Yet another meeting with a school.

Today’s meeting was started with “we’d like to get Archie tested again – just so we have an accurate picture.”

Bam – first thing off the bat.  Translated by Archie and myself as “we don’t believe the results from 2007”.

It was all negative.  If Archie does this then they’ll extend her with that.  If Archie fixes 3 years of underachieving, then we’ll do this.  If Archie borrows 1 book per week from the library then she can do extension reading contracts .

Gobsmacked.  Hurt.  Despondent.  Bewildered.  Confused. 

Boy Wonder has reacted with the supportive line of “she just needs to stop bludging.”

Of course for me, her intelligence being questioned has made me question not only hers, but my own.

2nd lowest level of spelling groups.

Major problems with handwriting (we’re now paying for an occupational therapist to work with her).

Failure to be proactive about completion of work.

Below age level on a number of tests.

FSIQ = 146.  Fluid reasoning alone was 153 for verbal and non-verbal.

Did I get something wrong?  Have I been so completely biased that I’ve made something out of nothing?

I asked her to write down how she felt.  I’m saddened, once more, to read what this 8 year old child thinks like.  Perhaps it really is time to quit now.

The whole world seems like it won’t listen to anything that I say because it doesn’t care.  But there is one pool of sunshine that never runs out.  That I can go to and it will listen to my every word.  It will keep me safe and look after me in my time of need.  My mum.”

I wrote to our wonderful psych the other day to give her an update on where we’re at with Archie and she wrote back with

“well - looks like the roller coaster is speeding along there!Why can it never be easy? I guess to stretch the analogy - we ride the crests with exhilaration and weather the depths with a strong feeling of motion sickness. I feel for you.”

The roller coast that is our life with Archie continues to take corkscrew like twists and turns.  We managed to find an OT that can see her at the beginning of August so that’s good news.  Her pre-interview check sheet is quite thorough and covers a lot of the areas we’re concerned with so fingers crossed something good will come of it.

We received Archie’s report on the last day of school.  It was written by her lovely old teacher and is potentially the best that she’s received yet.  It still makes me laugh with comments such as “Archie developed an understanding of chess this year.”   Right.  “Archie has an understanding of simple fractions.”  Hmmm…ok.  You don’t know she can do complex fraction work because you don’t ask!

But on the whole, for Archie, it was an excellent report.

Then yesterday I get voicemail from Mrs T – our friend and Archie’s teacher from last year.  Ring me – she demands – I have VERY exciting news.

We played telephone tag for the next couple of hours but when we finally caught up she did indeed have very exciting news.  At the end of last year she began grooming several teachers to see which would be best for Archie this year.  Her top pick was a good friend of hers who “was excited about the opportunity to work with Archie.”  Sadly, classes were collapsed and others were changed and her friend missed out on the class.

Well – she’s got it now!  She’s been given the class for the rest of the year.  She is also meeting with our wonderful Mrs T for lunch today to get information on Archie.  It looks like we’ll have a team of 3 (me, Mrs T, and the new teacher) working in the background for Archie.  This could be VERY good.

So we dip and dive again and live in eternal hope that we may at least get a great 6 months.  For me, that’ll do for the moment.

Archie’s mum. 

Thank you, all of you, for your wonderful comments, calls, and emails.  I’ve really appreciated and was quite overwhelmed.

Archie got told by the teacher yesterday that she “just has to work harder on her hand writing as it’s the messiest in the class.”

Go the positive motivation techniques love.

The big thing is the pressure of time.  The anxiety that “hurry up” invokes in Archie is incredible.  I asked her to write me something yesterday afternoon.  I was careful to tell her that there was no time constraints and I wasn’t worried about spelling or neatness.  And write she did.  So here it is.  No fancy title, just a few lines by Archie about how she feels at school. 

Long hair
swinging in the breeze
skipping like I have not a care
smelling the flowers everywhere.

I start puffing hard.

Dark clouds hanging over me. 
Bad thoughts pour into my head.

Walking empty streets.  Alone.

The light cuts through the clouds.
People open their doors for me.

Happy and free at last!

By Archie

While I’m pleased with her ability to formulate thoughts, the content of the piece concerns me.  It’s something that I’ll be carefully monitoring and will get her in to see our wonderful Educational Psych if it keeps up.

We’re heading off for a couple of days next week.  BoyWonder has to go on a road trip.  While I was meant to be doing training with my supervisor I need a break more than that.  I’m wrung out and want to escape reality for even just a few days.

Thanks again.

Archie’s Mum

Archie was off school for 3 days again last week.  She complained of a sore tooth on Tuesday night so I had a look and here’s a horrid big abscess.  Off to the local dentists on Wednesday.  The Bulgarian butcher says “we’ll knock her out and rip 6 teeth out”.  I don’t understand why her teeth are so bad.  She has a healthy diet (better than mine at the moment).  She brushes regularly.  Apparently she grinds her teeth.  (As an aside, she’s not going to the Bulgarian butcher for the work…so there’ll be no ripping out of multiple teeth!)

This was on the back of her coming home on Tuesday and again complaining of being harassed by some of the kids at school.  The harassment continued, in class I might add, to the point where she burst into tears.  For Archie, this means that she’d probably sucked it up for a couple of hours.  One of her few friends in class, another little fringe dwelling girl, came to console her and they were then accused of being gay by one of the other charming 4th graders.

