I think part of the problem is that my DS is incredibly happy. Meaning, that's just his personality. He has a sunny disposition. He has never in his life even thrown a temper tantrum because he is incapable of getting upset enough about anything. So what the teacher sees is a happy kid who is not fussing, whining, or having meltdowns. So she thinks he's "fine". I have tried to get DS to advocate for himself. I have told him that he needs to speak up if he wants higher level work. He said he tried this once or twice and nothing happened so he's not doing it again. He gives up very easily. If I am the one always doing the advocating, I end up looking like a crazy hot-housing helicopter mom. Probably what will happen next is that she will start noticing more that he is slacking off with the work (like when he was fiddling with his words), and then decide that the work is too hard for him, so why in the world give him stuff that is even harder. That seems to be a recurrent theme on this site. The first week of school I gave her our password to ixl.com. She had said he could do that. He asked a couple times then gave up, so she probably thinks it doesn't matter. If he could do higher level math without writing, that would solve so many problems. But for whatever reason, she just doesn't want to do it. She agrees to do things, and then simply doesn't do them. I don't know if she's just incredibly disorganized, or passive aggressive, or what.
My DS appeared happy too last year. When DS would refuse his assignments, he did it passively (just wouldn't do it and would hand it in blank). And his teacher never actually called him to the mat on it. So, she also thought all sorts of things regarding why he wouldn't do the work (he is lazy, bored, thinks he is "too good" for this school, etc.).
I had to get involved pretty quickly simply because all the work was SO inappropriate. Then at some point, my sunny child started refusing to go to school in the morning. That's when I knew the inappropriate placement was getting to him. He also tried to self advocate a few times. I recall that one time he wrote out a bunch of "hard" problems for his homework, to replace the HW his teacher sent home. He did it a few times. He used to write on the bottom of the paper, "Dear Mrs. Teacher, Did you know that I can do this? I really can!" He thought that she would give him something else to do. All she did was tell him that he didn't show his work. She never gave him anything to do. He stopped writing his math notes to her. (And BTW, I sent in one of these sheets as part of his portfolio for DYS.)
I struggled for a long time with being one of "those" parents. I am not one of those parents, but I'm sure that his teacher thought I was. Too bad. I am doing what I have to do...in as polite and cooperative way as possible. We've had some success so far at school, but not much. You really cannot rely on the school to: see who your child really is, properly assess what he needs, give him what is appropriate. It is not very likely to happen without strong advocacy.
