If I were a teacher, I would cook up some real scorchers for the children of doting parents. "Your son Maximilian," I would write, "is a total wash-out. I hope you have a family business you can push him into when he leaves school because he sure as heck won't get a job elsewhere!" or if I were feeling lyrical that day, I might write, "It is a curious truth that grasshoppers have their hearing-organs in the sides of their abdomen. Your daughter Vanessa, judging by what she's learnt this term, has no hearing organs at all."