Hmmm... Poor first impression and advocating on my part

[Uff Da!]

We met with Dd's teacher today for a couple minutes and Dd's teacher is very sweet, gentle and good at talking with her.

 

Her teacher was showing us the curriculum and held up a Singapore 1A book. I mentioned that Dd is ahead conceptionally but some practical applications lagged behind (I should have said behind her conceptional ability) Her teacher thought I meant she would struggle with the material.

 

I replied, " No that won't be hard for her at all." (Doesn't that sound like a parent full of something? Especially in a PS system where few people know what Singapore is and it's listed as a 2nd grade curriculum but I am standing in first grade classroom?) Then I asked the teacher to contact me if there were issues.

 

I did a terrible job of explaining how Dd is with math and it was partly because, while I knew they would do math below her level and am OK with that because of the way Dd learns, it still caught me off guard to see it. DD's endurance is lacking and the school's application of Singapore will help with that. She's not going to learn anything new. It's kind of sad.

 

I think in the future I need to start with "Oh, Dd loves ......" and go from there.

[regentrude]

I do not think you need to explain anything about your kid. If the teacher is good, she will figure it out on her own. If the teacher is bad, no amount of telling is going to make a difference.

For us it has always worked well not to divulge any information up front, but to let the teachers encounter my kids with an open, unbiased mind. Usually by the 6 week parent teacher conferences, the teachers had a pretty good idea about my kids, just from observing them.

 

[Uff Da!]

You are probably right regentrude. I should've kept my mouth shut. I think I confused the teacher more than anything.

[SKL]

Every time I meet with a teacher, I come away feeling like I said way too much of the wrong things, and not enough of the right things.

 

I think a lot of it is just the stress of the situation.

[ondreeuh]

It is very difficult to come across as "concerned, helpful, involved mother" rather than "overly controlling, boastful, patronizing mother." At least it's something I worry about.

 

I think it is totally find to give a heads-up about what your child has been working on. When I met with my son's K teacher this year, I told him we were nearly done with Earlybird math, and that Saxon K math would all be review, and asked if he could differentiate math at all. He uses Reading A-Z so I told him my son was around level M. My son has been in school for just 4 days but in addition to his math worksheets (tracing numbers 1-3), he brought home a page where he had written the numbers to 20, which I assume was the teacher's idea.

 

Little story: I moved in the March of my oldest child's kindergarten year. Her new teacher kept sending home these pre-decodable books, so after a few weeks I asked whether dd could have something else for homework, since she could read. Her teacher basically said, "Oh honey, she can't read." I asked her to try, so she sighed and pulled out a page for dd to read, which she did. The teacher acted like she was just humoring me when she agreed to give her different books. My MIL taught at the school, and the K teacher confessed to HER that she hadn't ever read with my kid ; she relied on volunteer to do reading groups. Looking back, I obviously should should have advocated earlier, but I wanted to trust the teacher.

[jenbrdsly]

I do not think you need to explain anything about your kid. If the teacher is good, she will figure it out on her own. If the teacher is bad, no amount of telling is going to make a difference.

For us it has always worked well not to divulge any information up front, but to let the teachers encounter my kids with an open, unbiased mind. Usually by the 6 week parent teacher conferences, the teachers had a pretty good idea about my kids, just from observing them.

 

 

I see the point behind this Regentrude. That strategy lets you find out how competent the teacher is.  But I usually go the opposite route.  I write a gigantic, detailed, makes-me-sound-like-an-alien, description of my son's intellectual, social, and emotional capabilities, and turn it in the first week of school.  I include Guided Reading Level, preferred strategies for solving math problems, and every last thing I can think of.

 

I know as a former teacher that it takes about four weeks for good teachers to figure out all of that information on their own through evaluation and testing.  My reasoning is, why waste that month?  I know that info already.  This has been important because my DS is advanced in math.  I don't want to spend a month waiting for the teacher to figure that out.

 

Winter, you are incredible articulate over the keyboard.  So why not send and email to the teacher?  Say that other things occurred to you while you were driving home and you wanted to make sure you shared.

[jenbrdsly]

It is very difficult to come across as "concerned, helpful, involved mother" rather than "overly controlling, boastful, patronizing mother." At least it's something I worry about.

 

 

That's why I give very nice teacher presents at Christmas.  ;)  Hopefully I now have a reputation for that too!

[SKL]

LOL I have lost all hope of being known as the cool mom who gives xmas gifts.  I mean, I did give an xmas gift, but that was wiped out the day I told them they mustn't deny my kid lunch any more.  ;)  Good times!!

[regentrude]

I see the point behind this Regentrude. That strategy lets you find out how competent the teacher is.  But I usually go the opposite route.  I write a gigantic, detailed, makes-me-sound-like-an-alien, description of my son's intellectual, social, and emotional capabilities, and turn it in the first week of school.  I include Guided Reading Level, preferred strategies for solving math problems, and every last thing I can think of.

 

I know as a former teacher that it takes about four weeks for good teachers to figure out all of that information on their own through evaluation and testing.  My reasoning is, why waste that month?  I know that info already.  T

 

My reason to wait was not to find out how competent the teacher is. My children are highly gifted, and telling a teacher that would very likely have me branded a mom who overestimates their special snowflake's abilities. I think teachers are swamped with moms who believe their offspring is oh-so-incredibly-smart.

They needed to have my DD in class for less than a week to find out themselves, because it was so obvious.Even the dumbest teacher would have noticed.  (DS is a minimalist who managed to hide his gifts better, so it took a tad longer). Letting facts speak for themselves instead of creating an unfavorable first impression was the better choice.

