DT has been working hard crafting individualized instruction for him, and has found him not so easy to work with. She thinks there is a major disconnect between his abilites and his willingness to work hard. She has the sense she and others who work with him have been dancing around him trying to engage him, but he isn't willing to meet them halfway.
DT thinks: DS spends a great deal of energy trying to manipulate his situation so that he is either doing work he really wants to do, or work that is no effort.
So, this is a hard to read sitauation.
Let's ask a few questions to get some context - is she still underballing his reading abilities?
Is she allowing him to go to 4th grade for math?
I get that she is working hard, that is part of the pathos of the whole situation, but when someone starts talking about my son's character defects, I always check first to see what the person's 'expectation ballpark' is.
I don't doubt that your son has developed some bad habits due to enforced underachievement throughout the year with this teacher. But I wouldn't take it to heart until you tell me how effective the effortful individualized plan is.
((Personal story: I found myself talking to the elementary school principle about getting more challenge for DS in 5th grade. She told me that Ms. Classroom said that my child was lazy and hard to motivate because he never did the 'enrichment Math' that Ms. Classroom left in corners of the classroom for her students to do after they finished the regular Math. I took a look at the 'enrichment Math' and while it may have represented 'fun and new' to most of the kids in the room, it was stuff my DS was doing 3 years ago. Thankfully after that conversation, I took it up a level to the higher school admin, and was able to convinse them that a skip was needed within 10 days. Ah, the flexability of private schools! It was true that my son had a lot of 'enforced underachievement and bad habits to unlearn' but unlearn them he did! To get the level high enough to be interesting, he and I both did some suffering to get the organizational skills up to the needed level. This is why it's better to start skipping in 1st or 3rd than it is in 5th or 8th.
It isn't your child's fault that he doesn't like his age peers. It dosen' point to some terrible character flaw. Would we expect a 10 year old to happpily enjoy spend 6 hours a day working alongside a group of 7 year olds, doing 7 year old work, being treated by the teacher like a 7 year old? Not too likely.
Let us know how the meeting with your home district goes!
Love and More Love,
Grinity
