Five Opinions All Mothers At One Time Hold

[azriona]

Five Opinions All Mothers At One Time Hold
(Although Not Necessarily At the Same Time, As Will Become Evident)

*The amount of time spent believing #1 is in direct proportion to the ease with which the child in question went to bed that night.

1. I am the worst mother ever. Nothing I do is right. My children will be in therapy for the rest of

Comments

[crimedoc1]

Don't you just love politics? However, I don't think school politics accounts for one of my kids' teachers lecturing (almost haranguing) parents on proper volunteer behavior, and how she needs several days notice if you are scheduled to volunteer and can't make your shift. Because it would seriously inconvenience her if she had to actually do stuff herself. It also doesn't account for the time we had a parent-teacher meeting to discuss my son's boredom, and the lack of any of the academic enrichment promised in the IEP (a special educational plan developed individually for each gifted child), and being told that since I didn't volunteer in the classroom, I didn't know what I was talking about. I quietly pointed out that I had a full time job, and asked how often SHE volunteered in HER daughter's classroom; her immediately backpeddling was almost humorous. It doesn't account for the number of times over the years that both of my kids, and their classmates, have asked their teachers for harder and more challenging homework and been turned down.

Basically the FCAT we have here in Florida has resulted in "teaching to the test," regardless of what the needs of the kids are. So for example, when my son was in second grade, he and some of his classmates made it through both second and third grade math. But when they moved into third grade, instead of doing the fourth grade math work they'd been promised, they did third grade all over again. Why? Because they had the math FCAT that year and the teacher wanted to teach them the stuff that was on the test. The fact that half of the class could already do the work on the first day of school was immaterial. Similarly, this year my son is doing basic single digit multiplication again - a repetition of last year, in fact - and is not only bored but becoming very resentful. He came home from school quite angry the other day about having to spend an hour playing a multiplication game with problems his younger sister could solve in her sleep. And I won't even start on the spelling words they're given (again, my second grader can spell them all).

And kids who are bored or angry at school are at greater risk of problems as they move into adolescence. Which is why we spend a lot of money on outside enrichment. Because the school won't challenge kids. And I'm not the only parent who feels this way; there was a whole group of us talking after the fourth grade open house last week, all frustrated with the absurdly simple work the kids were bringing home.