Cathy in the Wright

Someone Remind Me...At What Age Can You Enroll A Kid In Military School?

I took the weekend off to recover from The Governor's preschool screening. It went as expected.

During the hearing test, he was told to raise his hand when he heard a noise in the headphones. At the first tone, he snapped his hand up with all the fervor of a Hitler Youth saluting the Fuhrer. I'm surprised he didn't snap his heels together as well. The second tone: same thing. On the third tone he decided that up and down was a waste of energy and simply left his hand up in the air. He refused to put it down until the test was over.

He started out fairly well on the skills tests. As instructed, he drew a horizontal line, drew a vertical line, and built a tower of wooden blocks. And then he figured he'd done enough. The tester said, "Now Governor, I'm going to show you some items, and I'd like you to tell me about them." He crossed his arms and slumped in his chair. Oh yeah, I thought, we're in for some fun now.

Governor, can you tell me what this is? She put a small, red, wooden ball in front of him. He picked it up, pressed it into his eye socket, put it down, and said,

Well, it's red.

Anything else, Governor?

Well, it's a red ball. (His tone clearly implied that he wanted to add the word "idiot" at the end of his sentence.)

Okay, good. Good. Anything else?

No.

The green cube drew even less of a response. He had no comment on the yellow pyramid.

His responses for the rest of the exam were either "I don't know," or "I can't." At the end of the testing, the woman told me I should consider some confidence-building activities to help him get over his low self-esteem.

The Governor needs confidence. Sure. Just like the Vikings could use a little bad PR to liven up their goody-two-shoes image.

I'll get right on that.

Posted by Cathy at November 6, 2005 10:51 PM