Friday, September 22, 2006

Teacher conference

I had a parent teacher conference yesterday and I get a strong motherly feeling that Austin's teacher doesn't like him. She didn't say anything nice about him except he was “smart enough to get by" and I'm really peeved by the whole conversation. I was really hard on Austin when we got home but I didn't yell at him. I told him that this was his future and only he can change things. I took his away his game boy and play station privileges until I heard a better report from the teacher.

The teacher was basically saying that Austin is a distraction and she thinks he shows several signs of ADD. Well, I'm not comfortable putting Austin on drugs. I explained to her that he was also the youngest in her class (he always is) and she was quick to say that his behavior would not be acceptable in 4th grade either. Grrrrrr… She also says he's disorganized. Why? She tells me it’s because they sit in groups of 5 and he's the desk on the end - well - the 2 desks in front of him are empty a lot of day and he uses them to put his notebook and papers on and the teacher doesn't like it. I said "he's probably using them b/c he can!" but no, she says he's disorganized.

She said that Austin went around the room asking for a pencil today and no one would give him a pencil. She said when he got ½ way around the room she started listening to him. I said, “Why doesn’t he have any pencils?” She said, “I don’t know.” And then asked him, “Austin, do you have a pencil?” He reached in his bag and pulled out a pencil. She said, “Is that yours?” He said, “Yea.” She said, “Then why were you asking everyone for a pencil today?” And his reply was, “I needed a yellow colored pencil.” She said, “Do you have a yellow crayon?” He looked in his bag and pulled out a yellow crayon, to which she replied, “Well you could’ve used that.” If she was listening so closely earlier than she would’ve known he was asking for a yellow colored pencil and then directed him to use a crayon instead but no, that’s not what happened. She was trying to throw him under the bus in front of me. Basically her story backfired.
She gave me another example of him not handing in his revisions yet for his science paper so again, she asked him about it in front of me. He said that when she came by his desk she told him that he was missing a bunch of stuff so he just decided to do the whole thing over – he even asked her “don’t you remember?” And she, of course, didn’t so he explained again and now she says, “Oh yes, I vaguely remember that now.” Again, she tried throwing my son under the bus in front of me and it backfired.


When I mention advanced classes, they all say absolutely not b/c he's not organized enough or this or that plus there are too many kids in the class already blah blah blah. At the same time, I wouldn't want to put him in an advanced class if he really shouldn't be there... Yet her only grade for him so far was 100%... I told her that she’d be pressed to get any less than an "A" on a spelling test from him.

Plus - every year we get the same complaints from/about Austin - EXCEPT for last year, last year we didn’t get ONE complaint and when his dad went to the parent/teacher conference she praised him - the only difference in last year is that the seats were in rows and all the other years the seating was grouped in 4’s and 5’s. That's when the teacher said to me, "That teacher doesn't complain about anyone." Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr – bitch

I asked her what I could do to help her and she said nothing but then later asked me for suggestions. I suggested she pull his desk back some so he can’t reach the empty desks in front of him and ‘force’ him to be organized and to maybe seat him alone but she didn’t like that idea stating that “those” children are always the ones to end up in the principal’s office later in life and “he’s not that kind of child.”

Bottom line: I don’t like her. She came at me all wrong. Austin is a GREAT kid. He’s the kind of child that I only receive compliments on – no one ever has anything bad to say about him. Last year he got all A's & B's (not one C all year) and he's kind, giving and polite. I just wish that she could’ve added some compliments to all of her negativity, hell, she is talking about my CHILD. Does she not expect me to proctective or defensive? I'm all about recognizing the problem and willing to help but when it seems as though she just doesn't like him (and he adores her) then how can I differeniate the problem through her frustration?

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