Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Second Conference

Last Thursday I had a second conference at Fragrant Hills to discuss Younger Daughter's progress.  The cast was similar to the first conference, but Sainted Husband wasn't there.  So this time we had my fed-up self, the first-grade teacher, the principal, the reading specialist, the school counselor, the school psychologist, and, on a flying visit, the math specialist.

The meeting began, informally, with me talking to the reading specialist about YD's reading.  I know the specialist socially because one of her kids was a classmate of Older Daughter's at a Montessori pre-school.  We had a very pleasant conversation; she said she was working on phonics with YD (Hooray!), and showed me the book they were reading, about plants that eat bugs.  She said YD enjoyed it, and indeed, YD later gave me an unprompted demonstration of the different ways bugs can be eaten by a plant.  Later, the specialist said something about "strategies", and I said that YD had a bad habit of guessing that I wanted her to get out of.  The specialist made a note of it.

I asked the first-grade teacher how YD's behavior had been, and she said, again, that it was basically okay.  Sometimes there are minor problems, but the teacher doesn't find YD difficult to work with, and YD isn't disrupting the class.  So far, so good.  The principal asked the teacher what concerns she has, and the teacher said, "YD has come a long way from the beginning of the year, but I'm worried that the gap will keep opening up between her and the rest of the class.  She's done OK on the spelling so far, but the spelling lists will just keep getting harder."  (She mentioned the spelling lists twice.)

She said she was worried about YD's social development.  When asked for an example she said that their new math curriculum (Investigations!  Gack!)  requires that the kids pair up for various games.  She assigns the pairs randomly, so the kids will all meet each other.  When she tried to pair YD up with a particular kid, YD said "I don't want to work with him!"

The school counselor said that maybe YD is worried that the other kid understands the math better than she does, and she'll be embarrassed working with him.  I agreed that the fear of embarrassment is a big deal for YD.

(Inside the fed-up brain, I'm thinking, so what?  YD didn't slug the kid.  I think her reaction was pretty mature and reasonable.  Why should they expect every second-grader to be able to work productively with every other second-grader?  And why do they mix up math with social development?)

The math specialist came in, briefly, to show me the results of some testing she had done of YD.  She said YD needed to work more on coins, clocks, and subtraction, which I made a note of so we can follow up at home.  She also said that YD tested out in the average range compared to other kids.  YD always shows up in the average range, which is remarkable, considering how hard she fights taking the tests at all.

(Back inside the fed-up brain, I'm thinking, if you can afford to spend 10 minutes explaining to me that YD doesn't seem to know her coin values, couldn't you have spent 10 minutes, oh, I dunno, teaching YD about coin values?)

That was most of the conference, except for the school psychologist expressing her contempt for me.  Now that a little time has passed, I realize that, on balance, the conference went extremely well.  The next one is scheduled for January.  I figure if we keep on after-schooling YD, she should be in good shape by then.

16 comments:

  1. I hate how they mix up EVERYTHING with "social development!" I know we have to find ways to get along with each other, but do we have to be chatty and perky all the time and then on our "FREE" time get crammed into a lunch room with 237 other screaming kids? Really? :(

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  2. Happy Hands Montessori Nursery provide a carefully prepared program of education, in a happy, relaxed and caring environment where your child can grow and learn through a positive, creative and progressive experience.

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  3. Sometimes, when talking about primary school to my friends, the following comment comes up: "Primary school was great! You learned social skills..."

    Well, I'm afraid that I probably missed out on that. Why? Because I wasn't there to socialise. I was there to learn, and that was what I barely got in primary school. Meanwhile, the primary school teachers continually told us that "we went to school to learn," so why didn't they teach us something? Furthermore, socialising in class wasn't supposed to be allowed either (though talking in class was all everyone did in my primary school). Such contradictory messages- I'm surprised that I wasn't more confused in primary school than I was...

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  4. Hienuri, I think I can break the code. When primary school teachers tell the kids "you're here to learn", they don't mean actual subjects like math or history. They mean the kids are there to learn what used to be called "the hidden curriculum" -- how to sit quietly, raise your hand for permission to speak, keep your desk organized, complete and turn in your homework, etc.

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  5. Didn't you feel bad that your daughter probably hurt the other child's feelings?

    You have a really bad habit of missing the point. The point isn't that math is being "confused" with social development, the point is that your daughter was rude to another child and you - and the teacher - should be correcting that behavior.

    Some day, she'll be at work and she can't just shout out "I don't want to work with him!" when the boss says she needs to work on a project with a particular coworker. It will be unprofessional and impolite.

