7th Heaven, Season 3

Mary:
Okay, I just came down to say I'm sorry.

Annie:
For skipping class, or getting caught, or causing me to come and get you in the principal's office so that your teacher can tell me that for some reason my 16-year-old daughter can't seem to find her way to class?

Mary:
Yes. Mom, Mrs. McKee just reads aloud every day and it's boring. Besides, I can read the book by myself.

Annie:
So have you?

Mary:
What?

Annie:
Read the book?

Mary:
Well, some of it, but I can't get into it. And besides, like I said, Mrs. McKee reads the thing aloud in class every day.

Annie:
Yes, but you'd have to actually be in class to hear it and benefit from it. You see where I'm going with this?

Mary:
Yes.

Annie:
See, if my kid can't "get" anything, not even the tiniest little morsel, from a classic novel about societal mores, shame, scorn and ostracism, then I look to my kid. Not the teacher, not Nathaniel Hawthorne, but my kid. Of course, now that I know my kid has read and/or heard very few of those actual words, I feel better. Or a different kind of worse, I'm not sure.