It is the end of the year (gasp) and we were invited to E's school for our very first teacher parent conference. E's little school is very child centered and they invited each of the parents for a one on one meeting with them to go in detail through their report. A daunting 9 A4 page document, fortunately for us, it states the whole curriculum and E is only (or rather should only) be on the first page.
Phil was very late, but to his redemption we had a huge thunder shower (cloud break truth be told) just as he left work - very seasonal for this time of year, which made the drive really slow. To my surprise, the principle was very pleased that a dad attended the meeting, apparently he was the first to do so out of a school with twenty kids. How can dad's still be so uninvolved in their kid’s lives and futures. I find education one of those really daunting aspects of parenthood and I am already stressed about making the right decisions when e is older.
E did really well in school this year, even though his communication skills was rated as about four months behind, they were impressed with how fast he progressed once he started talking. It took him forever to say his first word(s), fortunately he has totally forgotten those first words (yeahhhhh!!!). The most amazing thing the principle commented about was that he had an unheard of concentration span of longer than an hour (to work on a specific problem) and can easily cope with their three hour work periods (doing different activities) normally reserved for the older kids. It seems like his concentration span has fast tracked him across the curriculum and he is working with abstract concepts such as matching three dimensional shapes to two dimensional cards and the binomial cube (I tried it and it is quite fun).
The problem mentioned more than once was that he is not a push button child at all, even though he is keen to work, he will not necessarily do stuff as and when he is told to. Did not sound like he disrupts the class, but they did mention that if he continuous with the current attitude in later life he will have himself labeled as a problem child and even worse....ack more to stress about.
But to end on a good note this was their summary of our little guy:
Elrich never ceases to amaze us! He is currently doing work that is in most cases way above his age expectations. He often becomes frustrated when he attempts to do things (work and play) that he is mentally capable of, but is physically just too small (you telling me!!). Elrich is a loving caring child who is always cheerful, he makes friends easily and despite being younger than his peers, is a popular member of the group.
Overall, it made for a very nice first report!
2 comments:
Great report .. but out of curiousity, is that standard expectations for a 2 1/2 year old?
I have so little expectations of my children in the domain of 'education'. My daycare's simple rules for the 3 1/2-5 year old class are like a) respect your peers; b) no running and c) no climbing on furntiure. Easy easy stuff. Obviously, they achieve a whole crap load extra (and are typically way ahead of the kindergarten kids in the 'real' school system) but I am surprised at the harsh comments E's teachers had about not following instructions.
Just curious.
MMM Ann, Maybe I did not present their comment properly - what they were concerned about was for us to be sensitive to E's needs and not put him in a pressurised environment (i.t.o having to perform from an early age) Something I am very carefull about and aware of. What happens in class is that they will be working with for example naming colours, in a one on one basis, and E will just refuse to call the colours even if they know he knows them. But as part of the Montessori philosphy, they will not pressurise a child as they do not believe in forcing kids to perform, rather to create the opportunity for them to learn for themselves. So I think they are ok with where he is now, but it must somehow be a bit different from the other smaller kids (e is the youngest though by about three months) for them to mention it to us. If you want more detail I will mail you
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