Extra Credit
| December 23, 2020There’s no manual to study, and no one right answer — to anything
T had no idea why Mrs. Goldstein asked me to stay after class that day.If I’m remembering right, she sat down in the desk next to me, auburn sheitel in a side pony, proffering a folderful of neatly printed sheets.
“Wait... you want me to do extra work? For no reason?”
I was genuinely puzzled.
It was ninth grade, early in the year. I was 13. What 13-year-old wants to spend their time — their free time — on Chumash class enrichment, for a measly percentage of a grade point?
Don’t get me wrong. I worked hard. Yes, I did the best I could, and my best was pretty, pretty good, if I may say so myself. But 100% was enough for me. (Okay, let’s be real — 110%.) The class material was enough for me. The status quo was enough for me. I didn’t need to do more.
Not when there were friends to call and books to read and, well, plenty of other things I enjoyed way more than dissecting a Rashi.
I didn’t know it then, but another 13-year-old was smart enough to accept the enrichment offer. And the day of reckoning came senior year when, with calculations down to percentage she’b’percentage points, Rachel Kohn was crowned valedictorian.
There wasn’t actually a tangible difference — we both spoke at graduation, and the school even gave both of us the “v” title in the program.
But it stung. I’m not gonna lie.
It stung because I knew. Deep down, beneath my meticulous, capture-every-word class notes that everyone wanted to borrow, behind my exhaustively researched reports that led to boringly reliable report cards — and under the piles and piles of exotic leaves I amassed for my tenth grade leaf report — I hadn’t done everything.
Something was missing.
A teeny tiny option that I didn’t take.
An option I could have benefitted from, that could have made me better, had I just been mature enough to see that at the time... I’d said no.
Maybe that’s why nobody asked me, later on.
Nobody gave me the chance to say no.
“Want to take on this Messy, Enmeshed Relationship with Your In-Laws? You’ll get extra points in compromise, in holding your tongue, in swallowing your anger, and humble apologizing.”
Uh, no thanks. I’m good.
That’s totally what I would’ve said.
“How about this folderful of Unresolved Conflicts from Your Childhood? Ready to untangle all that — to build true closeness, to stretch yourself even when others don’t?”
Hmm, I’ll pass. What do I need that for?
“An extracurricular course in Mom Dying from Cancer?”
Definitely skipping that one. Don’t need that on my résumé.
But nobody asked. So my registration was automatic.
In Figuring Out Kids’ Therapies. In Husband with Chronic Pain. In Work-Life Imbalance.
I’m stuck taking the classes and doing the work to get the credit.
The work is harder than any Chumash worksheet I’ve ever seen; credit scrappier than any straight-A average has ever seen.
I’m still carrying a full class load. (Yes, even the Dying Mother one — because that one doesn’t really end on the last day.)
But these days, I’m batting a lot worse than 100%, because the tests are so intense… and so much more onerous. There’s no manual to study, and no one right answer — to anything.
It’s a perfectionist’s nightmare.
(Which reminds me of another course I’d never have enrolled in, if I’d had the choice: Relaxing Standards So Others around You Can Have a More Peaceful Life.)
But I’m learning that I don’t need to be perfect — as long as I’m learning. (Even as I muddle through this latest course, Principles of Pandemics.)
As long as each class I’m forced into makes me just a little bit better, pushes me a little bit further. Or, as long as when I land flat on my face after some ridiculously impossible assignment — like Not Losing Your Cool When Your Son Is Too Busy Complaining to Read the Pasuk — I take out a fresh sheet of paper, sharpen my pencils, and give it another go. Or I ask the teacher for help, because no matter how many ways I think it through, I still have no clue how to solve the problem.
I’d like to think I’ve come a long way since ninth grade. That if Mrs. Goldstein offered me the chance for Chumash enrichment now, I’d take it. (But I’d ask for a lot of extensions.)
But I don’t know for sure.
The only thing I do know is that I’m earning extra credit.
(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 723)
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