However, the prospect of Alex's conference had me anxious. There were a number of things to cover; both behavioral and academic. Plus, my interaction with Alex's teacher has been more limited. Most of our communication was through notes, while our face-to-face conversations were brief and at times abrupt. Then I thought, "Was she short because of limited time or was she angry with something? Does she not like my child? Is she mean?". Going into this conference, I felt much less comfortable. In my defense, Alex has given me reason to be nervous. His report card had a few more "Needs Improvement" marks in the behavior section than I had expected. He can be the most thoughtful and courteous boy, and he can also be insolent and willful. Alex's behavior reminds me of the nursery rhyme:
There was a little girl who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead;
When she was good, she was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.
Plus, based on the school work coming home, I knew that Alex was not being challenged academically in school. We chose to send him to this school rather than to the gifted academy in part because we wanted him to have a well-rounded experience and that certainly includes learning how to follow rules and respectfully function and socialize in a class of twenty-five of his peers. I knew that he would not be challenged initially because of the focus on rules and the adjustment to Kindergarten, but I was not confident that his teacher really knew the extent of his capabilities. Heck, I'm not sure that I know the extent of his capabilities, but I know that a kid who can read number like 2051 correctly and who can do basic addition and subtraction in his head may not find worksheets where you connect the dots from the numbers one to five to be interesting work. So I was pretty tense about the conference.
But the meeting was good. One of the first things that she told us was that overall he has improved significantly since the report card was written and that she is proud of him. She said that he is behaving well in class and that he struggles more with unstructured times like when they are at recess or are walking to another building for an activity. She absolutely raved about his school work and said that he was doing really great. I left the conference feeling that Alex's teacher understands and likes Alex, and that Alex is making huge improvements in 'softer skills' where he needed to grow. But I am still not sure that he is being challenged, and this is where I struggle. Is it enough that he is happy going to school and he's growing socially even though he's not working to his academic potential? Should we even be concerned about how much he's really being challenged since this is just Kindergarten?
There was a day recently when Alex had his name read during the school announcements. It was "Thankful Thursday" and Alex's teacher said that she was thankful for Alex because he really helped her clean up the classroom. He was so thrilled that later he told us it was the best day of his life. Of His Life.
Maybe we should just sit back and let Alex and his teacher continue down this path. They seem to be doing well so far...
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