Hi -

Background: My son is an exceptionally gifted 3rd grader who has consistently performed well at school and in the standardized testing.

At a recent parent teacher conference with my son present, his 3rd teacher, without warning lashed out primarily for lack of social interest in connecting with his same age peers at school. I reproduce some of the gems:

* "Do you think you can put out crap in the poster and get way with it?" This refers to a poster my son did on as part of an assignment. He was bored by the project and despite my warning did it in 15 minutes.
* Threatening - "Next year when you go to Mrs. XYZ's class she will rip you apart"
* Put down - "[You may be gifted but] You are certainly not at the top of my class".
* "Lot of gifted people end up as losers, they have trouble with relationships, with maintaining jobs"
* Taunting and humiliating tone - "I know this is personal, but how many birthdays have you being invited to lately?". Continuing further - "How many play dates have you been on ?"

Her tone was extremely angry, taunting and humiliating. She latter said other strategies were not working so she had to get his attention! We were so shell shocked at her outburst that we silently endured it during the conference. Partly we were in denial that this could be happening from a teacher we had great respect for.

I am wondering what can we do? Report this to the principal? I want to get an impartial opinion that I am not over-reacting and making a mountain out a of mole hill here.

We did meet with her twice after that and showed her research that indicates gifted often prefer kids of their mental age rather than same age peers. She wasn't buying that. Since then she has stopped responding to us. I sent her two emails and a hand written note but she ain't talking/responding.

Incidentally she is the only GATE (gifted program in CA) certified teacher at school!

My son is very resilient he was down for a few days but has bounced back but everytime we refer to the incident tears just can not stop. It upsets him too much to even think or talk about it.

What do you folks think we should do ?

Thanks for reading