Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Good meeting with DS's teacher

We have a pretty positive meeting this morning with DS's teacher. Socially he's fitting in well, although a little quiet. That doesn't surprise us too much as he's still adjusting to this new environment.

Near the end of the conversation the teacher even said "I'm surprised that the district allowed you to skip, and that they didn't give you a hard time". ("They did", I replied.) But her attitude was telling: she was supportive of acceleration and appreciated what we were working towards. A good sign.

It was a good back-and-forth talk and the teacher is going to be trying to give DS differentiated material even if it's just writing more instructions on his homework. The math lessons already come with below, at, and above grade level. Unfortunately they'll only go broad, and not accelerate through subjects. Stated another way, DS won't get into any multiplication this year, only addition. However, the teacher will give DS the ability to go deeper with math by doing word problems, having to write more about how he reached his answer, etc. I think the teacher is doing a good job within the framework that she has and certainly some of the differentiation she's talking about with math and reading will help. So that was all very good. We'll have to wait for the GIEP to be completed to get further differentiation.

So my initial impression was that we do have a good teacher, that she'll do what she can do and we have established a good working relationship. Not the end-all be-all, but progress.

JB

Definitely!

The writing on worksheets to make them harder is a good solution in my experience: it's not a lot of extra work for the teacher, and it is possible to pretty significantly raise the level of difficulty of an assignment if the teacher thinks creatively.

It might not be enough, but it might be enough to keep him from melting down.

A good start!

Are you feeling optimistic about it?

JB, that's excellent progress! Realistically, it may be difficult for the school to provide EXACTLY what you envision as the perfect learning environment for your son. I'm glad you have a good teacher who is willing to work with you. DD8 had that last year and it was just a beautiful school year for her.

It all sounds like it's moving in the right direction, YAY!

I think your meeting sounds very positive, JB. The teacher seems to understand the situation and will work with you as much as the framework of the school allows, i.e. within the grade level. That is a tremendous accomplishment. It is tempting to search for the perfect solution within the school system to the extent that you lose sight of all of the great things that you have. A teacher that understands you son's academic needs is worth her weight in gold, IMHO. And if your DS is enjoying school, then that is the most important thing. You can always add some depth or new topics after school to keep the curiosity flowing. I think Kriston's idea of studying the history of math is brilliant! It is one way to give him a deeper understanding of numbers without creating boredom at school at a later date. I'm sure that there are other ways of adding enrichment to math at home that will keep the spark burning as well.

Your DS is very fortunate to have a supportive learning environment. It should be a great year!

Thanks, ebeth, but I take no credit for the history of math idea. Living Math does a lot with this. I was only just smart enough to steal the concept.

Kriston: Some of the greatest inventors and creative minds in our history have "borrowed" ideas from others. Take the credit and run, as far as I'm concerned!!

LOL!

What a great meeting JBDad!!! Yes!

Would the teacher be open to you sending in a Singapore Math workbook? It's only addition and subtraction but if you don't know SM bar diagrams, you can only solve them using algebra. It would be a great way to extend addition/subtraction w/out moving on to multi/div. The problems involved multiple steps and it weans the kid off of having the answer to part a, being required info for part b ie DC has to calculate X which is needed to ultimately find the answer w/out being told to calculate X as part of the first part of the problem.

Also, from the livingmath.net site, there is a series of history of math books where at the end of each section, there are math problems related to the section. For ex: do addition using roman numerals, working in other bases etc. Those DS could bring to school, read on his own, and work through.

DW and I left the meeting pretty happy with the outcome. We are both realists so we know best solution for us will not be the perfect solution (to incogneato & ebeth's point). It was refreshing to hear the teacher's attitude. She's a younger teacher, but experienced (I'd venture a 30-something teacher) so we may be lucky in that she is more open to finding the right solution for all kids. As it turns out, she has a toddler (her first) and at the end of the meeting she was asking us questions about her toddler's milestones. The point being that I think she had a very good appreciation of why we were there and could relate it personally to her own life experience. If that helps her bond with DS and take him as her little project to challenge, then I'm all for it! She's also an intelligent, articulate teacher. Things could be a lot worse.

We also got a better time line on when they're going to be through the review part. We have to wait until Oct to get current reading assessment levels, but we'll get there. We'll supplement at home as his interests dictate.

JB