The hullabaloo had a happy ending!…but not without a little twist.
This morning we received “official” notification from the high school that the Great Books tutorials will be “acceptable” to the school district. I put those words in quotations because my youngest daughter’s school adviser sincerely encouraged her while confiding that she has not read all of those books herself! The first hurdle was cleared.
However, if you remember from my last post on this topic, the instructor for the tutorial would not accept my daughter until he had determined that her writing was up to his standards. Over the Christmas break, we sent him four papers that Cakes wrote last semester and still had not heard from him.
My oldest daughter helped me track down his phone number and I called him. To make a long story short, he said that he would accept her. However, if she enrolled in his Great Books class, she would also have to take his Euclidean Geometry class. Practically, that would mean that our cost would double and she would be taking TWO Geometry classes: one with the tutorial and another at the high school!
None of this was a surprise. We’ve known that this condition existed. That was one of the reasons that we were hoping to gain admission to another instructor’s Great Books program. Mr. Callihan, has a great reputation as an engaging teacher. His program is one year shorter and he doesn’t require concurrent enrollment in Geometry.
I had called him before the Christmas break and received no response. I called again this morning and again this evening with no response. Not thirty minutes AFTER agreeing to enroll in the first tutor’s class, Mr. Callihan called and said that he had room in his class! When I told my daughter, she SQUEALED with delight.
I then had the thankless duty of calling the first tutor back and informing him that after he had read my daughter’s papers and after he had spent nearly twenty minutes on the phone with me and after he had already sent two “Welcome to GBT” e-mails to my daughter, I had changed my mind and decided to enroll with the other tutor!
Ahhh! There is nothing quite like the smell of freshly ground ego!