    A big part of your job as a mother is to teach your child to be sensitive to the feelings of others and it doesn't seem like you're taking that responsibility very seriously.

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  6. Anonymous, this is a second grade class. It seems to me it's a tall order to ask very young kids to be able to work with any other child in the classroom, in a random pairing assigned by the teacher. I would expect some hiccups, and a child telling the teacher "I don't want to work with that kid!" seems minor.

    ***
    Some day, she'll be at work
    ***

    She'll be an adult by then. 8-year-old kids are different from adults.

    ***
    the point is that your daughter was rude to another child and you - and the teacher - should be correcting that behavior.
    ***

    Absolutely not. Classroom management is the teacher's job, not mine. I don't "correct" my daughter for what seems like a reasonable response to a difficult situation the teacher put her in.

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  7. I find it pretty astounding that you don't care about your daughter behaving in a way that was DEFINITELY hurtful to another child. Your daughter didn't tell the teacher that she didn't want to work with the other kid, you said that she blurted it out. That means the other kid heard. Obviously, your daughter made a mistake and it's not the end of the world, but your reaction here is really surprising. Your justification of her behavior as "kids will be kids" is just further proof that a lot of your kids' problems at school are frankly your fault. You make a big deal about things that aren't a big deal (homework) and you don't make a big deal about things that are a big deal (your child being mean to another child).

    I wish your children luck. They are in for a lot of heartache and tough lessons because you have an axe to grind with the public education system.

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  8. Anonymous: You're way off. FedUpMom never said her daughter blurted it out, or that she said it in front of the other child. She said that YD "said 'I don't want to work with him!'" and described it as "telling the teacher 'I don't want to work with that kid!'" So where's the basis for your accusation? And who's got the axe to grind?

    Also, what is your basis for saying that homework is not a big deal?

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  9. Anonymous, I think you're the one with the axe to grind. I actually don't know whether the other child heard my daughter say she didn't want to work with him or not.

    Also, I don't know why my daughter didn't want to work with him, but it's entirely possible that this particular kid was mean to her. If that's the case, I'm not so worried about the possibility of his feelings getting hurt.

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  10. Anonymous says:

    ***
    Obviously, your daughter made a mistake
    ***

    I don't agree with this at all. The teacher tried to pair my daughter up with a kid she didn't want to work with, so she told the teacher she didn't want to work with that kid. I don't see any mistake.

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  11. Other kids often didn't want to work with me when I was a kid. I was socially awkward, I was short, I had a whiny voice, etc. When kids said stuff like that about me, it broke my heart. School was hell for many reasons, but kids saying things like that was the worst part about it. I would have done twice the amount of work if someone would have voluntarily been my math partner in elementary school.

    I totally get that sometimes we genuinely don't want to work with someone else. I also realize maybe your daughter had a really good reason, maybe this kid was mean to her. But we talk a lot on here about teachers mistreating kids for things they can't control. Other kids do the same thing, and it leaves a lasting scar.

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  12. Well, my YD said a while ago that one of the kids laughed at her when she got a question wrong. Was it the same kid she later said she didn't want to work with? I don't know.

    I understand that school can be very difficult socially for kids. It certainly was for me! I was short, socially awkward, and both chronologically young for the class and emotionally young for my age. So, for instance, I was 12-going-on-9 when the other girls in my class were 13-going-on-35. Not a good situation.

    These are tricky issues that are not always easy to solve, and certainly can't be solved with rigid rules and expectations.

    Suppose my daughter was about to be paired up with the kid who laughed at her when she got a question wrong. Shouldn't she be able to say "I don't want to work with him?" Or, suppose she was about to be paired up with the class brain, and was afraid of being embarrassed because she's behind. What should she do then?

    I'm saying that I don't see the point in scolding my daughter for saying she didn't want to work with the other kid. I wasn't there, and I don't know the whole situation. Even the people who were there don't know the whole situation! (For instance, the teacher didn't know that one of the kids had laughed at YD until I mentioned it to her. She said she would keep an eye on it.)

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  13. Silly to venture guesses with veritable strangers for two days when you could simply ask the kid what was up with that.

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  14. Anonymous, the only reason I'm discussing it at all is because people keep writing comments about it. My plan was, and is, to let it go. I'm not interested in getting into it with YD because I don't think it's that important. I don't even know when it was and whether she remembers the incident.

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  15. The only important thing about it for you is it provided blog fodder.

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  16. I think it's time to stop feeding the troll.

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