gone

A week should cure her enthusiasm.

DD11, 6th grade, had been warned about the cruelty of middle schoolers, but apparently she was expecting the teachers to teach once they got past the 2-day orientation to the school. "I know *I* probably won't learn anything new, but I thought the other kids would!"
Science, Day 1: look for pictures in the book you think are interesting
Day 2: discuss the pictures and diagrams in Chapter 1, Part 1
Day 3: discuss the definitions of the highlighted vocabulary words in Chapter 1, Part 1, and make an artistic poster for the wall defining "Observing" (Mom, I don't think there was anyone in that room who didn't know what 'observing' meant in kindergarten).

Enthusiasm effectively cured. Can't wait for Day 4.

DD7 is still enthusiastic going into Day 2, with only a bit of a damper due to the (fact?) that her 2nd grade class is the only one that can't bring snacks. I use the term loosely because I'm not sure if she understood properly or if that is in fact the case. She's really bummed about it anyway.

DS10 is dampened completely already due to the "homework" he had to do this morning -- he and I had to sign all the syllabi for his classes, and he had to come up with a comment and a question to write on the math one. Woe is him. He could have done it last night, but I didn't manage to get around to checking his backpack until after he was in bed, and he didn't look closely enough at it or didn't remember to tell me other than "you have to sign stuff". Just wait till the regular homework kicks in!

This reminds me of Ramona Quimby's first day of kindergarten, and how she kept wondering when they were going to learn stuff like reading.

DD6 started talking all the time about going to kindergarten when she was just turning 3 so you can imagine how excited she was last year when the moment finally came. At this point she was already reading 4-6th grade level books, knew basic addition, subtraction, simple multiplying and fractions etc

I remember her sitting at breakfast exclaiming excitedly "finally I am going to kindergarten where I can learn to READ and WRITE and do MATH....(pause)....of course I already know how to read...(pause)...and write...(pause).... and do math...well...(long pause)...I am sure it will be fun anyway."

And of course it wasn't. The first question on the "getting to know you" questionaire the 1st teacher sent home yesterday is "Does your child like school?" I am still contemplating the answer. Leaning towards answering, "She really wants to like school." and leaving off the "but it was a really big let down last year" as I would like to sound positive about the upcoming year.

How about "She really likes to learn new things."? It sounds positive, is truthful and may open a discussion later about what she doesn't yet know.

DS's 8th grade math teacher spent the whole first week of school on administrivia: reading the rules, discussing the rules, penalties for breaking the rules, filling out forms that said you understood the rules, and taking forms home so that parents could read rules and sign off on same. Then they talked about "math myths" like "there's no such thing as a mathy mind." Believe it or not, things actually went downhill from there. The math instruction that year was risible.

I like Ametrine's response. It becomes something you can circle back to when the problem of fit becomes apparent. "The problem is, she loves to learn new things, and..."

That sounds about like the first week with Connections in most high school courses.

Here, this is our class. It is about {subject}.
This is an introduction to the various types of assignments in our class.
This is how various types of assignments will be graded.
This is a list of the materials that you should have available for you.
You should organize your schedule so that you get these large projects completed-- here is an organizer to help you with that.
Finally-- a QUIZ! About our CLASS! (Sometimes this is related to class structure, sometimes it covers formatting assignments, etc.)

Yup. First four days-- even in AP.

Yes! That. DS had to take a quiz and had to mark "True" for "There is no such thing as a mathy mind."

well of course there is no such thing as a "mathy mind" because we all are gifted with unlimited potential to do anything. Right?

I suppose they are just trying to encourage the child who is intimidated by math but it is rather silly. Telling me that there is no natural athletic ability does not suddenly make it possible for me to run a marathon in 2 hours no matter how long or hard I trained.

Anyway, I do like Ametrine's answer about "she likes to learn new things" although it amuses me because the question and answer seem to make sense on the surface but in reality they have nothing to do with each other and I haven't really answered the question at all.

I love Master of None's answer "not yet" but I don't want to sound terribly negative and have teacher start off defensive. She might just be concerned but she might be put off.

My DD only enjoyed her 30 min of "choice time" daily when she did art projects on her own. She learned nothing. She took months to make friends. BUT she didn't hate it either, she just didn't like it and it was a huge let down from her high expectations. Funny, now that she is anxious about 1st grade, she is looking back on kindergarten and saying she did like it. But in the moment, she sure didn't.

