class prez

As I wrote earlier, Ry ran for class president of his third-grade classroom. His running mate was Enrique. Most of the class was running, too, so it was bound to be a close vote. The campaigns culminated on Friday, when they gave speeches to the class, outlining their platforms, and then they voted. Ry said many promised more recess time, but he also added something educational, such as being able to retake a test. Ry announced he won on Monday, the day the teacher announced the outcome. He told a fun story. The teacher was announcing it, and when she finally said who won, Ry and Enrique looked at each other and, happily surprised, both said, "What?"

The other candidates are now part of the cabinet. I asked him what he's going to do now that he's the class president and what his constituents would like him to do. He asked, what are constituents? So we talked about finding out what his classmates' interests and concerns were. I said, not expecting to be taken too seriously, you could hold a town hall meeting to ask them and give them a chance to talk. So the very next morning he asked the teacher if they could have a town hall meeting. She said they would have one on Friday and asked him to write out a list of goals to present to the class. He worked on that last night. It sounds like he's already negotiated with her about his educational platform.

Jackson seems to be cruising through his first few weeks at the academy. Every day seems to be filled with something new to be discovered, whether it's scientific observations being conducted outside or annotating some story or article, and I think it's opening up some mature thinking. Still, I managed to see him through the glass doors of the performing arts space, while I was waiting for him to finish his after-school drama club, and watched him at play as they did some acting exercises. He was his sixth grade self, still on the cusp between childhood and a young adult. He's a very good listener, and occasionally he'll say something I know must be new. In math, they were working on proportions and rational equations. For years, I have been setting up ratios for him whenever he had a word problem to solve, and he reminded me of that. So we worked on some problems together, solving for x. While occasionally he'll have a night of homework where he ends up scrambling at bedtime to finish, his complaints about doing homework are pretty mild and most nights he can accomplish it in short order. Sometimes I don't think he sets enough time aside for homework and reading (and practicing), but he doesn't seem to have any problems staying up with the classes.