A Conversation with a Teacher

Because we are on Spring Break now, I could not ask Evan's teacher the million questions on my mind this week, seeing as yesterday she was already gone. So, I called my sister-in-law, who has first hand behavior experience with Evan, both the good and the bad. The minute I told her Evan was having problems in school, she laughed.

The first words out of her mouth? "Remember when he was 10 months old and I told you he would outsmart his teachers in kindergarten if you didn't move fast enough? Well, he's there. But he's only three."

I read his teacher's "report card" word for word, and she immediately began rattling off all the things his teacher should be trying, but isn't. This is the beauty of having a sister-in-law who teaches gifted 5th graders- you get a little insight of how it should go, but rarely does.

I don't want to dismiss Evan's behavior in any way, because even if he is bored out of his mind, he still needs to be respectful and listen to his teachers. However, I am much more of the mindset now that Evan is definitely bored. My sister-in-law asked how his teachers were handling the situation when Evan said "no." I told her that, according to them, they just left him. "To do what?" she asked. "To stay where he's at on the floor, so he can be more creative than if he were drawing at the table? Instead of tracing shapes he knew at 12 months old?"

I told her that his teachers are worried there is a pattern to his behavior, that his rebellion may be some sort of behavioral disorder, but she dismissed this as well. She said many "educators" who are ill-prepared to deal with a gifted child take any challenge to their authority as a behavior issue, instead of actually working a little to see what a little challenge in the educational environment will do for the behavior.

Now, I know she's biased because he is her nephew, but I also trust her to tell me her honest opinion on Evan's behavior. She found it odd that his teachers only just now clued in on the fact that he is reading. And when he refuses to paint a chick yellow, why not offer another option to see if he would accept a more difficult task, like painting stripes on the chick? She enthusiastically suggested we find a new school after this school year, one that has a gifted program or at least an accelerated learning environment for his "behavior" issues.

The local $16,000 a year school is not even an option, so we'll look into Montessori schools to see if those are even remotely affordable. However, the $16K school does offer a "Pre-k" screening for $350, which I don't put much faith in. But, it may help us when he gets to kindergarten if we come armed with the testing results that may (or may not) show he is past learning how to spell C-A-T.

So, I have my homework cut out for me. Maybe Evan can help me with it :)