I sent the teacher an email to see if I can meet with her for a few minutes tomorrow so hopefully I can keep my answers short and explain more in person. I don't really want to put all my concerns on her little questionaire and call it good.

Gosh, not my approach at all! Believe me, I know from DS's experiences that the "terrible" will come, but while DD is little and still enthusiastic, I'm definitely not telling her to keep looking for it. The longer she doesn't notice it the better IMO - we'll deal with it when it comes and not before. Cos that's kind of a downer.

The bad girl chair? Are you flipping kidding me?

DS5 ... today was his 2nd day in Kindergarten. He wants to go back to preschool because preschool was a lot more fun. He used to tell me what he did in preschool every day. Now ... I got nothing ... two days, and I got NO info from him. Other than he was upset yesterday because the kids went to gym and he didn't (I'm assuming a misunderstanding because of his asthma. He's supposed to have gym but limited activity and needs his backpack with inhaler to go with them just in case). And we also got one of those "get to know your child better" questionnaires. One of the questions was ... Does your child recognize numbers to 12? ... so I crossed it out and put in 100 (he can do more but I figured I'd ease in the teacher carefully :)). Then there was a question How high can your child count? ... my answer was "I don't know". I truly don't know. I know he can do addition to 20 (with about 90% accuracy) but no clue how high he can count? Then if he can recognize upper case and lower case letters. Oy! I'm glad he came to this world couple weeks early and made it before the cut off so he doesn't have to wait another year to be bored in Kindergarten! But at least he can't read yet so he DOES have big things to learn. I just hope I'm wrong with my suspicion of Dyslexia / Dysgraphia.

But there IS one positive. The school ended up opening one more Kindergarten class (they are all just half days) because the original classes were too big and I volunteered him to be switched to the new class and for now there's just SIX kids! So, fingers crossed, I'm hoping to see some unofficial differentiation once the teacher gets to know him ... I hope

Moomin, you said you and DW really wanted DD in this school. Was that because of the language program?

I think I'd be shopping in other districts and programs if I were you.

DeeDee

The BAD GIRL CHAIR? I have no words.

Forgot to mention ... I had a dream last night, that DS5 got kicked out of Kindergarten! What an awesome dream to have after just ONE day of school? All I remember from the dream was me trying to explain to the school officials that "it's not immaturity! It's natural curiosity!" ... I still think we'll end up homeschooling! I can't take this! lol

Moomin, I commend your daughter for her indignation and adroit moving up the chain of command to express her dissatisfaction. I hope that you won't allow that fool of a teacher and the principal to treat your child so disrespectfully.

A "bad girl chair"?! Maybe day 2 is "dunce cap throwback day" and the administrators will be sporting fancy new hats.

MK, I don't think it takes Freud to interpret that dream! I dream (literally) of homeschooling DS in kindergarten, so I feel you.

we went to the Kindergarten orientation before school started and while the other 20 kids were just standing there, looking around, holding onto their parents, DS5 was running around, checking things out, while talking nonstop, while trying to see if he could sneak out into the office and check out their huge copier and possibly take it apart to see how it works. I was like an ostrich trying to hide my head in the sand but there was no escaping his nuttiness! lol ... oh, and he had so many questions for the teachers and just couldn't understand why she didn't have time to discuss with him what's in that box in the corner that has the picture of a key on it and "no, really? These are all books? That is AMAZING!" ... and he went on and on and on. I just don't see how they can calm him down. It seems to be 10 times worse than it was last year in preschool!

Moomin, it sounds like your DD is completely sane, and unfortunately possessed of the (apparently mistaken) idea that she ought to be treated like a human being and listened to. Schools, in general, and many (most) adults are not accustomed to the idea of children as fully functional people with valid opinions and points of view who deserve to be listened to and treated with respect. Yes she has to learn to behave respectfully to, and clearly there are some problems there, but I would not want to squash her the way school clearly expect/need to either. If they would not treat an adult that way they should treat your DD that way.

Sorry the day didn't go smoother.

I do like the part where the principal actually came. And then even more the part where her own teacher and the principal ignored her, while she was able to blow off steam at a third party. That actually sounds ideal. It's great she saw that if she throws a fit it will be taken seriously but also great that after acknowledging it they moved on with their day (and didn't reward her either by calling her dad to come get her).

I wonder what your DD would suggest for what the teacher should do with her rather than a time-out type chair, for when she is disruptive?

