Family Circle

Everyone’s parents is almost begging their children to do something over the summer. For me, they wanted me to teach Chinese at the nearby school’s after-school care center. Of course, it was busier than ever because it was after the whole school scenario for a couple months.

So, I sat in front of the computer to write out the class plan, the permission slips, the handouts, and all that other stuff. It was pretty boring and went through some major revisions. But I kept on writing it with some help from my parents, and eventually finished all the paperwork.

I brought the idea over to the Presidents of the after school camp and they completely loved it. They were all, “This is GREAT!” and “Everyone will LOVE this!”, as if they thought that the whole camp would volunteer. So they happily complied to the plan and passed out all the permission slips.

As I came back to the camp a couple days later, I was pretty sure that there would be a bunch of kids coming. But then there was always the nagging voice at the back of my head, saying, “Who would even think about learning anything when they don’t need to? They already fall behind in class, why commit to something they know they won’t commit to?” I usually ignored the little voice, but now it was slowly taking over the other thoughts. As I approached the office, I had no idea what to expect.

The office was cluttered everywhere with paper from probably a century ago, and I was always amazed how they could ever find their way through all of it. (Sometimes I think my parents are wondering that about me, too.) The supervisors greeted me and gave me some high fives, and I asked them if there were any permmies back.

There were, of course (well, maybe not, according to your view) none.

So they told me to come back on Monday(it was Friday) and see if any more came back. I was pretty sure nobody would, especially after the deadline.

I figured that permmies went around like this:

1)Child receives permission slip. If s/he doesn’t like it, his disposes it in some way. If s/he does, it goes on to the next step.
2)Parents receive permission slip. Same as above, except if they like it, the slip goes back.

I also figured that all parents would want their kids to learn something new, so that would mean all of them were lost over the first step. Which meant that they all didn’t like learning, at least thought it was unpopular in the summer.

Moral:
Don’t ignore the tiny voice in your head. Sometimes, it’s right.