Parent teacher meetings are so stressful. Most teachers can get through a parent teacher meeting in twenty minutes, but in our case it almost always takes two meetings. The first one of course was about Nathan' s behavior and second was about his grades. First I can't believe that you are graded in KINDERGARTEN!!!!! I'm sorry whatever happened to milk and cookies and playing games and making friends and learning in general social skills? Someone please tell me when the standards changed!! My son now needs to not only know all of his letters and sounds and be able to write his name and count to 30 upon entering Kindergarten (which by the way he can do without any problem), he is now expected to be reading books and I'm not talking about simple books, I mean books with tons of words in them! My head is going to explode. Nathan must keep a poetry binder, a journal, and a reading log. He not only has homework everyday, the teachers send home whatever work is not completed in class. THIS IS KINDERGARTEN FOR PETE'S SAKE!!!
Overall Nathan's academic grades were very good. The initial assessment went something like this...Nathan took an exam the week before Kindergarten started. He knew all of is upper case and lower case letters and sounds. He counted to 10 for the teacher, but that was it. Then he wrote his name and the teacher read him a story and he had to answer questions about it, like where is the cover of the book; what do you do with a book; where is the back of a book; which direction do you read the words in the book; what is the difference between a word and a letter? The questions about the book he basically didn't answer and made up his own story. He scored in the partially proficient category for both language arts and math standards upon entering Kindergarten.
Now, 10 weeks later, Nathan's teacher tells us that he is very very smart. His math skills are extremely strong. He can count to 30 and he recognizes all the numbers out of sequence when tested. He completes comparison of two or more sets of up to 10 objects and identifies which set is equal to, more than, or less than the other. He can order numbers up to 30. He uses concrete objects to determine the answers to addition and subtraction problems to sums of 10. He identifies, sorts, and classifies object by attributes. He knows the days of the week, can tell time, knows all his colors and shapes. So having said all of this, Nathan academically is doing very well.
Now for the interesting piece... Student Conduct/Study Skills. I like to look at this as a tremendous growth opportunity for Nathan. Nathan is quite the character. He's his own person and unless you have his buy in and interest, you are likely to experience "challenge" shall we say. So grades for this first 10 weeks with respect to conduct are as follows (FYI the are only three possible scores: consistenly, sometimes, and needs improvement):
Practices self control --- needs improvement
Takes responsibility for own behavior ---need improvement
Relates positively with others --- sometimes
Has appropriate attention span ---needs improvement
Listens and follows directions ---needs improvement
Participates in class ---needs improvement
Follows school/classroom rules ---sometimes
Works independently ---needs improvement
Works cooperatively ---sometimes
Use time productively ---needs improvement
Reads Independently ---sometimes
Completes homework on time ---consistently
Completes class work on time ---needs improvement
Can anyone see a pattern here? The academic grades are fine if not really really good but when the student conduct is factored in, the teachers see Nathan as "a problem" and they just don't want to take the time to work with a child who might need just a little more focused direction. We experienced a similar scenario with this same school district 5 years ago when Erin entered a 1st/2nd Grade combined classroom. The opinion then was that she did not learn fast enough, even though her behavior was never a problem and in fact it was even better than most of the typically developing kids in her classroom, the teachers opinion was that any additional effort towards Erin's academic needs was too much of a burden and would take away from the rest of the classroom's progress.
What I think is going on is that Nathan gets bored really quickly and if he already grasps the material being taught he is not willing to sit around and wait on everyone else to catch up. He doesn't see much use in completing a work sheet that he already understands and can do, so he would rather walk around the classroom and find something more interesting. I help out in Nathan's class on Friday mornings for a couple of hours and I've noticed that Nathan will get up and walk around the classroom, not to be disruptive, he IS quiet, but to find something of interest. He's always listening to the teacher when he walks away so that when the work assignment is handed out, he knows what he is supposed to do. He does not like being singled out in a group. He definitely prefers to hang back, but he's not particularly shy. Once he makes friends he is usually pretty chatty, but he definitely has his quirks and his temperament is unique. I made some suggestions to the teacher about transitioning and making sure that Nathan knows a transition is coming. Pretty common sense things that I would think any teacher would try, but apparently not here. The discipline seems to be more punitive to me, and I suggested rather than a time out, or taking privileges away which works sometimes, to try "Oops that wasn't OK, let's try that again" using a correction and then providing an opportunity to "do over". Drawing Nathan closer rather than pushing him away actually works really really well. You have to tune in to Nathan and figure out what has triggered his behavior and once you do that, he's pretty predictable and you can get him to do what needs to be done. It is work though. His mind is always buzzing (lots of questions) and he's active, not hyper, but definately active.
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