I surprised myself yesterday and had a complete breakdown.<\/p>\n
The trigger? An Ask Moxie post about fears for the school year.<\/p>\n
Turns out I have a few. More than a few, actually. In some ways I feel like I completely failed Erik last year by not being more demanding. Why didn’t I become the squeaky wheel and make<\/i> his teacher pay more attention to his needs? Especially when it became abundantly clear that she just didn’t like him as a person. <\/p>\n
He has already informed me that he is not going back to school, that he hates school, that it’s a useless waste of his time.<\/p>\n
No rising first grader should feel that way. I suppose it is not really a failure on my part. I could not control the teacher. I gave her plenty of ideas on ways to make Erik enjoy class more and she refused them all.<\/p>\n
I dread another awful year. Every time I think about it I start crying. I want to have a conference with his new teacher right away and make a game plan for the year, but then I fear that I will be labelled as the crazy parent and he will be labelled a difficult kid and the year will be worse than ever. What is too much and what is too little? My normal meter is broken. In my family we were taught to shut up and take it because obviously we knew nothing and the people in authority knew everything. It is very hard to overcome that mentality.<\/p>\n
I have one suggestion that I really want the teacher to hear, understand and act upon. Just one. I think it would make a world of difference in Erik’s attitude towards school. I don’t know how to make it happen and I am afraid that if I have a meeting and I’m met with resistance I will start sobbing or yelling and stomp out while screeching that I’m going to become a homeschooler and they’ll never see Erik again. That’s the kind of place I’m at with the whole school thing and you KNOW I do not want to be a homeschooler. I do not have the patience for it and in general I don’t think it would be the best course for Erik.<\/p>\n
What I want? Something so simple I don’t understand why it can’t be implemented. Yet his kindergarten teacher refused to even consider the idea, so maybe I am way off base.<\/p>\n
Generally when students finish their work they are asked to sit quietly and read a book. He HATES reading a book. He’ll do it, but he feels like it is a punishment. Mike and I are huge readers so this is very hurtful, but it is what it is. <\/p>\n
I would like them to let him sit and do word problems. It’s still reading, but it has a math component and he is in seventh heaven when he gets to do story problems. He’s completed a few word problem books this summer and would love to do more.<\/p>\n
I am happy to provide them. Obviously I would prefer if the school provided them since they have more resources, but I will buy as many damn story problem books as they want if they will just let this happen.<\/p>\n
Up until last year I would always try to give the teacher the benefit of the doubt any time I heard a story like this. I would always point out the good things about public education. I’ve been a public school teacher. It’s no secret they are seriously overworked, underpaid and have a lot of rules to follow and roles to fill that take away from actual teaching. <\/p>\n
I’m starting to hate public education. How is my child ever going to reach his potential, when he spends the vast majority of his school time waiting for his teacher to catch a few slower kids up to an acceptable standard? Great teachers can handle the various levels in the class and make learning meaningful for everyone, but how many great teachers are there?<\/p>\n
Children who are ahead of the game were completely ignored in Erik’s class last year. I know people have been saying this for years, but I guess it didn’t hit me until I saw it happening to my own child. I kept thinking that everyone was exaggerating and trying to seek out more than their own special snowflake deserved, but no. Erik was lucky if he got to go to reading group once a week. Other kids were in reading group every day. So what was he doing while his teacher worked with small groups? Probably staring in the mirror (that’s all he did the day I was in for observation). <\/p>\n
Anyway, I have to quit typing now. I have to quit thinking so negatively. I don’t know how to stop, though. A good teacher will make all the difference, but I won’t have any idea if he has a good teacher until much to late to do anything about it. I know nothing about any of the teachers, and even if I did we don’t find out class assignments until the Friday night before school starts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I surprised myself yesterday and had a complete breakdown. The trigger? An Ask Moxie post about fears for the school year. Turns out I have a few. More than a few, actually. In some ways I feel like I completely failed Erik last year by not being more demanding. Why didn’t I become the squeaky […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=972"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":973,"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions\/973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog2.queenoframbles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}