Blue Horse Peace Talks
The battle is over for now. The boy will stay in this class, and we will work with him to try to help his progress.
We had a meeting with his teacher (and her student teacher and another random teacher who acted as a witness/bodyguard) and it went well enough. The end result is that things will stay as they are.
When we arrived the teacher was escorting the class to a different part of the school for their weekly Korean lesson. We waited for her to return and then all sat around the only round table in the classroom. I made sure to sit next to the teacher so that we did not have to have direct eye contact through the meeting.
The first thing I did was to apologize. I had requested the meeting on Tuesday, and handled things badly. I knew I should have done nothing more than request a time to meet, but then she asked why we were meeting and I could not help but tell her. That short meeting ended with her offering to sign the papers needed to get him out of the classroom.
I told her that nothing could be decided before all of us sat down, and definitely not before I spoke to the boy about her. We spoke with him on Wednesday and he said he liked her ok, and that she was a hard teacher, but that she was not mean. I also spoke with other parents. People told me that she was hard but fair and that if they had to do it over again they would put their children back in her class. I did not hear the same about other teachers. I heard nothing truly negative about any other teacher, but I heard no glowing reviews, either. Based on this, and on the fact that he has shown growth in the first three weeks of the school year, we decided that he should stay in her class.
She was startled by my apology, but accepted it, and said it would be no problem to keep him in the class, and that it was our decision. We agreed to start over and she agreed to put this behind her while dealing with him. Of course those promises are lies, but I think if I stay out of her way as much as possible (while still letting her know I am ever present), that the damage done to his standing in her eyes will be minimal.
It was made clear during our talk that she sees the boy as one of the slowest in the class. She says he is behind in every subject, but particularly in reading and writing. We told her that we knew he was behind in those areas, and that we would work with him at home, but that he resists working with us and is more comfortable with a "teacher". This is the main reason that home schooling was rejected two years ago. I'm Mom, and he can not see me as Teacher. She suggested that we read to him every night. We told her that we do read to him every night and that he enjoys hearing us read. We mentioned that we are reading book four of the Harry Potter series, and that we read a chapter a day. She looked skeptical, but there isn't much we can do to prove it to anyone, so we will not let it bother us.
One interesting thing. We were asked by the random teacher where we were last year. It turned out that she had also been in Vilseck. When we told her TargetCat's Kindergarden teacher's name, she rolled her eyes and said "Well that explains a lot." We all really liked his teacher, so I asked her what she meant by the comment. She replied that the Kindergarden teachers were divided into two types. One was more academic, the other more like preschool. Guess which one she classified his teacher as being? We also explained that he had spent a year in the German school and that his main friendships were with adults and with German children, not American kids. The response was "He does not know his Mother Goose, so he does not know rhyming words." He does not know Mother Goose because I can't remember much of it, never liked it, and felt no need to go back and learn it. Zanla never knew it to begin with. Instead of awful kids music we have always played whatever music makes us happy.
So that's the story of my day. I've tried to put it down as I remembered it, and I'll stop writing now before I begin to tear the meeting apart. I am hoping that we can go on with the rest of the year with no problems, and that the boy will never have to deal with the negative issues which might arise. I am hoping that she aims her dislike at me, and that I can remain calm no matter what else happens.
Yesterday he brought home a page with a girl colored blue. We told the teacher she should expect this to continue until he put the entire incident behind him. She did mention the color, but also made sure to put a smiley face at the top of the page.
We had a meeting with his teacher (and her student teacher and another random teacher who acted as a witness/bodyguard) and it went well enough. The end result is that things will stay as they are.
When we arrived the teacher was escorting the class to a different part of the school for their weekly Korean lesson. We waited for her to return and then all sat around the only round table in the classroom. I made sure to sit next to the teacher so that we did not have to have direct eye contact through the meeting.
The first thing I did was to apologize. I had requested the meeting on Tuesday, and handled things badly. I knew I should have done nothing more than request a time to meet, but then she asked why we were meeting and I could not help but tell her. That short meeting ended with her offering to sign the papers needed to get him out of the classroom.
I told her that nothing could be decided before all of us sat down, and definitely not before I spoke to the boy about her. We spoke with him on Wednesday and he said he liked her ok, and that she was a hard teacher, but that she was not mean. I also spoke with other parents. People told me that she was hard but fair and that if they had to do it over again they would put their children back in her class. I did not hear the same about other teachers. I heard nothing truly negative about any other teacher, but I heard no glowing reviews, either. Based on this, and on the fact that he has shown growth in the first three weeks of the school year, we decided that he should stay in her class.
She was startled by my apology, but accepted it, and said it would be no problem to keep him in the class, and that it was our decision. We agreed to start over and she agreed to put this behind her while dealing with him. Of course those promises are lies, but I think if I stay out of her way as much as possible (while still letting her know I am ever present), that the damage done to his standing in her eyes will be minimal.
It was made clear during our talk that she sees the boy as one of the slowest in the class. She says he is behind in every subject, but particularly in reading and writing. We told her that we knew he was behind in those areas, and that we would work with him at home, but that he resists working with us and is more comfortable with a "teacher". This is the main reason that home schooling was rejected two years ago. I'm Mom, and he can not see me as Teacher. She suggested that we read to him every night. We told her that we do read to him every night and that he enjoys hearing us read. We mentioned that we are reading book four of the Harry Potter series, and that we read a chapter a day. She looked skeptical, but there isn't much we can do to prove it to anyone, so we will not let it bother us.
One interesting thing. We were asked by the random teacher where we were last year. It turned out that she had also been in Vilseck. When we told her TargetCat's Kindergarden teacher's name, she rolled her eyes and said "Well that explains a lot." We all really liked his teacher, so I asked her what she meant by the comment. She replied that the Kindergarden teachers were divided into two types. One was more academic, the other more like preschool. Guess which one she classified his teacher as being? We also explained that he had spent a year in the German school and that his main friendships were with adults and with German children, not American kids. The response was "He does not know his Mother Goose, so he does not know rhyming words." He does not know Mother Goose because I can't remember much of it, never liked it, and felt no need to go back and learn it. Zanla never knew it to begin with. Instead of awful kids music we have always played whatever music makes us happy.
So that's the story of my day. I've tried to put it down as I remembered it, and I'll stop writing now before I begin to tear the meeting apart. I am hoping that we can go on with the rest of the year with no problems, and that the boy will never have to deal with the negative issues which might arise. I am hoping that she aims her dislike at me, and that I can remain calm no matter what else happens.
Yesterday he brought home a page with a girl colored blue. We told the teacher she should expect this to continue until he put the entire incident behind him. She did mention the color, but also made sure to put a smiley face at the top of the page.