case.

[MSWR0319]

I don't see anything negative at all about that. Is it worded strangely? Yes. I got the impression that she thought he did a good job and his presentation had information in it that she thought was meaningful because they were able to learn from it. I agree with pp that she probably wasn't sending out emails to everyone and that he got singled out because his presentation was good.

[basil]

Don't know if she sent out an email to every parent. There are only 8 kids in his Cohort right now, so it's not inconceivable. She also sent out a group email that said "Cohort A gave their biography presentations today and they did a great job:) They all agreed that the first 30 seconds was scary, but then it was "actually fun". They should all be proud of themselves!" Which just sort of reads a totally different tone to me!

It's hard for me to read her, cause I've never met her and we've only had one phone conversation the whole year, so maybe I'm just reading too much into her email.

[basil]

OMG, I showed him the email and said “look, your teacher thought you did a nice job today!” And he grabbed my mouse, used one of those Gmail canned reply buttons, and sent her back an email that said “that’s great to hear!” Before I even knew what he was doing.

So I guess that will be the reply.

This kid will be the death of me!! :)

[SnuggleBuggles]

I would take it as a compliment and say thank you. You’re definitely reading too much into this. :) if your trainee got this evaluation too they would walk away thinking they did a good job and you were happy with their performance. If you didn’t mean that they did a good job, why write that?
She could have been pressed for time and just wrote something quick. I assume he will bring home a grade with more comments at some point. I really think she just wanted to loop you in since you weren’t there and would want to know he did good work.


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[smilequeen]

I would not read between the lines. It was positive and that's enough. This year is rough for everyone, best not to overthink things.

[petesgirl]

No matter how she meant it, I would have read it as enthusiastically as I could to my DS! He is a lot like your son so he doesn't get praised by teachers very often. Any little thing to boost his confidence would be awesome.

And maybe it's too late now, because he responded, but I would have replied with something like "I'm glad it went well-- he worked SO hard on it all weekend and truly gave his best effort."

[SnuggleBuggles]

OMG, I showed him the email and said “look, your teacher thought you did a nice job today!” And he grabbed my mouse, used one of those Gmail canned reply buttons, and sent her back an email that said “that’s great to hear!” Before I even knew what he was doing.

So I guess that will be the reply.

This kid will be the death of me!! :)

Missed this. That's cute. :)

[bisous]

OMG, I showed him the email and said “look, your teacher thought you did a nice job today!” And he grabbed my mouse, used one of those Gmail canned reply buttons, and sent her back an email that said “that’s great to hear!” Before I even knew what he was doing.

So I guess that will be the reply.

This kid will be the death of me!! :)

I love this. :) I think he feels good about it. I've had a 2nd grader that refused to practice his presentation and it was VERY rough. Sounds very different than what your DS did. DS still got told he "did a good job". I think there is a lot of variation in ability and effort in the younger grades. So long as the metrics for the assignment were met and there was some growth, I'm sure the teacher feels that it was fine. And I'm sure that it was fine!

[Liziz]

Add me to the crew that think it was a positive email! Although my DDs teachers communicate regularly with parents as a whole, it is rare that they send an email directly to me alone related to a specific project or activity. I don't think that's common -- so I would take the fact that she sent an email at all (and the fact the words are positive) to mean your DS did a GREAT job! My best guess is that she really wanted to communicate the fact your DS did well, but has limited time and zero time to wordsmith or quickly throw more than a few words down, so she just wrote something quickly and sent it off. I would treat this much less like performance review wording and more like if you got a random and unexpected email from someone letting you know that one of your staff member had done something great lately and they wanted to take a second to recognize it.

[jgenie]

Looks like a standard comment she’s sending to each student. I would leave it alone.

[carolinamama]

Love that your DS responded to her. I'm impressed she sent out an email to the parents with feedback on an individual assignment. I'd read it as positive feedback, especially when you consider how many students she has x assignments.

[twowhat?]

I was going to actually recommend that you respond back in a similar way that your DS just did!!! I think the teacher took the time out of her day to send the email because she thought he did a great job, and I would've responded "That's great to hear, thank you for letting me know! I will share this with DS. He will be thrilled since he worked so hard all weekend!"

[daisyd]

I would take it as a compliment and say thank you. You’re definitely reading too much into this. :) if your trainee got this evaluation too they would walk away thinking they did a good job and you were happy with their performance. If you didn’t mean that they did a good job, why write that?
She could have been pressed for time and just wrote something quick. I assume he will bring home a grade with more comments at some point. I really think she just wanted to loop you in since you weren’t there and would want to know he did good work.


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I totally agree.

[KpbS]

No matter how she meant it, I would have read it as enthusiastically as I could to my DS! He is a lot like your son so he doesn't get praised by teachers very often. Any little thing to boost his confidence would be awesome.

And maybe it's too late now, because he responded, but I would have replied with something like "I'm glad it went well-- he worked SO hard on it all weekend and truly gave his best effort."

This is my exact take on it too. She could have (should have IMO) been more complimentary and more enthusiastic. I would let your DS know you think he knocked it out of the park in his prep and you are super proud of him.

[roobee]

I wouldn't say anything since that's probably her communication style. I don't like it though since she could have easily included a smiley face and then you wouldn't be left to assume anything.

The thing that's a bit funny to me here is that I work for a large corporation and I very rarely send or receive an email that doesn't have a smiley face in it. I honestly get stressed out if there's not a smiley face in an email from my leader, which is probably ridiculous, but whatever. :)

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