Sometimes I feel like I’ve done my children a great disservice. At least when it comes to their education. I graduated 10th in my class, I went to college–it took me a long time, but I finally completed my degree. I know it’s too much to ask that my kids are as passionate about wanting to learn as I was and still am.
It’s like this: Jordan has been wanting to attend the School of Arts and Enterprise (The SAE) since she heard about it. Christian has mentioned it in the past as well. I made appointments for them to audition, filled out the applications, and took the time off work to get them there. I made sure that Christian practiced his guitar–since he was going to play for his audition–and had five of Jordan’s photographs printed. They were pumped and ready to go and, for the first time in a long time, I was excited for them because they were excited about school.
I had already gone to the trouble to remove them from their home school district, which was easier than I expected. There’s a couple of other minor steps to officially remove them from the district.
Calling the school before going was smart; I found out that they wanted their IEP and 504 plans in advance so that they could review them. When we showed up to turn in their applications, the school counselor called us in to inform us that, even though Christian is 17 and supposed to be a senior and Jordan is 15 and supposed to be a sophomore, neither of them had enough credits to advance. In fact, Christian only had 12 credits and Jordan, 30. In other words, the only way they were getting into SAE it would be as freshmen.
Watching Jordan cry uncontrollably was absolutely heart-wrenching. Christian was ambivalent: he really didn’t care as long as he got in. Once Jordan calmed down and accepted her fate, the counselor informed us that she was in; we went back to the lobby to wait to talk to the resource teacher and for Christian to be called for his audition.
Meeting with the resource teacher was interesting. She was intrigued by the fact that, not only did Jordan want to go to college, but she wants to go the the University of Dublin in Ireland. In speaking with Christian, she kept asking him if he was absolutely sure that he was comfortable coming in as a freshman. He assured her that he was, and if he didn’t get in, he would just drop out.
Finally, after literally hours of waiting, came Christian’s audition. Needless to say, he was nervous and very anxious. The guitar instructor came to gather him and told him that he could either go back by himself or we could go back with him. He wanted us there…until we actually got into the room and his teacher asked him to play. Play anything. Do you know your blues scales? I could see him tense up. He looked like a deer caught in headlights. The teacher whipped out his bass after I told Christian to play Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes (not my favorite song, but he plays it well enough). The teacher commented that he had just learned it and then started playing telling Christian to jump in anytime he felt comfortable.
He felt comfortable after telling Jordan and I to leave the room.
He spent the next 45 minutes auditioning only to be told that the audition wasn’t to see if he gets into the school, but to see where to place him now that he’s there.
In other words, they both got in….as freshmen.