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Today, we met the teacher.
Jun. 22nd, 2017 02:18 pmBy the unfathomable algorithm that assigns the ~90 new kids to their teachers and classes, Felix was sorted into Raven class. This naturally amuses me a lot.
The meeting went well. I continue to be positively impressed, even if the teacher speaks a bit too emphatically slow for my tastes. (None of Felix' kindergarten teachers used or use a special "small children and fools" pitch. More's the pity, because one of the old ones had a voice like fingernails on a blackboard, and another spoke like a drill sergeant! So I guess there's worse things than emphatically slow. This teacher has a very warm and pleasant voice, at any rate.)
I also continue to be somewhat sad that the Flixster makes things a lot harder on himself than they need to be. I know that Felix starts to squirm and goof around and act absent-minded because he's embarrassed and anxious about doing something wrong, so he acts like he isn't interested at all, but of course that's exactly the sort of behaviour that leads to strangers thinking that he's a) trying to piss them off or b) on the spectrum (possibly both). But the teacher was a woman of great patience and equally great experience and cracked his shell pretty quickly by first showing him around the classroom and then challenging him to some reading and counting games. Since he likes to excel and feels comfortable about letters and numbers, that went well. (It's when he doesn't feel secure about something that his desire to be the best seriously gets in the way. Ah, that paralysing mixture of ambition and fear of failure, I know it so well!) Embarassing moment: When he made a mistake (not even a proper mistake, it was actually just a misunderstanding), he berated himself rather severely, and I expect the teacher now thinks that he's got that from us, the parents. Which is not true! The only thing he undoubtedly got from us is that dratted inner perfectionist! I keep telling him that it's alright to make mistakes and that mistakes help you to learn! Which the teacher duly told him as well, repeatedly. He acted as if it was a completely new idea. *sigh* Well, perhaps he needed to hear it from somebody else.
(When I suggested piano lessons or some other musical instrument to him, he said "No, I don't want to", and when I asked why, he said "Because I don't know how to do it!" Sweety, that's what lessons are about!)
At any rate, it is now established that Felix will probably start on the material for second grade in most fields. (First and second grade are in mixed classes and the material is adapted to different learning speeds anyway, so this will be very easy to do, logistically.) I had sort of hoped to avoid that because, because let's face it, emotionally Felix is more like only-just-five rather than almost-six, let alone seven like normal second-graders. But the teacher judges that he'd quickly be bored even by the more challenging first-grader material and it'd be unwise to hold him back. She's probably right. But the fact remains that he's already smaller than most kids his age, so when he habitually gets to work with kids who are actually older, it gets even harder to keep up. Physically and in terms of maturity! It's not his intellectual capacities I'm worried about. But at least his teacher is sympathetic - when I apologised for Felix' fidgeting and yawning at the end of the meeting, she just smiled sagely and said "We have to remember that he's still a very young child". Yes! That's something that's so easy to forget because he's so precocious sometimes, even for his doting parents and grandparents, and it was apparently impossible to grasp for the folks at his old kindergarten. So if this teacher can keep it in mind, that's worth a lot.
Next week, the whole class will assemble for the first time, and I'm glad he already knows his way around the room so maybe there'll be less need to play down his anxiety. Of course, I won't know! They'll meet without their parents present! TERRIFYING THOUGHT! My baby! My snowflake!
What went less well is that in the end, because Felix is still a very young child, he scuffled with his even younger brother and thus forgot to take along the notebook the teacher gave him to playfully work on his penmanship. Embarrassing, that. I hope she found it and keeps it until next week's get-together...
The meeting went well. I continue to be positively impressed, even if the teacher speaks a bit too emphatically slow for my tastes. (None of Felix' kindergarten teachers used or use a special "small children and fools" pitch. More's the pity, because one of the old ones had a voice like fingernails on a blackboard, and another spoke like a drill sergeant! So I guess there's worse things than emphatically slow. This teacher has a very warm and pleasant voice, at any rate.)
I also continue to be somewhat sad that the Flixster makes things a lot harder on himself than they need to be. I know that Felix starts to squirm and goof around and act absent-minded because he's embarrassed and anxious about doing something wrong, so he acts like he isn't interested at all, but of course that's exactly the sort of behaviour that leads to strangers thinking that he's a) trying to piss them off or b) on the spectrum (possibly both). But the teacher was a woman of great patience and equally great experience and cracked his shell pretty quickly by first showing him around the classroom and then challenging him to some reading and counting games. Since he likes to excel and feels comfortable about letters and numbers, that went well. (It's when he doesn't feel secure about something that his desire to be the best seriously gets in the way. Ah, that paralysing mixture of ambition and fear of failure, I know it so well!) Embarassing moment: When he made a mistake (not even a proper mistake, it was actually just a misunderstanding), he berated himself rather severely, and I expect the teacher now thinks that he's got that from us, the parents. Which is not true! The only thing he undoubtedly got from us is that dratted inner perfectionist! I keep telling him that it's alright to make mistakes and that mistakes help you to learn! Which the teacher duly told him as well, repeatedly. He acted as if it was a completely new idea. *sigh* Well, perhaps he needed to hear it from somebody else.
(When I suggested piano lessons or some other musical instrument to him, he said "No, I don't want to", and when I asked why, he said "Because I don't know how to do it!" Sweety, that's what lessons are about!)
At any rate, it is now established that Felix will probably start on the material for second grade in most fields. (First and second grade are in mixed classes and the material is adapted to different learning speeds anyway, so this will be very easy to do, logistically.) I had sort of hoped to avoid that because, because let's face it, emotionally Felix is more like only-just-five rather than almost-six, let alone seven like normal second-graders. But the teacher judges that he'd quickly be bored even by the more challenging first-grader material and it'd be unwise to hold him back. She's probably right. But the fact remains that he's already smaller than most kids his age, so when he habitually gets to work with kids who are actually older, it gets even harder to keep up. Physically and in terms of maturity! It's not his intellectual capacities I'm worried about. But at least his teacher is sympathetic - when I apologised for Felix' fidgeting and yawning at the end of the meeting, she just smiled sagely and said "We have to remember that he's still a very young child". Yes! That's something that's so easy to forget because he's so precocious sometimes, even for his doting parents and grandparents, and it was apparently impossible to grasp for the folks at his old kindergarten. So if this teacher can keep it in mind, that's worth a lot.
Next week, the whole class will assemble for the first time, and I'm glad he already knows his way around the room so maybe there'll be less need to play down his anxiety. Of course, I won't know! They'll meet without their parents present! TERRIFYING THOUGHT! My baby! My snowflake!
What went less well is that in the end, because Felix is still a very young child, he scuffled with his even younger brother and thus forgot to take along the notebook the teacher gave him to playfully work on his penmanship. Embarrassing, that. I hope she found it and keeps it until next week's get-together...
