Back to School Night

I had my first Back to School Night last week. It was weird. I still remember being in Head Start as if it were yesterday. My grandmother left me there, and I stood outside of the circle crying as everyone else sang The Hokey Pokey. Critical of people even back then, I stood there trying to figure out why I had to put my left foot in only to take it right back out. And why am I shaking it all about? This song is stupid. 

Anyway, it was weird because there were pictures all over the classroom. In just about every one of them my daughter has the same this is stupid expression on her face. Let me clarify: she is not a disagreeable child. She's extremely pleasant actually, but she is my child nonetheless. I can imagine what was going through her mind.

There was a picture of the whole class sitting on the tiny carpet on the floor. In the background, my daughter can be seen sitting in a chair. I imagine she thought the same thing I would:  My butt hurts on the floor. How about we all sit in chairs since that's what they're for. 

They had drawings on the wall. Out of 18 kids, only two of the pictures didn't look like cries for help. Draw a picture of a time that you were sad. One kid drew a picture of a single celled organism with blue dots coming out of it. I assume they were tears. The Michelangelo of the class had a picture of a humanoid with an upside-down U where the mouth should be.

Then there was my daughter's picture:
47 lines  of various colored markers all pressed onto the paper with varying degrees of intensity. All headed in different directions. The proud parent in me is almost terrified at the level of realism and scientific insight. Other kids tried to draw a scene of an event that made them sad. My daughter, on the other hand, drew a picture of her neural network, more specifically, the increased activity occurring in her prefrontal cortex. My daughter drew sadness as scientists are just recently beginning to understand it.

I could have explained it to her teachers, but I don't want them to treat her differently. Plus, I didn't want them to feel insecure about their inability to coach a mind as brilliant as hers. I doubt that they even noticed that her self portrait looks a lot like a DNA molecule.

[caption id="attachment_3661" align="alignnone" width="300"] Image courtesy of Renjith Krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3660" align="alignnone" width="300"] You almost can't tell them apart.[/caption]