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.