parents' weekend

This weekend was my son's parents' weekend, and we had brief meetings today with all his teachers. A month ago we were very worried about how things were going--he was failing history because he hadn't handed in a major assignment and his roommate had moved out to room with someone more congenial.

Today things looked much better. The former roommate has left school because he was caught with drugs, so his moving out doesn't seem like such a bad thing any more. All the teachers, even the history teacher, spoke highly of my son's work. The geometry teacher told us that they do problems where there is a circle crossed by lots of lines (I think like this only more complicated) and the students have to figure out the value of as many angles as they can. The teacher thought this particular problem had been used at the school for at least six years. My son found the value of an angle that was marked in the answer key as one that could not be found. We heard he had the highest grade in his class on a chemistry test and is the best writer in his English class. A number of people also told us how impressed they were by the part he played in a skit his dorm put on. He is still isolating himself, but at least he is getting positive feedback when he does get out of his room.