German

Lauren gets to do an ‘enrichment’ activity at school.  Her choice was art, which would lead to a recognised but fairly low-level qualification, or German, which will give no qualification in the short-term but allows her to take a GCSE in due course.  Naturally both options have merits outside of pieces of paper.

My choice was German, based on the general usefulness of languages and the benefit of extra pieces of paper, but I was open to art if I could see some benefit from it, and especially given Lauren’s natural ability and interest in the subject.  After extended discussion we decided that we’d go with German, with some additional spending to support Lauren’s natural tendency to do art at home.  And yes, I’m aware that “we decided” = “I decided” and “we’d go with German” = Lauren would go with German.

Events overtook us, however, as it turned out that Lauren could only do art.  She was pleased, I wasn’t particularly bothered, all was good.  Except that I wanted to understand why a student as capable as Lauren could ‘only’ do art – we were concerned that it was a result of poor administration by the school, rather than any academic decision.  So I called the deputy head and had a very pleasant discussion where he professed his surprise at the decision, and asked for Lauren to visit him the next day.  And sure enough she is now signed up for German, with the possibility of doing art as an extra-curricular activity.

All of that is a long way of saying that I’m the worst Dad ever, but over time Lauren expects she’ll forgive me.