THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 27, 1995 TAG: 9501270069
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E13 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LLEWELLYN PHIBBS, HIGH SCHOOL CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
FOUR YEARS AGO this time of year, I'd be tiptoeing around the house, hoping my parents wouldn't ask me about that dreaded piece of paper, the report card.
I would be wondering when I finally did hand it over, how they'd react - with anger and restrictions or with disappointment and support. Either way was equally unbearable. In both I knew, that in their eyes, I had failed once again.
This went on through most of elementary school and in middle school, where it reached its peak.
On one occasion, my mother, a middle school teacher, traveled out of town to a conference. There, to my utter horror and her utter embarrassment, she met one of my teachers, to whom I was supposed to have given the day before, a signed copy of a test that I had scored a 62 on. This, needless to say, ruined my Saturday night sleepover plans.
My foolish attempts at tricking my parents took many forms. I once went so far as to rip off the 4 in a 46 that I received on a quiz and tried to convince my father that it was really a 96. I failed to remember that all the wrong answers were clearly marked in red ink.
But for some inexplicable reason, in high school I was put into an honors English class full of students who got straight A's and would just die if they got a B. At first, I laughed at them and thought they were nerdy and uncool. After one quarter, however, my D's turned into C's, and as the year progressed, the C's turned into B's.
With the improved grades came more freedom. I no longer had to come right home after school and ``hit the books.'' I could stay after school and participate in extracurricular activities such as the drama club and the Academic Challenge team, with those kids from English class who really weren't nerds after all.
In my second year of high school, the classes got harder, and I found myself sacrificing whole Saturday afternoons pounding out assignments like a European history paper, which was all right because my friends were, too. I started browsing through college handbooks in the library and realized that my B's should turn into A's.
It's report card time again, but it's my junior year and I am once again irritable, moody, and touchy about that dreaded little piece of paper. The A's aren't quite so easy to come by with the combination of chemistry, trigonometry and the monster of them all, the research paper. On the average, I spend three hours each night suffering through homework, and on most occasions, becoming so frustrated that I throw my pencil and notebook across the room in disgust.
In three short years, I have become one of those students that ``just dies'' upon receiving a B. It's now myself that imposes the restrictions and becomes disappointed with a report card that displays anything less than straight A's. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Llewellyn Phibbs is a junior at Indian River.
by CNB