Parents Day, round two

One of the difficult decisions I've had to make recently was moving kids back to a lower grade level. Two third graders went to first grade (neither could read a word, but now suddenly they're both learning), and two others to second grade. Two second graders are revisiting first grade, and five first graders are back in kindergarten.

I evaluated each case as carefully as I could, and hope to have made the right choices. Even so, I'm concerned that these children are sometimes teased by their peers.

And, much worse, their parents usually do not approve. Many of them have the notion that children should begin school as early as possible, which means the age of five at the latest. Any divergence from this path spells career failure (which entails failure to lift the family from poverty, from the shame of leprosy, from illiteracy, etc.).

Yesterday was parents day and I had to meet with some pretty distressed moms and dads.

This is what I heard:

"You wasted a year of my daughter's life."
(His SIX-year-old daughter, how I don't know, somehow ended up in third grade, where she most definitely did not belong. Now she's in second).

"I told my neighbors in the village that my daughter is in third grade. If they hear that she's in second, they will laugh at me."

"I was angry at my son for having to repeat a year, so I beat him."

"My husband is in the hospital. And now this? How could you do this to me?"

"My husband is a drunkard. I set all my hopes on my son. Now I hear that he's a failure in school."
(He's only six).