Update on Ben and school
I feel like I should post something to update on Ben's progress in school and what happened during the parent-teacher conference last week.
This photo has nothing to do with Ben and school, it was taken a couple weekends ago at my grandparent's house
So our communication issues with the teacher continued, up to the point where Jake emailed point-blank and said "we need to meet". This was met with a "Well, as stated in the class newsletter, I will be gone for the next week and a half as I'm visiting my ill father." Whatever, lady, we can meet when you get back.We need to meet NOW, not in November.
Jake sends an email, planning to meet during the week of Oct 14 (aka this week). Last Weds, he sends her an email to confirm that they'll be meeting sometime this week, to which she replies "See you tomorrow!" (last Thursday). Not cool, not cool at all. Jake rearranges his entire schedule to make it because I couldn't get out of teaching.
So, they meet. And at the beginning she was putting on a kind of aggressive front, for what reason I don't know (and I'm getting all the information secondhand through Jake anyway). Apparently, Ben is the worst behaved child in her class. While everyone else is fine sitting at their desks coloring or sitting quietly listening to story time, Ben is crawling around or goofing off, trying to distract others.
Ok-- so that was a little rough to hear. Everyone wants to think that their child is a perfect angel (even if we truly know better), but I honestly NEVER expected Ben to be the badly behaved child!
Jake asks what the teacher does in response to this unacceptable behavior. She responds by saying "you wouldn't believe this, but I'm really a big softie with the kids". Ok, well there's your first problem. You can't NOT enact a consequence and expect a 5-year old to just "get it" and fall in line. She also said that she has had to repeatedly remind Ben to "pay attention" or "re-focus" or "sit down, please". Jake encouraged her to utilize her classroom management technique (which involves moving a car with the child's name on it from a green light to a yellow or red) as Ben reacts MUCH BETTER to a visual stimulus and consequence than a verbal reprimand. As in, he doesn't respond to just a verbal reprimand. It goes in one ear and out the other.
Then Jake moved the conversation toward a more professional to professional slant, letting her know that her communication with us thus far is atrocious. He said he felt it was appaling for his first child to be in this blue-ribbon award-winning school and for the first month either receive no feedback or negative feedback. He said "you can't tell me that there has been nothing positive about my son in the past 25 days of school" to which the teacher shot back (probably feeling a little attacked at this point) "what do you want me to say? that Ben tried really hard today but just couldn't get it together?"
[Sidenote on that little sentence-- how AWFUL is that? What kind of teacher does that to a child? What kind of teacher (especially elementary) seems to make a mental assessment of how that child will be in the first weeks of school and then writes them off as a "problem" child? That statement floors me.]
Other semi passive-aggressive statements included how Ben would have been one of her "good kids" last year when she had a really young class (young 5s and some 4-year olds) but that this year's class is all so well-behaved that Ben sticks out as a problem. <--WTF?!?
Jake followed up with other arguments and eventually broke her down. Like, she literally started crying in the conference. She said in her 24 years of teaching she'd never cried in a conference, but she realized now how her emails had come off and, in putting herself in the parent's shoes (in our shoes) she would be appalled to be on the receiving end of that stuff. Then she apologized six times and said that she's really all sorts of messed up because her father is dying, blah blah blah.
I mean-- I understand that. She's going through a traumatic time in her life and I get how she can be frazzled and worn and tired out by these kids while trying to balance healthcare decisions from several states away. I get that. It doesn't make me feel any better about what we've dealt with these past few weeks.
So Jake and the teacher decided on an action plan where we could go home and discuss with Ben EXACTLY what the problems were (because, in his mind, verbal reminders don't count as behaving "badly" and since his car was never moved, he had fine days) and how he could fix them. She, in turn, was going to send us daily emails on his behavior with specifics that we could address and hopefully move forward.
On his way out of the school, Jake was caught by the music teacher (where Ben had one of his awful situations and where we first realized the extent of the problem). She ensured Jake that Ben would get through this, that it was developmentally normal and that, by the end of the year he'd be all set. He has to do a little maturing.
Ben's "nature animal": a giraffe made from leaves, acorns, and pinecones
We have a follow-up conference in November.
Friday afternoon, the teacher emailed us saying that "Whatever you said to Ben seemed to have worked. I'm not just saying this, but I truly did not have to speak with him once. He behaved beautifully."
Isn't it amazing that once the parents have some concrete information about classroom expectations and that the teacher is prepared to follow through on those expectations, that the child responds? So, we're hopeful.