Seems like the teacher and principal handled the first day well (well minus the naughty chair idea). It does seem good that the teacher has lots of experience, probably has seen various other kids with behavioral issues over the years. Hopefully once they get over the initial shock of having a difficult student maybe they will have patience and see it as a challenge.

Great that your DD basically enjoyed her first day. The desire to be allowed to attend could be a great motivator for her to learn appropriate ways to express herself.

I see that they placed your DD with a teacher who believes in name and shame.

It's good for veteran teaches to have a student once in awhile who makes them question what it is exactly that they're doing.

It was not the greatest start but I don't think it was the worst start either. She was able to rejoin her class and that is a good sign.

Mk13, that reminds me of DD at every school visit we did!

The bad girl chair etc would for me mean a meeting discussing their discipline philosophy and plan because, and I'm sorry but as a mom and teacher I can't fathom it, WTF?! Honestly my kid would be out of there. And my husband would probably be reading them the riot act. There's just so much (as in counter to all child development and educational research) wrong with that! She did expect to be treated like a person I am glad she seems to be able to bounce back from that.

Honestly even today I am still just shocked and horrified at the "bad girl chair". Obviously your dd shouldn't have thrown the chair but wow. And, esp. as a Spanish teacher, I would so love to read your dd's letter, and to see the expression on the adult's faces when they read it. I hope today goes better for her.

I have to say that this made me laugh, and I admire your ability to maintain a sense of humor in a difficult situation. I would really love to meet your dd.

Honestly--"no soy una chica mala" just brought tears to my eyes. Your poor dd. A teacher who does not respond well to that would have a heart of stone. I really hope she has a better day today.

And that is also very heartening in its way.

"It's not your fault, it's your challenge" is what we say at our house about behavior that's outside the norm. One still has to try to follow the social rules, but it's SO important to acknowledge repeatedly that one is not a bad person even if these lessons aren't easy.

DeeDee

Oh moomin... I don't even have words. I feel like you might get lucky, once or twice, over the course of your daughter's education and get a teacher who is a match for her. But I doubt this is the year!

Her letter just kills me, btw!

Ella no es una chica mala.


I'm glad that SHE knows this, too. I certainly hope that she has a better day, Moomin.

I have to agree that it DOES sound like a Ramona Quimby day.

Moomin--you are absolutely 100% sure that it is officially called the bad girl chair and DD was called a bad girl? Because I would be calling some folks about that like, NOW.

Is it possible she was put in time out and just interpreted it that way?

We are sort of slumping/inching our way through the start of K over here. I'm being patient. DS is trying hard. On the positive side, DD9 seems to have an AMAZING teacher.

Oh, sorry--I see that was just asked.

Moomin-perhaps it is time for homeschooling. I just feel for your daughter so much. (and for the parents who must contemplate stepping out of career to do so)

From what you have said here...it seems to me that maybe it wasn't called the bad girl chair, but that "bad girl" came from somewhere. Why did she bring it up in the letter if she wasn't refuting what she heard the teacher say?
Aside: this also reminded me of when I studied in Chile, and meant to tell a professor that I had really enjoyed her class and got confused and used "enojar" (to anger for non-Spanish speakers). It was a politics class and we had had some spirited debates. The professor was like, "umm, yeah, Freudian slip much?" lol!
Anyway--your dd sounds like an amazing little person, with some big challenges and lessons to learn. I hope the school can figure out how to accomodate her if homeschooling isn't possible.

#1 on my list for her would be a prescription (likely offered by your private professionals) for how social mistakes are to be handled to maximize her learning and minimize disruption. This would include positive praise for good participation, but also a very concrete plan for what to do when things are going wrong.

(On an IEP this would be called a behavior plan.)


This is a good plan. If school won't find an effective way to solve school problems, it's next to impossible to solve those problems from home. You need the whole school team on board.

DeeDee

That's our policy. I looked over DD's teacher's behavioral policy with DD, and I pointed at the very lowest level, where the teacher notifies the parent, and I said, "Unless you behave so badly that it gets to that level, I don't care. Anything else that happens for the day is between you and your teacher."

DD8 is a behavior perfectionist, and perfect behavior in a bad educational environment has caused her some significant stress in the past, so I find myself in the unique position of overtly encouraging a limited amount of mischief.

