Watch Me Pull A Rabbit Out of a Hat

Well, it wasn't exactly a rabbit, but it was probably just as difficult!

My dear son, Logan, came to me a few mornings ago and said, "I forgot to tell you, but I had an oral report to give in class. It's o.k. though, because I got an A+." My son obviously knows me quite well. He knew he had to soften the blow by throwing in the A+ part. As you can imagine, I wasn't pleased, but I would have really blown my top if he had received a poor grade.

I started pressing Logan for details and slowly but surely the facts started spewing out. The more information he gave me, the funnier the story became to me. I don't advocate what he did, but I have to say, I was pretty impressed. Here's the story:

On February 14 Logan had to turn in a "President report". He started on the report back in January. He could pick any president he wanted, but he had to tell why he chose the president he did. With my help, he decided on John Quincy Adams. I swayed him toward JQA because, personally, I wouldn't have picked a "common" President like Lincoln, Washington, Kennedy, etc. if it was my report to do. The teacher would probably know too much about those guys and it would raise the expectation (in my humble opinion). I knew that somewhere way back on Eric's side of the family they are related to JQA, so I knew I could sell Logan on him. Also, it would make for an interesting reason as to why he chose that particular President.

With dear ol' mom's help, Logan agonized over that report! If you know Logan, you know he's extremely bright, but he does not like to willingly exert energy on anything that doesn't involve a joystick. The report kinda' became a team effort. We sat and read the biography together (mainly so I would know the same info he did) and when it came time for him to write the report I would have him tell me what he wanted to say and then we would work together on figuring how he could rephrase things so it would sound more polished on paper. I then made him type it up on his own. So as you can see, I didn't do the paper for him, but I didn't let him turn in a bunch of junk either.

When all was said and done he pulled off an A on the written report. I thought that was all there was to it. I never saw anything come home about an oral presentation. As a matter of fact, the morning Logan was turning in his report he commented on how relieved he was to have it out of the way. Hmmmm!

After Logan broke the news to me that he had done this oral report and received an A+, he tossed me a sheet of paper. The paper was the grading rubric for the presentation. Right there in blue pen, the final grade shows an A+. The comments read: "Logan, you seemed very calm & well prepared. You looked at everyone (what else was he gonna' look at, he didn't have any notes) and seemed very knowledgeable." There are also check pluses next to various aspects of speech content (introduction, childhood, presidency, accomplishments, death), presentation of speech (voice quality, eye contact, posture), and preparation (knowledgeable, well organized, flow of information). At the bottom of the rubric there was a time of 2 min 18 sec written in.

At dinner that evening, I decided to throw Logan under the bus by having him explain the story to his dad. I started the conversation by telling him I did not advocate what he did, but he needed to tell his dad. He did, and of course, Eric could hardly keep a straight face. I then asked if they went in alphabetical order (he'd be last), which would have given him ample time to come up with something to say. He said they didn't, they were suppossed to go in number order, by president. For those of you who may need to brush up, JQA was the sixth President of the US. Theoretically, Logan would have been the sixth child to give his speech, except...the five children before him weren't prepared, so he was actually the FIRST to give his speech! When he told us that, I about fell off my chair laughing! I asked him why he didn't have enough sense to tell the teacher he wasn't prepared either, at which point Eric chimed in and said that he was probably too afraid of what the consequences would be. Logan acknowledged that what his dad said was in fact true. He knew he would have been in HUGE trouble if we had found out. So, he decided to do what any self respecting, parent fearing child would do.....he got up there are gave his presentation. He was even well within the 2:00-3:00 minute timeframe he was supposed to conform to. What a hoot!

It's not in my nature or Eric's to just pat Logan on the back for actually being able to pull off a little stunt like this (although it did prove to me that he's capable of producing without mom having to badger him, or do it for him). After we all laughed about it, we sufficiently chastised him (sort of). We explained that he was darn lucky he was able to pull it off and that with some preparation and a note or two, he would have felt even more confident. I don't think he really bought it though, he was plenty happy with the outcome!

I guess the upside to all of this is that at least he retained the information he learned while doing the report and apparantly, we didn't raise no dummy! I think Logan gets his kick-back personality from his Uncle Brian, because he doesn't get it from Eric and he certainly doesn't get it from me! Logan gets good grades and does fantastic in school, but it's only because academics come easy for him. Sometimes I wish he would actually want to apply himself, but most of the time.....I just wish I could be more like him!!!!!!!