Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Help!!! What would you do???

Hi, me AGAIN...Just got off the phone with Mr. Principal. Like I've said before, THANK GOODNESS for all of you. I knew you would be the ones to turn to! After yet another test (WISC and SB5...99/99.5%) both psychologists stated that ds10 "needs the opportunity to be challenged in the classroom for his well-being etc...etc..." blah, blah, blah....Duh. Teacher has no time for this...sees him only as a behavior problem and is getting hostile toward him...son is disengaging and draws the day away...grades are dropping FAST. SO made up my mind to partial homeschool him....teach in the am and drop him off for specials in the afternoon. NOW principal calls and says that he met with g/t teacher and they are agreeing for ds to "test out" of units so he can have the opportunity to explore what he wants independently. Principal wants him out of the classroom to do this so the other kids don't ask questions. G/t teacher would develop a plan for ds and he would just have to check in with the regular teacher rarely. What do you think of this??? Better or worse than partial??? ANOTHER meeting to discuss everything next week. Please give me your thoughts, thanks!

Isn't it ironic how accommodating people become once it becomes clear you will seriously remove your child from their school?

My questions would be what your ds prefers and where he would be doing this independent work at school? If he's just going to be in the library doing independent work would that be any better than working at home with you?

Is he the kind of child who can actually work independently in a focused way?

I would personally be inclined to hold out for a plan that includes actual instruction and guidance from the g/t teacher, not just "removal from the classroom." IMHO it is a rare 10-year-old who could actually educate himself in this manner.

Removal is a way to make the teacher happy; but you should be very sure that they are educating your child as mandated by law.

DeeDee

Hahaha Cricket2...So true, so true! DeeDee, yes he can be very focused when he's interested. He's the kind of kid that sees himself "above" the teacher and will continually argue points and dig his heels in. He's frustrated and the teacher is frustrated. I'm hoping by getting him out of the classroom, that this will benefit everyone by giving him some freedom. Principal is not sure yet, where they would set him up ...Principal did say that he wants to find an adult that will somewhat "supervise" him. Any other points I need to consider? I want to be prepared for this meeting and finally get something started and in writing. Thank you for the replies!

Cecilia, my perspective on this is that kids need to learn to accept the authority of their teachers, and to accept instruction and guidance. (Not to say that teachers are always right, but to acknowledge that the role of teachers and others in authority must be respected.) I think this is an important life skill. You don't want him to be 25 and getting fired for saying out loud that his boss is stupid. This lesson starts in elementary school.

I think you would be wise to advocate for appropriate schoolwork for your DS, but delivered in a context where he is being taught by an adult-- not only supervised, but actually instructed and guided. This may mean a serious acceleration plan; I would think this would be vastly better for him in the long run than simply removing him and letting him do for himself.

DeeDee

I agree with DeeDee. I think that as a 10 year old he needs a higher level of adult contact. I would ask them to carefully define what level of support they are willing to give him -- meeting with the gt teacher or regular teacher how often? how are they evaluating his independent work? who does he go to if he gets "stuck" while working independently at school? What are they offering him that makes you want to send him to school more?

Both DH and I were sent off "to the library" to fend for ourselves during the latter part of elementary school. He responded by getting his work done in a few minutes and then tormenting the librarian. I liked it at first but then felt isolated and that the adults had given up on teaching me.

DeeDee, you bring up a good point about learnng to accept authority. He doesn't have this problem with everybody and not with other children. He does respect his coaches, piano teacher, and various other teachers....but the ones he decides not too (for some reason or another) watch out, we have serious issues. What do you do then??? We've talked his head off about respect, we've role-played, used rewards, used consequence, techniques from nurtured heart approach...It's very difficult when he truly feels that when they don't treat his ideas/feelings with respect, that he's just suppose to forget about it because they are older and in a place of power...that he's required to treat them with respect. He has always been very concerned about what he feels is just and fair. This is the same kid that on the first day of second grade, he decided to change all of the school's rules and presented his teacher with a new rule book. Does anybody else have this problem? Ideas are welcomed!

Knute974, all excellent points...Thanks for replying. Yep, that would so be my kid tormenting the poor librarian!!!

Cecilia, our experience with this is that our DS8 has Asperger's Syndrome; people with AS tend to misread social roles and not understand that it's actually a hierarchy, with people having different kinds of power based on their socially assigned roles.

We openly discuss this sort of thing all the time, both with examples ("today my boss told me X and I wanted to do Y but I had to do X") and with literal explanation ("In our family, parents are in charge; you have to do what they say even if you don't want to."). We practice using different kinds of disagreeing words using a polite tone, and we talk about which kinds of words you are allowed to say to whom. For a kid with AS, this is best learned by rote, right in the situation; I (or his teacher) give him a script to say, he uses it, and gradually it becomes part of his repertory of things he knows how to do.

With coaches, piano teacher, etc: does your DS respect them, or just go along because he likes what they have to offer? Our DS's other big issue is "non-preferred" activities-- it is much more difficult for him to follow instructions he's not intrinsically interested in. Yes, that's a little true of all kids, but they are generally more flexible and compliant, and their awareness of the teacher's authority means they go along better. My DS's AS makes following certain instructions feel like a huge obstacle, and he can get obstreperous.

School has been supportive and we are making headway on these issues, again through rote practice: in every situation he encounters, making sure he does it right, and if he doesn't, backing him up to practice the skill of accepting the instructions before going on. Tedious work, but ultimately effective.

My feeling is, if you pull your DS out of school, it might be easier for everyone in the short term, but he'll have fewer occasions to develop the skill of doing what he doesn't want to do.

Which is not to say you should leave him with inappropriate work-- that should be addressed in your plan, too.

HTH,
DeeDee

Edited to add: We found it not enough to talk about "being respectful"-- that kind of general information wasn't useful for DS. We had to specify: "to be respectful, use a pleasant voice, have a pleasant expression on your face, don't use angry words but rather use calm words, choose words that won't make the person mad," and so on.