Prepare yourself for the understatement of the century, PARENTING. IS. HARD.
Okay, so my last post told you all of our struggles with Doodle and math, yadda yadda. Well, I went back, reread it and still agree with most of it. Here's how the last few days have played out...
Doodle had her math test last Friday, and guess what, she got 100%!!!!! We worked so hard and she tried so hard and it paid off, awesome! We even went out to Thai to celebrate, but were v. disappointed to find out that our favorite local Thai restaurant had gone out of business, big bummer. Oops, I digress.... so, worked hard = success, although she was taken aside by the teacher and while Doodle did all of the work herself, I believe there were mild prompts by the teacher. Nice weekend is had by all.
Monday afternoon, pre-scheduled meeting with the teacher to determine how she is falling so behind in math. The long and the short of it all is that Doodle is a bit more, um, shall we say, astute, in playing us all than I would have EVER guessed. Without going into the gory details, the bottom line is that we had no idea what she was working on in math because she was LYING about what homework she had to do on her assignment sheet that we sign EVERY NIGHT and was saying she only had to do math facts. AND, as if that little fact was not enough, the homework that she was supposed to be doing every other night, she was THROWING IT AWAY..IN THE TRASH..IN HER CLASSROOM. You could have blown me away with a feather I was so surprised. This is why she was so lost in math and why we were so lost as to what was going on in her class for math.
When brought into the room with mom, dad and the teacher, the kid had to fess up. You could tell she was rather terrified, but she did not break down. We got into the details, at least to the greatest extent that we are likely going to get, as to why later. I made her apologize to the teacher for being dishonest and we are dealing with the rest at home. I asked her why and she said she just had too much homework. I think that translates into two things, the homework is hard and I don't want to do it and I just want to play.
Now, the other aspect of this is that I think our girl has a learning challenge, likely dyslexia, but that is not confirmed. The new Indiana law is that they must undergo a variety of interventions first and then, the school will test them. I informed the teacher last night that it was time for testing, we have played along, but she gets quite a bit of individual attention in this classroom and so her other grades are decent, but without that individual attention, I don't think they would be as good. She just learns differently and requires more 1X1 time. I told the teacher we would pay and have the testing done and get this....the school will NOT ACCEPT IT. I have a master's degree in clinical psychology, I used to be a neuropsychometrist...I know that a licensed psychologist - in coordination with a neuropsychometrist would conduct the appropriate, and perhaps even more detailed assessment of our child and that the school should be grateful that we are concerned, we care, are willing to pay, etc. I could go on and on!
Anyway, we are trying to get everything in place so we don't have to start from square one with her in a new school system this fall, as we are very likely moving in June...!
All of this to state, our Doodle is much more creative and daring than we have given her credit for in the past. The child strapped them on and did as she pleased. She figured out the teacher was not really seeing what she wrote down nor was she checking, nothing was being said by the teacher about her not turning in math homework, and so this was working out for her, sort of.
Our trust has indeed been shattered for a good while and she will have to regain that over time. But, I am hoping that we can laugh about this in the future and joke about that time in second grade when Doodle threw her homework away...
Life is still THIS GOOD,
CC
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
ooh - how stunning - at least now you know - not sure how I'd deal with it, and it is sort of funny. I have a coaster that says the crises of today is the joke of tomorrow and I guess that sort of sums it up.
Good luck on the new problems you'll have to solve - math and otherwise.
Heather BT
Oh I could so see R doing that. Most of the time she tells me she "doesn't know" what the homework is but her teacher posts it all online so I can figure it out. But probably once a week there's a worksheet or something that she forgot to bring home...
And about the testing? Your teacher is either mistaken or lying. Seriously. You absolutely have the right to get private testing and to present the findings to the district. Granted, most districts will do whatever they can to get out of providing additional/special services, but I still think it's better to arm yourself with good objective assessments of your child. I'm still in the middle of our stuff with R and we haven't gotten the best responses but if we hadn't done private testing I'd be a lot more in the dark right now. Also interesting sidenote... I was worried that R would b stressed by the testing - far from it, in fact she keeps asking me if she can go back and do it again!!
(Here's a link a friend gave me that has proven helpful: http://www.wrightslaw.com/ ... lots of links and info about advocating for your kids, also a blog where they do Q/A's)
Post a Comment