And then, at 6 week conferences, I could approach the teachers and ask what we could to do make school a better experience for the kids - after the teachers had already noticed what was going on, seen my kids bored out of their mind and not challenged. Having treated the teacher as a professional whom I consider capable of understanding my child always created a good relationship- so that strategy worked well for us.

[Uff Da!]

Thank you everyone for your responses. I can't multi quote on my phone but want to respond with some thoughts. The teacher handed me a form that is a "finish this sentence about your child" type of form. I think I can address a couple concerns gracefully if I take my time filling it out. At this point, Dd's perfectionism is the elephant in the room- more than the racing ahead in math. I do think that I can say Dd does math at home for fun and not sound like I am an overbearing mother. Also, I am going to hunt through some old threads and try to see if there are any other quirks that I've grown accustomed to that could surprise a teacher. I underestimated the perfectionism last year.

 

None of you have seen my daughter so you don't know that she is in the 6th percentile for height for her age and she was a young early entrant. It's not surprising that, at first glance, a person would think she would struggle. There are three year olds taller than my daughter.

[SKL]

I understand about the size.  Miss A is still smaller than many (if not most) KG kids.  :)  I'm glad the academics come easy for your daughter.  I agree that it is likely some teachers will assume any issues she has are because she is "young" and should not have been accelerated.  :/  Good luck!

[jennynd]

I do not think you need to explain anything about your kid. If the teacher is good, she will figure it out on her own. If the teacher is bad, no amount of telling is going to make a difference.

For us it has always worked well not to divulge any information up front, but to let the teachers encounter my kids with an open, unbiased mind. Usually by the 6 week parent teacher conferences, the teachers had a pretty good idea about my kids, just from observing them.

Agree with this, the few years I tried to give the teacher "heads up", and I never went well.. . this past year, I didn't say anything, the teacher figure out rather fast and really was supportive.

[Χά�ων]

I understand about the size.  Miss A is still smaller than many (if not most) KG kids.  :)  I'm glad the academics come easy for your daughter.  I agree that it is likely some teachers will assume any issues she has are because she is "young" and should not have been accelerated.  :/  Good luck!

Interesting

[mamajag]

Interesting

 

Very interesting.

[eloquacious]

What if your child hides/wastes themselves in class? My son brought home Singapore K math sheets that were completely wrong. I mean, count the items and connect to the numbers, something my three year-old can do, and they were all wrong! I had him do them again in front of me, and of course they were right in five seconds. Meanwhile he does first grade stuff at home without great difficulty. Argh! If I let the teacher judge by this, she won't let him graduate kindergarten. He thinks it's all too easy and therefore doesn't even LOOK.

[Nart]

I regret not talking to my son's kindergarten teacher last year at the beginning of the year. I assumed she would figure out that he was a fluent reader. Well, it took her until November and then it was a fluke. She tested him the first month on the grade level kindergarten reading material. Once he named 26 letters, said what sounds they make, and read 30 sight words the test ended. She didn't bother to see if he could read any more and my son never volunteered that he could read. My oldest is a really compliant, well-behaved kid who never shouted out answers. If he is given work that is too easy, he won't say anything since everyone else is doing the same. His main goal in kindergarten was to finish his work quickly so he could play soccer outside at recess. One day in November the teacher told the students to sit with a partner and look at books together. My son went to get a drink of water and ended up without a partner. When the teacher sat down next to him she picked up a beginning reading book and she told him to look at the pictures and tell her what was going on. He told her he could read it to her and proceeded to read it. She then got several more books that increased in difficulty and he fluently read all of the books to her. She told me at the parent conferences that she "was blown away" at how well he read. In the end I am not sure it even mattered. She occasionally grouped him with another girl who could read, but her main focus was on helping the lowest performing kids. 

[sunnyday]

:bigear:

 

DS starts first grade next week. I can't decide between telling the teacher up front that he is working above level (we're about to leave Singapore 1B behind and he's reading mostly books that are listed as 3.2-4.8) or letting her figure it out. He was never once challenged in kindergarten, he did all his pushing and striving for extra work at home, so if the kindergarten teacher shared information about specific students who will need more attention, I'm sure my DS did not come up. We'll see what happens in the first month of first grade I guess. We are in a district without a lot of resources and I haven't a clue what they do with accelerated learners here.

 

I feel your pain though. When asked to provide information last spring about my child to help guide his classroom placement for the new year, I told the school "He's really interested in math and science, and in my opinion is pretty strongly skilled in these areas." Holy understatement, but I didn't want to be THAT parent! Sigh.

[Uff Da!]

I think the thing to remember with these short meetings is that the teacher often has a lot of information to present. There isn't a lot of wiggle room for chit chat. A comment that derails the conversation could derail a schedule as well.

I am thankful for the little homework sheet she gave me.
 

[jenbrdsly]

My reason to wait was not to find out how competent the teacher is. My children are highly gifted, and telling a teacher that would very likely have me branded a mom who overestimates their special snowflake's abilities. I think teachers are swamped with moms who believe their offspring is oh-so-incredibly-smart.

They needed to have my DD in class for less than a week to find out themselves, because it was so obvious.Even the dumbest teacher would have noticed.  (DS is a minimalist who managed to hide his gifts better, so it took a tad longer). Letting facts speak for themselves instead of creating an unfavorable first impression was the better choice.

And then, at 6 week conferences, I could approach the teachers and ask what we could to do make school a better experience for the kids - after the teachers had already noticed what was going on, seen my kids bored out of their mind and not challenged. Having treated the teacher as a professional whom I consider capable of understanding my child always created a good relationship- so that strategy worked well for us.

 

Our situations might be a bit different.  My DS is in a public school gifted program, so the teachers are already used to intense parents and kids who can do weird things.  ;)