keila kuchleffel

איינער האט זיך מרחם געווען און מיר געשיקט אן ארטיקל פון קיילע קאכלעפעל. עס קוקט אויס גאנץ גוט.

Kayla Kuchleffel
TUTORS ANYONE?

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I always wondered why people fly down to Miami for Thanksgiving weekend. I mean, it's really not winter yet, and it's only for four days. Now I know! It's to recuperate from the shock of their kids' report cards!

In all honesty, I take the marks as a "personal" offense. After all, I do most of the work. Are they insinuating that I can't function on a third grade level?

Did you notice that teachers no longer give daleds with the little red circle around it. Now, they give a gimmel with six minus signs after it! They claim a daled is not good for the child's ego!

Since when are teachers supposed to care about a child's ego? In my days you got what you deserved, from your teacher and from your parents!

I'll never forget the year my school gave out nun for nichshal (failure). I told my father it stood for nachas! But he was no fool. He told me it stood for nebich!

And the comments! No longer are they short and to the point, like, "wonderfulchild" or "maybe you should consider transferring schools" or "how she got this far, I'll never know!"

Now, the teachers write long megillas that go onto the comment section of the second and third marking periods and the writing is so small, I can't even read it!

One teacher wrote, "Your daughter is suffering from severe post-homework syndrome and acute pre-test anxiety. I suggest you have her tested." Tested?!? For what?! Rabies? I never even heard of this krenk and besides, if they didn't give five hours of homework a night, she wouldn't have caught this machla in the first place!

And as if that is not enough to give you indigestion, they give you the report card to keep over the entire Thanksgiving weekend so you can stew in your anger.

Then comes P.T.A. when we get a chance to meet these lovely people who make our lives miserable for ten months!

As usual, the boys and girls end up having P.T.A. the same night. That means I have to get to four schools and meet with twenty-five teachers in a two-hour period.

Finding parking is close to impossible, so right away my schedule is thrown off. then everyone thinks that she is going to be the smart one and come a little early. But everyone has the same idea. So a half-hour before the scheduled time, you have twenty parents waiting on line and no teacher.

Then she arrives, decked out in her finest. The classroom is spotless. Who are they trying to kid? We were all students once and know what the room really looks like! (And what she really looks like!)

I try squeezing into the little seats but to no avail. Much to my chagrin, I can't get out either. My husband is forced to hold down the chair with both hands and push me out with his foot! The teacher smirks and points to a normal chair at the side of her desk.

Then it begins.

"Your child is lovely, but..." Uh! That was the key word I was waiting for. It turns out, one daydreams, one is an underachiever, one is an overachiever, one doesn't talk enough, and one talks too much. And then she drops the bombshell! She mentions the "T" word - TUTOR.

Now I wouldn't mind if this child was the only one that needed a tutor. But I was just told tonight that my other five kids need one too!

I don't know if you know this, but today's tutors pull in forty dollars an hour. My husband doesn't make forty dollars an hour. And not only that, but each tutor specializes in only one subject. For example, the math tutor doesn't teach English and the English tutor doesn't teach Chumash. So I have six different tutors coming to my house, each on the same night.

You should see my house! It looks likes the Library of Congress! On every flat surface there are open books with people hunched over them - on the kitchen and dining room tables and on the kitchen counter. I set up the ironing board in the basement and when I'm really desperate, I close the lid of the toilet seat!

So you figure it out - six kids, forty dollars per hour times two hours per week, gives you a grand total of four hundred and eighty dollars per week! That's twice as much as my husband brings home. And not only that, but once a week one child takes piano lessons, one is learning guitar, two take art lessons and my youngest is failing swimming in school and I was told to hire a swimming instructor to help her practice swimming in the bathtub (fifty dollars an hour plus scuba gear!)

I decided that since I was going broke anyway, I might as well enjoy it. So I joined Lucille Roberts and go to Israeli dance classes twice a week. But I drew the line when my husband wanted to take lessons to be a chazzon. I told him, "A Moshe Koussevitsky you won't be!"

Oy, how I long for the days when everyone came home from school with an "E" (excellent) in "Plays well with others,""Knows how to use a tissue properly," and the only expense I had was buying pizza wheels and falafel bits for snacks! Now the only "E" they get is in "Responds quickly to dismissal bell!"

Following P.T.A. I came storming into the house, slamming the door behind me, ready to scream my brains out. But by some strange quirk of fate, everyone was fast asleep!

The next morning at breakfast, I used the ultimate threat: If they don't shape up there would be no Chanukah presents this year! (Not that I could afford them, anyway)

Speaking of Chanukah, every year my husband and I have our annual latke debate. He likes them very thin and crispy like his "Mama" makes them. The first time I saw her latkes, I thought they were scrapings from the cholent pot.

I, on the other hand, like them fat and oily. But my husband complains that having to use a roll of Bounty to absorb the oil is getting a little carried away. So he makes his batch and I make mine!

Now, I have this neighbor whose latkes I haven't yet been able to categorize; but I do know they make great soap pads!

So enjoy your latkes, and should you need any help in preparing them, I'd be more than happy to assist you (for only thirty five dollars an hour)!

Have a wonderful Chanukah!