Soooo.... and exactly how is that an issue? Just curious... I'd have been tempted to ask the principal. My kids have always been in schools where parent participation was welcomed in the classroom at any time during the day (including being able to just drop in with no advance warning). I've helped out quite a bit in different classrooms over the years, so have a few other parents, but the vast majority of students' parents don't or want to and can't because of work schedules. I've never seen an uprising of young students refusing to do schoolwork because one student's parent is present and their own particular parent isn't there. Instead what I've more often seen is that most of the kids get excited about having any parent in the classroom and they appreciate it and it can add a little bit of motivation to the classroom as well as helping the teacher out with grunt work.

So I just find the principal's statement curious. I can guess a bit about where it's coming from - some of my friends who are teachers don't like having parents in the classroom because they think the parents are focused on the teaching, maybe questioning it or somehow making it more difficult for the teachers feel they are free to do their thing without eyes who don't understand teaching and haven't learned how to teach watching with opinions. I haven't heard them say that they don't want parents there because the parents are distracting students or because it makes all of the students want to have their parent in class.

polarbear

ps - the comment about "dd gets to have a parent in the room" - that's not really how it works usually with parent volunteers - ie, the parent isn't personaly accompanying their child and ignoring all the rest of the kids, unless that's what you were proposing, which I doubt it was! A parent in the classroom is usually shared among all the kids....

I agree with this too - and I hope the school team is able to come up with accommodations that are effective. The one tiny thing that I'd add is that while I wouldn't use consequences at home for school behavior, I would talk to my child about appropriate behavior at school. I realize you must be doing this moomin, but for instance, chair-throwing - you can have empathy and understanding for why your dd threw the chair - I can see my impulsive dd doing something like this because she's mad, frustrated and her body "just does it" without thinking - but I also need to work with her (talk through it) to help her understand it's not appropriate behavior no matter how frustrated she is. You throw a chair and someone can get hurt - even if you don't throw it purposely at another person and you're just throwing it because you're mad. My youngest dd does lash out with her body when she's upset - and she is an anxious child who gets upset. WIth her we have to work in parallel paths - one path is working on understanding the anxiety - where it comes from, what triggers it, etc - and the parallel path that we work at the same time is how to control her frustration and anger so that she doesn't get in trouble, and so that she doesn't accidentally hurt someone else.

I am so happy for your dd that her day appears to be going well today - I hope she enjoys her new friends and school gets better

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - don't know if this would happen with your dd or not, but I can see my anxious dd saying that she'd been sent to the "bad chair" and had a teacher say she was "bad" in front of the class - not because the teacher had specifically used the word "bad" but because she (my dd) *felt* bad during the event. So the suggestion from the teacher isn't a word, it's in the teacher's actions and how they are internalized by the student.

Could we have that in English, please, for those of us who are woefully and shamefully not fluent in Spanish? I can make out "I'm sorry", "I'm not a bad girl", "My papa says I'm a good girl...", but I'm stuck on the rest.

Nautigal I had to run it through google translate.

It is great that she had a better day, Moomin. I'm glad.

Has she read the Ramona books? I can imagine ds4 doing something similar if that is any comfort.

Hoping this week goes well. I am rooting for your dd.

Exactly! The teacher probably isn't used to a child having valid thoughts and opinions! I can see our DD6 doing the same thing as your daughter. She says she doesn't like school because: it's too long, she has to sit too much and her bottom hurts, she doesn't appreciate the kids with behavior problems disrupting class and it's boring. Every day I struggle to get her ready and out the door. I've come to realize that until something is different with DD's school this is how it will probably be every morning:-(

Moomin -- how has the rest of the week gone? I hope okay.

Is it possible that this is all driven by how different she actually is from age peers and that she's learned that children and strange and unpredictable compared to more mature adults? I know it's counter intuitive but is it possible she would cope better with older class mates and appropriate work?

Yeah I was assuming a radical skip (to at least the level of her weakest area, possibly a grade above thst so that she actually has to work to bring 1-2 areas up to speed) for experiment sake. I can see it would be risky but this seems risky too. I have not had to deal with nearly such an advanced child so it's easy for me to talk. I do wonder, if you are you to try, whether its better to try before she's more scarred by school and they by her? Maybe a 2-4 week trial?

Aw well compared to throwing chairs it sounds splendid. What is SST?

Student study team. Often the first step for addressing any special student needs.

Supposedly they are supposed to brainstorm what interventions and accommodations can be made in order for the child to succeed. These are supposed to be normal, easy interventions (change seats, after school tutoring, guidance counselor sessions, etc). You have to try at least two and document them and give them a chance to fail, I mean work. Then once they fail you can decide to begin assessments both classroom and psychologist administered to find more information to determine the scope of the problem and eligibility.

