(scene opens in chilly mini-van)
Gamma: Mom, how come my school has numbers instead of grades?
Me: (weary sigh) Grade schools like to go with numbers, for some reason. By the time you get to high school, you’ll be back on that whole A, B, C grading system.
Gamma: What’s a GPA?
Me: (tries to remember the words) Grade Point Average. Every letter grade is worth a certain amount of points. As are like 4 and Fs are 0. You add all those points together and divide them by how many classes you took and that’s your average. If you get all As, you have an A average. If you get a mix, you might have only a C average. Its hard to get your grade point up after a certain point because of math.
Gamma: Why do we have GPA?
Me: Well….okay. The way it was taught to me was that you had to get good grades in grade school so you could get into honors classes in high school and get more points on top of your good grades so you had a wicked high GPA so you could apply to colleges and they’d go “Wow! Look at this GPA! I bet they’re really smart!” and they’d let you in so you could get more high grades and put that on your resume and companies would go “Wow! Look at that GPA! They’re really smart, we want them to come work for us!” and that would translate to more money.
(moment of silence)
Me: Which….if you think about it….is really kind of soulless. I want you to get good grades because it means you’re learning and understanding the material. Theoretically. Learn. Learn, learn, learn, never stop learning. Learn to love learning. Read books, watch documentaries, talk to experts. Hell, observe the world and talk to people who’ve sunk thousands of hours into their hobbies. Figure out what you like to do and we’ll go from there and make it work somehow.
(mini van pulls into drop off)
Gamma: I’m going to be a YouTuber.
Me: (disappointed sigh) Maybe something better than a YouTuber.
Gamma: (scathingly) Way to support your own daughter, mom. (Jumps out of van)
Delta: I know what I want to do when I grow up.
Me: Oh yeah?
Delta: Have fun.
Me: Good attitude to have, Delta. Have fun at school.
Delta: And you have the best day of your life, mom.
(Delta exits van, fade to black, cut to car commercial)