I think that you have more than one question to answer here.

1. What are grades for?
2. Define "effort" with respect to drawing.
3. As DeeDee said, how valuable will this keepsake really be?

1. Grades. For me, grades are a reasonable measure of progress in a subject. They aren't perfect, but they mostly communicate the message reasonably well. That said, I think that grades should reflect work appropriate to a student. So, for example, if your son's disability affects his ability to spell, he should be given appropriate instruction and asked to learn the material appropriately. He shouldn't be expected to spell 7th grade-type words like lucre and caste.

2. Effort. My eldest could pick up a fountain pen and draw a gorgeously-rendered person in a few minutes with one eye closed. If I worked for an hour with a pencil and a fancy eraser, my drawing wouldn't look half as good, and I'd have to build it off of stick figures. Would your son's teacher give my DS a better grade because he "put more effort in?"

Your son's drawing reminded me of my second son's drawings. DS9 doesn't have his older brother's technical skill, but he has true style, and has done since he was five or six. His creations are expressive, alive, and vibrant. His birds SWOOP! down the page and the frustration in the dinosaur who didn't get the meal he wanted is palpable (not to mention the relief in the face of the would-be meal). DS9 is every inch the artist that his brother is. So I say this to your son's teacher for her stingy definition about what makes something artistic: :-P


3. Keepsake. If a child has suffered through an art project in a certain way that responds to someone else's expectations, is it really a true keepsake? Or is it an artificial LetItGoForGoodnessSake to be forgotten? In my observations, the real keepsakes are the ones my kids treated as labors of love. I still have copies of the first letters my kids ever wrote. They were so excited and so proud to show them to me! "I can do it, Mommy!!"

Meanwhile, we threw away, you know, those book reports as soon as they came home.

Last edited by Val; 02/22/12 06:19 PM. Reason: Oh my. Going to town here.