But now you have Response To Intervention and there supposedly are more push in assistants giving small group instruction and in our school they schedule an entire 30 minute intervention period (my son tends to get gifted enrichment during this time at the elementary school and at the middle school those not getting intervention get drop everything and read two days a week and study hall the other).

SST sounds alarming, yes-- but--

that's exactly what the school used when we weren't sure whether to do an additional skip with DD in 6th grade.

So as long as the players involved are genuinely interested in doing something that works FOR THE STUDENT (as opposed to moving a 'problem' to be someone ELSE's problem, if you catch my drift there)...

it can be a positive thing, and it may not have to even go any further if "normal" interventions are enough... and honestly, there isn't any law that says that the interventions normally written into 504/IEP plans cannot be offered as placement options/interventions for any student... it's just that they HAVE to be offered to eligible students who have status as QID's (Qualified Individual with Disability).

It does sound as though what she ACTUALLY could use is an academic setting 4y or so beyond what she has... but with a physical setting that keeps her in age-appropriate expectations for behavior and emotional regulation. I'm not sure how you get that. Well, I know how we did it, but my DD didn't have the difficulty with emotional regulation to this degree.

Any standard placement is going to chafe, probably-- you just have to figure out least-worst. Look at it this way, at least the other people involved may know of options that you don't.

Sounds to me like it is definitely time for a note to the teacher-- expressing appreciation.

(I did this early and often until my DD was in middle school. She was not trivial to accommodate, and I deeply appreciated teachers that opted to honor her rather than "pruning" her into conformity.)

Her teacher really does sound like she's trying very hard. Let's hope that continues!!

Glad to hear about the letter writing homework, that sounds like a positive sign.

I thought of your DD today as my DS6 has been coming home from 1st grade in a good mood saying "good" or "great" about his day. I had requested a meeting with the teacher before school started (to prep them as he is new to the school) but it ended up today, and as it turns out all is not well. As it happens, DS is acting oppositional, being (mildly) disruptive, frighteningly wiggly, inexplicably leaves his seat, has cried every day. Improving over the days but lots of struggles taking up teacher time.

She is concerned he'll refuse to do the placement tests for grouping (I'm happy there is grouping). I was able to reassure her that he loves tests of any kind. I didn't know what to say to her though, she seemed to be open minded and want insight. Which was nice in and of itself I suppose. I said he has an intense personality and does best with choices and that several experts agree no ADHD. It's weeks and weeks too early to discuss differentiation. They did a 2+3 sort of worksheet today. I didn't feel it was fair to even bring it up at all, she seemed to get that he was smart but it's premature to go much further as there's nothing she could do at this point, even grouping doesn't start for a month probably.

What I want to do is tell her about 7 19s on the wisc and say to just let him go read some textbooks in the back of the room. That if she doesn't bother him he won't bother the class. That he'll be fine as long as he doesn't have to do Your Curriculum. Of course I can't say that. And it's not really valid to suggest anything so extreme as he needs lots of work on handwriting and handwriting seems to be worked in to all their subjects. So instead I recommended to give him a written list of allowed and forbidden ways of expressing himself.

I guess I should just be happy he's not refusing to go or doing anything more dramatic than rolling on the ground in tears. But it's discouraging, to have assumed that everything must be going okay and then to listen to a list of "and then he".

I feel you - this totally sucks. I had the same reaction to DD's 2nd grade teacher with similar comments. DD does not have any memory of much of the bad behavior that is reported by adults. The camp nurse called me from Girl Scout camp this year to discuss her overreactions, but DD didn't remember any of it when she came home.

All I can say is to let yourself feel the discouragement, then buckle down and work on it. This too shall pass (and so will he).

I guess we are lucky, DS4 loves his prek. I overheard a friend of ours ask him what he is learning at school. He replied, oh I don't learn anything at school, i just go there to help with the two year olds on the playground and take care of the butterfly garden. We moved him to this play based school
Because he was so unhappy in the gifted pre-k he was in. At least he feels
He has a purpose. Next year will most likely be a totally different story.

Woot!! I so hope this sticks. Hopefully the teacher will see the fruits of her efforts and flexibility and it will help increase her tolerance for and reduce the magnitude of inevitable bumps! And if she's managing your DD maybe she's managing the other kids well enough that there will be much less chaos to trigger stress.

That is truly heartwarming to hear -- you must be so relieved. Even if she has difficult days in the future everyone now knows (including her) that it's possible for her to fit in there. What awesome news.