This photo has nothing to do with Ben and school, it was taken a couple weekends ago at my grandparent's house
So our communication issues with the teacher continued, up to the point where Jake emailed point-blank and said "we need to meet". This was met with a "Well, as stated in the class newsletter, I will be gone for the next week and a half as I'm visiting my ill father." Whatever, lady, we can meet when you get back.We need to meet NOW, not in November.
Jake sends an email, planning to meet during the week of Oct 14 (aka this week). Last Weds, he sends her an email to confirm that they'll be meeting sometime this week, to which she replies "See you tomorrow!" (last Thursday). Not cool, not cool at all. Jake rearranges his entire schedule to make it because I couldn't get out of teaching.
So, they meet. And at the beginning she was putting on a kind of aggressive front, for what reason I don't know (and I'm getting all the information secondhand through Jake anyway). Apparently, Ben is the worst behaved child in her class. While everyone else is fine sitting at their desks coloring or sitting quietly listening to story time, Ben is crawling around or goofing off, trying to distract others.
Ok-- so that was a little rough to hear. Everyone wants to think that their child is a perfect angel (even if we truly know better), but I honestly NEVER expected Ben to be the badly behaved child!
Jake asks what the teacher does in response to this unacceptable behavior. She responds by saying "you wouldn't believe this, but I'm really a big softie with the kids". Ok, well there's your first problem. You can't NOT enact a consequence and expect a 5-year old to just "get it" and fall in line. She also said that she has had to repeatedly remind Ben to "pay attention" or "re-focus" or "sit down, please". Jake encouraged her to utilize her classroom management technique (which involves moving a car with the child's name on it from a green light to a yellow or red) as Ben reacts MUCH BETTER to a visual stimulus and consequence than a verbal reprimand. As in, he doesn't respond to just a verbal reprimand. It goes in one ear and out the other.
Then Jake moved the conversation toward a more professional to professional slant, letting her know that her communication with us thus far is atrocious. He said he felt it was appaling for his first child to be in this blue-ribbon award-winning school and for the first month either receive no feedback or negative feedback. He said "you can't tell me that there has been nothing positive about my son in the past 25 days of school" to which the teacher shot back (probably feeling a little attacked at this point) "what do you want me to say? that Ben tried really hard today but just couldn't get it together?"
[Sidenote on that little sentence-- how AWFUL is that? What kind of teacher does that to a child? What kind of teacher (especially elementary) seems to make a mental assessment of how that child will be in the first weeks of school and then writes them off as a "problem" child? That statement floors me.]
Other semi passive-aggressive statements included how Ben would have been one of her "good kids" last year when she had a really young class (young 5s and some 4-year olds) but that this year's class is all so well-behaved that Ben sticks out as a problem. <--WTF?!?
Jake followed up with other arguments and eventually broke her down. Like, she literally started crying in the conference. She said in her 24 years of teaching she'd never cried in a conference, but she realized now how her emails had come off and, in putting herself in the parent's shoes (in our shoes) she would be appalled to be on the receiving end of that stuff. Then she apologized six times and said that she's really all sorts of messed up because her father is dying, blah blah blah.
I mean-- I understand that. She's going through a traumatic time in her life and I get how she can be frazzled and worn and tired out by these kids while trying to balance healthcare decisions from several states away. I get that. It doesn't make me feel any better about what we've dealt with these past few weeks.
So Jake and the teacher decided on an action plan where we could go home and discuss with Ben EXACTLY what the problems were (because, in his mind, verbal reminders don't count as behaving "badly" and since his car was never moved, he had fine days) and how he could fix them. She, in turn, was going to send us daily emails on his behavior with specifics that we could address and hopefully move forward.
On his way out of the school, Jake was caught by the music teacher (where Ben had one of his awful situations and where we first realized the extent of the problem). She ensured Jake that Ben would get through this, that it was developmentally normal and that, by the end of the year he'd be all set. He has to do a little maturing.
Ben's "nature animal": a giraffe made from leaves, acorns, and pinecones
We have a follow-up conference in November.
Friday afternoon, the teacher emailed us saying that "Whatever you said to Ben seemed to have worked. I'm not just saying this, but I truly did not have to speak with him once. He behaved beautifully."
Isn't it amazing that once the parents have some concrete information about classroom expectations and that the teacher is prepared to follow through on those expectations, that the child responds? So, we're hopeful.