Dear everybody,
I am a new mom to this forum, who has run out of ideas on where to go. I have a 6yo kid, who was in a Montessori kindergarden, and already knows how to read anything, add, subtract, multiply, and started division. We did not do a whole lot extra for her to get here, and I give credit to her teacher and the Montessori education for getting her here. The public school that she has started 3 months ago (a very well rated school district, mind you) gives her drawing and pattern coloring assignments. She used to strongly resent them at first, but now she easily goes through with them in 3 minutes. After 4 meetings with the teacher, principal and psychologist, nothing has happened, she was given 6 more complicated math assignments and has done nothing extra in class. No formal testing. I went and observed her in class, and she lives in lala land (basically absent). She complains about making no friends, as the kids around her don't want to play the games she proposes- usually involved games, and she refuses to play tag or star wars, which is all the other kids play). She likes her teacher on a personal level, but she never says that she ever enjoyed her teaching (while she tells me quite often the she enjoys what she has done in the art or PE class). The teacher is a strong proponent of "She is a 6 year old and needs to be a 6 year old", which translates to "bugg off and leave her alone". The kid is afraid of any kind of change in life (to the point she sticks to my leg wherever we go), and does not want to be moved to a different school/class/grade. She occasionally revolts against us when we give her extra stuff to do, but also has us peel her off stuff that she likes to do at the moment (geography, eg). I don't know what to do any more. I feel like I am letting her waste herself. She makes do without enrichment in school, but she is clearly not happy. She does not want to be different than the other kids, and feels like the extra stuff we give her sets her apart. I feel like the school encourages underperforming and mediocrity, and I do not know how to move from here. Ah, I forgot to mention, in 3 months of school, she was only once asked how much is 5+3 (for the PTA meeting). No other addition or subtraction. When she mentioend that she can do 5 times 3 or 15 divided by 3, the teacher informed her that this is done in third grade. The teacher also occasionally sends home notes with handouts with weird language (eg "tell about a way that you can do your best today"-- is this proper English??). Just yesterday she came with a handwritten note from the teacher spelling caterpillar as caterpiller. I had to pull the MW to convince the kid that she's wrong... Is this normal???
Please help......
