Last night was "Back to School Night" for Gabriel, although technically that's a misnomer for him specifically, as it's his first year in school. I'm feeling like I may have done my son a disservice by sending him to a daycare for the first 4 years of his life. I talked to his teacher (a first-year teacher who looks about 12 and says "Sorry" entirely too much) and felt disheartened about what she had to say.
I asked her how Gabe is doing, and she said, "He's doing okay. He gets frustrated sometimes, so I have him sit by himself over there and he works well by himself and rejoins the other kids after a few minutes. He doesn't seem to enjoy coloring, and we do A LOT of coloring in kindergarten." I nodded my head and made sure she knew that this was probably not an easy transition for him, going from a daycare where they mostly play all day to a schedule of back-to-back activities. I also told her he has never cared for coloring much, but that he's very good at other things, like creating stories and cutting and pasting and creating things. She just nodded her head a lot and said he'll be fine.
Uggh. I'm not feeling so sure with a teacher like this. If a kid isn't engaged while coloring, putting him off to the side to color by himself (which is her way of punishing him, by the way) is not exactly helping him. It's just making him dislike coloring even more. Why wouldn't a teacher just try something else? Give him something different to do? Am I asking too much here? What skill exactly does coloring develop anyway?
I didn't offer that directly, but I'd like to have some suggestions for her at our next parent-teacher conference on October 2nd. Does anyone have any suggestions? I know several of my friends and family members are teachers. Even if you're not a teacher, I appreciate all the ideas I can get on this one! My hope is that because she's a first-year teacher, she will be open to trying new things. Please, Lord, let that be the case!
It wasn't a completely unpleasant experience. I laughed out loud when I read what he said on some of his "artwork" that was on the walls. One was a "magic" lunch box that read something like: If you could have anything you wanted in your magic lunch box, what would you put in it? Gabe's answer was "a rocket ship and some marbles." To make myself feel a little better, I read the other kids' entries -- an apple and a banana and some other non-creative answers filled other kids' lunchboxes. I bet those kids color in the lines though! ;) Okay, yeah, yeah, maybe I'm being too harsh...LOL!
Sofia, by the way, played in the housekeeping section of Gabe's class the whole time with her babydoll. She naturally brought Baby Liliwinka with her. Don't ask. I don't know where she gets the names she comes up with for her babies. She and Tim have some serious imaginations too. They're always playing, and it's the cutest darn thing. In the car, it's, "Dad, can you fill up my baby's milk?" And he's saying, "Sure" and taking the bottle from her and depressing an imaginary lever from the car ceiling, making funny noises the whole time, and then handing Lilwinka's bottle back to Sofia. They are hysterical together.
On the bright side, Gabe is coming home telling me about cool new things he learns at school. On Monday evening, he put his little foot on top of my foot, so I placed my other foot on top of his foot, and he added his other foot and exclaimed, "Look, Mom! It's a patter-rin!" I squinted my ears as I find I do more and more of these days. Yes, I swear it's possible to squint your ears. I leaned in and said, "What? It's a what?" He said, "big foot, little foot, big foot, little foot -- it's a PATTER-RIN!" I laughed..."Ohhh! A PATTERN!" to which Gabe said, "Yeah, that's what I said -- a patter-rin."
2 comments:
Sorry the back to school night wasn't so hot (though I'd like a lunch box with a rocket, too!). I don't know the right solution to the coloring situation, but I agree that isolating him doesn't sound helpful. Maybe the teacher just needs to find her footing and then she'll recognize that maybe not every kid needs to be coloring all the way through kindergarten. Here's hoping!
Tim sounds like a very cool dad. What fun!
The teacher worries me. More coloring for punishment and removal from his peers is not going to encourage Gabe! Does he HAVE to color? Maybe she could give him (and all the kids) a choice to either color a page or draw something of their own instead. Or if it is hard to get him to color and she really wants him to do that, positive reinforcement works much better than punishment. Some sort of "reward" for finishing or getting to do something he enjoys when he is finished, that sort of thing. The last thing she wants first thing in the school year is setting kids up for a power struggle with her. What can she do to facilitate cooperation? Make it fun, make it a game, make it something they WANT to do, for whatever reason. Who says they can't color with partners or have a group project or play musical chairs and color one piece of the page with each time they change seats or any number of crazy fun things they could do to make learning ENJOYABLE!! Don't get me started (as someone who got to the point of HATING school...) I believe I was a Kindergarten drop- out because I was "bored" and spent too much time chasing some boy around the table. At that time, K was not required and Mom took me out. LOL
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