Archie’s doing a lot of telling me what she knows I want to hear.  Sadly, it appears that very little of it is the true state of affairs.

She’s being pulled out for a maths group with a handful of other kids.  She was telling me about this the other day and said she’d been working with square numbers which she enjoys even if she has known about them for quite some time.  She proudly told me that she got all of the them right and that the teacher they worked with told her how good she was at math.

Nope.  Didn’t happen.  She did get them all right but the teacher didn’t compliment her.

She’s been finishing her work and has been the first one finished.  This is a HUGE step for Archie who is constantly being told off at school for not producing.  Anyway, I thought that things were going well.

The other day after a school, a number of Archie’s friends came out with her with stickers on their chests.  I asked Archie what they were for and she said for finishing their work.  Why didn’t you get one?  Because I never do mum.

Archie’s folder hasn’t moved from the place where it was on the teacher’s desk 2 weeks ago.  Archie’s substitute teacher has told me that she’s struggling with basic concepts that I know she isn’t. 

Archie and I were discussing all of this (especially the stretching of the truth bit) yesterday and she said she was invisible to the teachers.

She’s not a teacher pleaser.  She doesn’t get her work done quickly and then race up for a sticker or a pat on the head.  She doesn’t get acknowledged for trying.  She doesn’t get acknowledged for knowing ‘stuff’.  Thankfully we don’t have behavioural issues as she’s more likely to vague out than act up – so instead of being recognised in any way she gets mostly ignored.  Coupled this with a curriculum that’s inappropriate and a teacher who can’t control the kids in her class, fragile social groups, an understanding of human nature well beyond her years and it makes for a pretty sad little person.

This is what happened to me.  You try…you get ignored…you stop trying.  Either way the outcome is the same.  She’s not learning.  I’m trying to juggle my life, my school, the needs of the other family members, and teaching Archie new information before and after school.

I know that last years teacher, God love her, was confused because Archie didn’t fit the ‘gifted child’ category that Mrs T had learnt about.  This is what amazes me.  You are gifted therefore you’re all the same. 

Here’s news.  We’re not.  There are a vast range of differences between people on the gifted spectrum.  Just like there’s a vast range of differences between people on the less abled spectrum.  Just because 10 people are 6ft tall doesn’t mean they’re all the same in every aspect.  They just happen to have commonalities.  And the problem for kid’s like Archie is that most teachers will never have seen one before.  They’ll have seen lots of bright children.  Lots of kids that want to get their work done and love stickers and A’s and all the rest.  But they wont’ come across many (if any) kids who are light years ahead of their peers and learn for the love of learning – not for any extrinsic award.

I’m over it.  I’m over the whole education system.  I’m over fighting.  I don’t want another 8 years of this.  I’m tired of it already.

Archie’s Mum