Thursday, June 8, 2017

Jessica and Jacks

No one in the public school system will care about your child more than you do.  We learned that with Jessica.  As a three-year-old, she was already reading complex books for her age.  At four, she read “Girl of the Limberlost”, with 425 pages (a feat doubted later by her Kindergarden teacher), and was doing advanced math for her age.  As a first grader, we had her in a class with a woman who was a seasoned teacher with just one year left before retirement.  We knew Jessica was advanced, but at parent-teacher conference, her teacher told us she “was about average” and was adjusting to fix in with her peers.  I was perplexed, so one day I went to view her class through the door window at her school.  I saw her teacher hovering over Jessica’s desk, giving her a hard time because she wasn’t as coordinated at bouncing a ball and counting Jack’s on her desk like the other kids (as a math project I suppose). I suddenly realized the teacher was the average one who didn’t like dealing with a problematic brilliant student in her class.  Something flipped in me, and I vowed that was her last day with that teacher.  I marched down to the Principal and demanded my daughter get tested.  They performed a battery of standardized tests, and the principal nervously called Kathleen and I to a meeting.  Remarkable, Jessica had tested in a post-graduate level in two subjects, and had excelled in all others. The Principal was concerned because it showed they should advance her to the third grade, but suggested just going to the second grade so it wouldn’t be socially awkward.  We did so, and Jessica blossomed from that point on by being at the top of her class.

LESSON LEARNED:  Public schools are not equipped to handle students that are significantly below or above the average.  Parents need to know they have to closely monitor the education of their children.


FEEDBACK:  HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED ANYTHING LIKE THIS BEFORE?

1 comment:

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