Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy No differentiation--what do you tell your child?

Ok, I think what I will do is scribe all the Singapore Math, and that way he will keep progressing in math. He really likes math, it's just the writing that is a problem.

I am going to keep working on Handwriting Without Tears (or something else?...anyone have suggestions?) to try to get handwriting up to speed. If we stop the first grade math homework we would have more time for this. I just want to do maybe 10 minutes per day. If he continues to show no progress with writing, I will most likely give up, but keep trying to build motor coordination with other activities.

I think I will wait til his IEP meeting (or after) to talk about the first grade math. Right now the fact that the teacher is advocating for DS is probably the only reason that they are writing up an IEP. If she is mad at me--I don't know what will happen. I think we'll have to live with this til the meeting on the 19th.

ITA... plus I also think that it's ok even with things that *can* be fixed to let go of them for a time when they are causing a ton of frustration. Not being able to write at 6 doesn't mean he's not going to be able to write at 16 or at 26. (Unless of course it really is dysgraphia or some other physically limiting disability).

It also might help, next time you're at school, to take a look around at the other student's writing samples. Chances are that there are a lot of first grade writing samples that don't look all that great - we were still having a tough time in 4th grade convincing ds' teachers that he was dysgraphic simply because there were so many other totally neurotypical students who hadn't yet developed neat orderly legible penmanship. The difference was - they were improving with time and had the capability to keep improving without physical or neurological barriers. But if you looked just at writing samples, there were usually a few even worse looking than our ds'. These kids (ds' age) are all aging out of middle school now, and most of them have absolutely legible passable mostly very nice-looking handwriting

polarbear

Just getting around to reading this. Your experience was pretty much our experience last year. Yes, as others have said, the situation is not sustainable and will only get worse as your child continues to pull away from the others academically. If you have some time (meaning your child is not miserable at the moment) you can start exploring the various options.

Personally, I started with what others have done here...."the teacher has other students", "we need to learn patience", etc. But at some point, my son just stopped working. He refused to do any more math work. I told him that it was ok not to do it but he would have to experience whatever consequences his teacher would have for him. He said, "I don't care". (My DS is pretty easy going, but once he's hit that refusal wall, he is rather ballsy. I remember he said, "What is she going to do? Throw me out of class? And then what? Make me write things down?) Then I had an aha parenting moment and realized that I should absolutely support my son's civil disobedience. He was quietly but powerfully saying, this is not appropriate. And of course he was right. Other children at the other end of the spectrum get what is appropriate - why shouldn't he? Or at least something a little more appropriate. Thus began our advocacy saga.

Personally, I've had a huge change in attitude in what school is "supposed" to be about. (Mind you, I've worked in schools for several years, so I'm coming at this with professional eyes too.) The system has pretty much been set up from the start to shape students a la assembly line. If you don't fit in, you get tossed to the side or you just quietly get jammed through the line. That's not what I want for my children (or anyone's child actually). I would love to homeschool 100%, but DS wants to spend time with his friends some of the day, so we partially homeschool. I don't think schools are set up for ANY child outside the norm.

Thinking globally, many have observed a widespread pattern in which children are seemingly being taught to be mere cogs in a wheel, to place acquiescence to the system over consideration of one's own aptitudes and appetites for knowledge and the benefits which they as accomplished individuals may uniquely provide to society in the future. Some have said the pressure toward getting children to function in a uniform fashion is related to the large national debt and projections of the USA declining in the world economy while other countries become more powerful. Some who have come to the USA from other lands have shared stories of seeing changes in the USA which may signal we are on the path to becoming the type of system they have escaped from or left behind.

Indigo, I was so struck with your comments. I live in a very diverse community - like top 20 diverse communities in the US. Families are literally from every part of the globe. So many immigrant families cannot believe the extremely poor quality of public schools in the US. They also can't believe how much squelching of talent they see in the schools. So many of these parents remark that they came to the US for the schools (among other reasons of course), they came here for the individuality and creativity that they thought could be fostered in their children. But they find no evidence of it. They find the testing craze and the stifling of their children. And some of these families go back to their original countries! It's nuts!

Anyway, my solution to the inappropriate HW that DS is still given sometimes: I tell him that he has to do something. He can substitute the HW with something else more appropriate if he likes. (Mind you, we homeschool most subjects, so this doesn't happen often.) I think telling him that he should just go along with things when it's not right (being given work that is 3 years below him), is NOT RIGHT. He deserves to be educated appropriately - not every minute of every day. But most of the time.

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.

My DS is also passive like that. When he fights me at home (usually with writing stuff), it usually just involves him giggling, goofing around, or walking away. As part of his IEP eval, they agreed to give him the WJ Achievement tests. At first they just wanted to do the writing section because his problem is writing, but I told them that as long as they are going to do it at all, they might as well do all of it so that maybe some efforts at differentiation can be made. This was about 7 weeks into the school year. The IEP manager argued that he should have been tested in the classroom for math and reading. I said that no out of level testing has been done. Then suddenly, the first grade teacher decided to give him the second grade written math test which she had been stalling on for weeks. I believe they are working on those WJ tests but who knows. Is there any way they can screw that up and give him questions that are still too easy? A special ed teacher is giving them to him, not the psych. I'm hoping that if those results are high I can use them to try to advocate. The teacher has already decided that he's a lower reading level than he was last January. Last Jan. in Kindergarten he was a Level O and had no problem reading books like the Mouse and the Motorcycle. Now we are back to a Level L with the teacher saying he needs to work on answering comprehension questions better (the kid is apraxic--how good does she think his verbal responses are really going to be?). I feel like we're sliding backwards and he is actually doing easier work in all areas this year than last year. That's why it's important to me to at least get him to do the Singapore Math at home--even just 10 minutes a day so he doesn't forget everything he already learned.

blackcat, my child is a happy boy with a very optimistic attitude. He would scribble something down to go through the motions rather than put any effort into his work in his K class last year. He said outright to me that he did not care enough to try to do his best because school was "silly". He did not comprehend that the teacher expected 100% accuracy before she would accelerate him. His day at school had a max of 10 minutes of math (and that too was not every day) with teddy bear counters and 4+3 kind of stuff. Eventually, in February, I told him that there was no hope for him to get any advanced stuff if he continued to goof off. So, he started shouting out answers to math problems before other kids and it acted as a self-advocacy strategy. Though the teacher complained about it, she gave him advanced math worksheets - and it turned out to be 14+13 instead of 4+3. Not much help for him.
What I am trying to say is that our only way to keep the learning going was to afterchool intensely using various curriculum choices. He does not goof off at home, is intensely focused and does a great job. I used school last year for his social needs and I refused to pull him out because of the great attachment he developed towards his teacher, his friends and the school community. This year, he is in a private school with good academics and now he tells me that it would have been great to have changed schools in the middle of last year and that he did not know that he had a choice. We still afterschool math because the current school does 2nd grade math with him and he still finds it easy.
Good job on continuing the SM at home. Check out the Beast Academy series starting at the 3A level. DS just started it this Fall and is loving it.

DS just had an appt. with his neuropsych and the first thing that he asked was "How is school going?" DS said it was Ok, but then launched into a cheerful spiel about how he doesn't learn anything there. I wish he would say these things to his teacher!

I think it would be very difficult to change schools--the one i called is full for this year. But every other day the thought crosses my mind about trying to get him (and DD) out. I am going to try to get them into a different school next fall and hope for a better situation. So much depends on the teacher in terms of differentiation, and it's hard to know what the teacher will be like until you are already there.

I will check out Beast Academy--thanks.