Creativity Shines Through

Alicia has always had a creative mind.  When she was little, she loved to paint, draw and color.  She loved poetry and story books.  When she was in the first grade, her teacher was Mrs. Wilmore.  Every week, the children were given a poem to memorize.  She loved to learn these poems and excelled at memorizing them.  I was so proud of her and her memorization skills and was excited about her enthusiasm.  I proudly went to the school on the evening of her first parent teacher conference, expecting great accolades from Mrs. Wilmore.  Instead of talking of her obvious achievements, she pulled out one of Alicia's math papers.  She made a point of showing me how Alicia had completed a few of the problems, then gotten out her crayons, colored the cute pictures on the borders and then handed the paper in, forgetting to finish the rest of the problems.  It made me feel really bad that she did not have anything positive to say.  She could have mentioned how nicely Alicia had colored the pictures.  AND, she did not say one word about her memorization skills.  REALLY, is math the most important thing in the world?  Alicia had and still has many gifts and talents, math just isn't one of them.  I know, I know, math is important, but so is coloring, right?