And the sad thing is that she's not an ogre, this teacher, but a really kind, well-meaning person.
Me: I hear your frustration
about this pile of unfinished worksheets. Just so that I can understand
the situation more clearly, before we open the discussion of therapies
and resources that the school district might make available for us, I
just want to ask you: Is there specific instructional content that you
believe he is missing out on because he works too slowly? Are there
things he is actually not learning?
Her (automatically; no hesitation): Well, what he's missing
out on is the practice and application part of the learning. Not so
much the new material. He gets all that. But... when we come to discuss
the book at the end of the reading group, he doesn't have as much to
say, because he hasn't finished the comprehension worksheet. His written
mechanics (things like capital letters, punctuation, spelling) are
usually fine, but he could use more practice. And in Creative Writing, he
only finished one story in the time other students wrote three or four.
Me: And creative writing needs to be done on time because...?
Her: Well, when I had everyone decide which of their Creative Writing
assignments to "publish" as a book, he really only had one that was
complete to choose from, and I thought that made him kind of sad. And
in math, he misses out in math too, because I give them extra challenge problems
after the regular problems, and he never gets to them, because I can't
just give him the challenge problems before he has completed the regular
work.
Me: Because...?
Her: Because that's my philosophy, that you can have more interesting problems but only after you have finished the regular work that everyone has to do.
...
Me: (some time later, after floating the "executive function disorder" hypothesis and
telling her it can take him 2 hours to do his one-sentence homework assignments, 20
minutes to eat a bowl of cereal or put on his shoes): So if we went
through this whole procedure and got a neuropsychological evaluation
through the school district or privately through our health insurance
and got him diagnosed as needing an Individual Education Plan (IEP) with
individualized learning goals, is there any way that could license you
to give him the harder math problems first?
Her: No. I had that case in my second grade class once,
where the parents wanted to know whether the IEP could set learning
goals for their child that were actually harder than the state curriculum. The district
told them no.
Me: So the IEP is only for helping children catch up to the state
standards, not for exceeding them?
Her: Right.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
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