Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion frustrated mom with Montessori

my DS5 has been at his current Montessori preschool for over 3 years...we have been up and down about his preschool over the past year because his teacher has been willing to really try to work with his Sensory Disorder and he seems comfortable there but she has been wishy/washy about meeting his needs academic wise (she has set times/ages that she introduces lessons and we have had a hard time swaying her to pick up the pace for our bored little guy)..he qualifies for the Florida McKay scholarship for K next year and I have helped the school complete all the paperwork to become a McKay school so we can use the scholarship...our idea was that since his tuition for the year would be covered, we could then take the money we would have spent on tuition and use it to do lots of other enrichment activities - so he would be happy with going to school and we could help with enrichment to keep him from getting bored...fast forward to today at pickup from school....

DS5 has been reading books by himself for well over a year now - math is his passion but he goes through spurts with undying interest in reading to not wanting to pick up a book - so we haven't pushed it - we read stories to him at night that he picks out and he has a large array of books to pick from when he feels like reading. This past week was an "I love reading week" and he finished his pack of level 5 Bob Books which he read through in like 15 minutes and finished several of his early chapter books. So when I picked him up from school today, I had some new books I got for him as a suprise - he had to run back into his school to show his teacher his new books. He told her what he had read this week and she looked at me and his new books and said, "mom, you have to slow down, I have no idea what I am going to do with him for the fall as far as reading". I was confused and asked her to explain. She said that all she had was up to level 2 bob books and a handful of early readers that were way below him and that she doesn't usually introduce those until Fall of K and here he is not in K yet and is way beyond. She said I shouldn't let him advance anymore because he is going to be way ahead next year. I could feel my jaw drop and was just shocked that she honestly thought that I should stop allowing my son to read at his level. I told her that I will always allow him to continue to grow and achieve at the level he feels comfortable with and will not stop just because he is way above everyone else in class and then I offered to help purchase materials for her to use in class with him next year. I was just totally flabbergasted - anyone else deal with something like this!? How would you handle it?

Hmmmm.... Maybe you could share some articles with her about young gifted children. Or maybe A Nation Deceived? I don't know how she would respond to that. Some teachers might become a bit defensive.

Are there other school options?

When my DS5 entered Montessori this past fall we were met with some of the same issues. Certain activities could only be done in a certain order at a certain developmental age. Fortunately my son doesn't take no for an answer and told his teacher that he had to start the early readers even though the kids don't start them until the fall of the K year (which he won't start until September). He quickly raced through them all. He pushed the limits and has even completed all the advanced K materials relating to math that the current extended day class never even got to use this year.

In our case I think our lead teacher realized that she was not going to slow down DS5 and he has made huge strides socially (which was her excuse before for not allowing him to work academically at his level). Just last week she told me that she was in the process of purchasing a new reading curriculum for my son to use next year that is more advanced. Not sure what her math curriculum plan will be but she has never mentioned to me that I should slow him down.

I agree with Cathy...are there other school options? No matter what school you choose if the teacher is not on board it will not work. I think after being at that same school 3 years already, if they were going to get your son they would have by now.

Time to part ways, I'd say. I don't think any article will change her mind. She is telling you loud and clear that she is no longer capable of meeting his needs. Better to stop now than to wait for things to get ugly. If after three years she still can't fathom the kid's intellectual needs, it's time to cut bait.

My son was in Montessori school for a bit. It worked very well the year he was 3/4. The directress gave him lots of work with the kindergarten students and brought in things like a 4th grade history text for him to read. He used to just happen to be sitting in the book area reading encyclopedias when parents came to tour the school- I found out about that later. My son was being used as a marketing pawn, despite the fact that he was reading long before he entered her school!

The following year he returned as a 4/5 yo kindy student, and we had to pull him after 3 months. It just wasn't working anymore. I have to say, it was incredibly tough to make that decision, but then we were all much happier.

good luck-

I'm with Lorel. It sounds like the teacher is telling you to find another school.

You could try meeting with her, but I doubt it will help. If she were unaware of his abilities, you'd have a shot. But she knows what he can do; she just doesn't see her job as being to teach him. Her basic sense of purpose as a teacher is incompatible with your child.

That sounds like an unfixable situation to me, I'm afraid.

Well, you can try and reason with her and even get upper level involved. It could go either way, really. I tried to reason with DD5's kindergarten teacher throughout the whole year and it was a big mistake. She had her ignorant opinion firmly cemented in her limited little psyche and no matter what evidence to the contrary, she was not changing.
Unfortunately, she would smile and say all the right things and agree to incorporate recommendations from the gifted psyd. in the classroom and then turn around and not do it. I was patient, I was reasonable, I was polite, I was firm, I escalated it, I had the principal's support, I did everything right.
At the end of the year, my child was miserable and I don't regret many of my decisions, but this one I do.

You are describing DD's teacher !!!

Thanks guys for the advice/feedback....he has been at the school for over 3 years and in this particular teacher's classroom for about 2 years - she has come a long ways with trying to understand his SPD but for some reason when the word gifted comes up she just has no clue. The tough thing is that there are not many choices here in our area and public K is out of the question at this point....28 kids in a K public classroom would do him in with his SPD - and as an ex-K teacher i can all but guarantee that will be the going number in his classroom if we went the public route (he can not handle loud noises, crowded areas even after years of OT and continuing sessions)- he handles 16-18 very well and it took us a long time to get him to that spot...we visited a handful of other K program Montessori preschools in the area both with him and without him and and we got a pretty good vibe that none of them had a clue as to how to handle a child who is not autisitc but has SPD and who is gifted....and our son got beyond stressed out and was barely sleeping/eating for weeks at a time during the whole looking process. He has been very vocal in letting us know that he wants to stay at his school for K and that he understands then he would like to look at a new school for first grade. He really trusts his teacher and we have been so confused as to what to do... So with that in mind...would anyone recommend that I try to look for some curriculum ideas for reading to suggest/introduce to her - she is very open to learn but I think she just gets scatterbrained and overwhelmed which is why we have been so back and forth about staying/leaving.

Do they do Accelerated Reader? Could she give him some kind of reading assessment to get an idea of his reading level and then get some books for him? There are some assessments available free online like DIBELS and San Diego Quick.

Cathy

Or even just plan a weekly trip to the library and bring his book picks to school with you. That might be an easier sell than asking for the school to spend money on books that no other kids can read.

There's the risk that the library books might be damaged or lost, I suppose, but to me it would be worth that small risk to make sure that my son wasn't being damaged.

The bigger problem I see, however, is that of making sure the teacher gets it.

Have you checked out Hoagies for help? There might be some articles there that are written to help a teacher gain a greater understanding of GTness. I can't think of a good article offhand since I never found a situation where I thought that such an article would have been useful, but I'd bet there's something on Hoagies that could help you to communicate to the teacher what's happening.