Thanks for your feedback, acs.
He loves reading, science of all types, especially chemistry and physics right now. He wanted to know what made bombs explode, so I googled it with him, we discussed, he told friends at school (four days before the first official parent-teacher conference night) and I got called by the teacher to make sure I set up this conference appointment and discussed whether my child wanted to make a bomb for real! The principal stopped by the classroom while I was there. DH assumes the incident is now in his Permanent Record.
The teacher is Quaker and I think he is really appalled by my son's interest in wars and fighting and knowledge of gruesome medieval weapons. DS never actually fights or talks about hurting anyone he knows or anyone for real. Every year, someone -- one of the lunch ladies, recess ladies, or afterschool teachers, or the school janitor pulls me aside and says I have a really kind, gentle, well-behaved child. I don't really know what prompts this --it just happened again a few weeks ago.
But I digress-- I just didn't want you to get the misimpression he's some troubled, brooding child who will have a violent outburst!
Do you think it would make sense to focus our afterschooling efforts completely on library/reading/discussing books and learning the science he is interested in?
I feel like we can't ignore math learning, since he is getting so little of it in school, and in a way that he seems to be getting worse at math, not better. He's actually started to think he's bad at it. From IQ testing, I know that's not true. Also, in this large city, your middle school acceptance is mostly based on your state math and reading scores from 4th grade. There is no zoned middle school, so bad scores put you at a bad middle school.
On the other hand, while math is important, what we are doing seems to be building resentment AND doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything. He's really not accustomed to having to work at anything.
That also worries me, because I think it's dangerous for a child not to be challenged at anything. I feel like I need to be pushing on something, to make sure he is getting challenge somewhere. Right now, he absorbs a lot of science information, but really, learning tons of information isn't a challenge for him. Perhaps if we try to talk more about the concepts? On the other hand, if I start to push ever so slightly on science, perhaps he will decide he hates that, too?