I got home on Wednesday with our $1600 quote and saw red.  I rang the school and complained about the amount of stress that Archie is being put under constantly.

That was mistake #1.  I thought they’d care. 

I finally heard back from the Ass. Principal yesterday. She’d had a talk to Archie.  The first words out of this woman’s mouth were “Does Archie enjoy Drama or dramatic productions?”

WTF?  Apparently she said that ALL of the boys were involved in teasing her and that it was ALL of the time.  The insinuation was that she was a drama queen.

Then it went on.  Emotionally immature.  Needs to learn that perhaps she’s equally to blame.  Very young (no shit sherlock).  Causing problems.  Difficult to deal with.  Doesn’t look in people’s eyes.  Hunched over when she talks.  On and on and on and on and on. 

So who’s the victim here? 

Then we started on the handwriting – again. 

We have spent literally thousands of dollars getting handwriting systems from the US shipped over here along with every other type of writing aid you can possibly think of.  Not to mention the countless hours that I’ve sat with her to help her with her handwriting (and other school type work but let’s not get started on that shall we). 

The conversation basically ended with “You need to talk to Archie about HER attitude towards others and especially her attitude towards school work as there’ll be no accommodation for as long as we can’t SEE that she’s learnt the current curriculum.”

So it’s up to us - no make that me as this drama led to an all out war of words between BoyWonder and myself - to fix it.

Again.

Today I’m ringing an occupational therapist.  If nothing else, I want a bloody diagnosis of what I believe (in my limited experience) is most likely dysgraphia or something like it.  The other children saying that they will dob if she doesn’t hurry up and finish her work is no doubt a wonderful motivator for her as well.  Along with the constant reminders that her handwriting is crap and she’s slow.  Whatever it is, I want a knowledgeable professional to label it as a frigging disability because Lord knows then they’ll care.  Perhaps.

I can see why so many of us PG parents give up.  I’m completely wrung out.  I have no emotional energy left for anything at the moment.  I am terrified of what I see my gorgeous, witty, scary smart little human being becoming.  She’s becoming me.

If you’ve written and not got a response from me I’m sorry.  I just can’t deal with the extraneous ‘stuff’ at the moment.  I am attempting to keep it all together along with my honours work.  Exercise and eating have fallen by the wayside. 

I can’t quit.  This little girl’s long term emotional well being depends on me being there with her to get her through this crap.

I do wish that I could run away – even for just a little while.  Then again, we’d still have to come back to the reality that the education system is not designed for children like her.

Archie’s Mum

You know how I wrote that post the other day about listening?  Well, it works.

Archie, as you know, has been having piano lessons for about a term and a half now.  She’s doing really well.  There’s a few challenges – she reads the music once and plays it by memory from that point on.  Her teacher is happy for her to do this, as long as the initial piece is correct!  Otherwise she tends to get herself stuck in a loop

Her fingers are quite small, not the long, lanky ones that a good piano player probably needs but she’s makes up for it in effort.  She’s like I was when I was learning guitar – scales – phooey!  But she does them for me albeit begrudgingly.

Last night, she and I were playing a few pieces together and I got up to help BoyWonder cook dinner. The piano we have is capable of recording what you’re playing and Archie worked this out within 10 minutes of us receiving the piano so we know she mucks around with it.

Anyway, I get up, wander over to the kitchen and she says “Mum, listen to this.”

So I took a dose of my own advice and stopped what I was doing and listened.

She hit the play button and out came this short piece of classical music.  There are some pre-recorded songs on the piano but this is NOT one of them. 

“Who played that?” I asked.

“Me!” Archie exclaimed excitedly.

“What is it?  I think I know it but I can’t place it Archie.”

“I don’t know Mum.  I heard it on Little Einstein’s last year.”

We’d noticed she had a good ear when she was playing.  If she plays a note incorrectly she immediately fixes it up.  But she’d not displayed an ability to play by ear up until this point. 

We’ve narrowed the episode down and it says that it’s a part of Vivaldi’s Springtime (one of her favourite pieces) but we can’t find the exact part in the music.  We’re going to ask her teacher on Monday and see if she can pinpoint it for us because it’s driving me nuts!

So listening is good for us parents too.  Sometimes we get so caught up in what they’re meant to be doing (practice your scales, do your homework, read that book) that we forget that there’s still room for us to be amazed by hidden talents.

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

Well I’m back!  My hard disk decided to teach me to back up my data on Saturday morning – the hard way…by dying.

So hubby and I have spent the past 5 days recovering the data and then rebuilding my laptop with a new hard drive.  It’s been a fairly stressful time as I’d been stupid and not kept regular backups.

Anyway, that’s all over.

I was thinking the other day about a question that a teacher friend of mine asked me.  The question was:

“What one word sums up what you think teachers should do with kids like Archie?”

One word???  That’s a tall ask.

But the other day as we were driving along it struck me.  The word is:

LISTEN

That’s it.  Why you ask?  Simple.  It’s when these kids speak that you really ‘get’ how different they are.

Example from Archie that helped me to find the answer.  Their substitute teacher is reading them George’s Marvellous Medicine.  Archie recalls reading it ‘a long time ago’ (Kindergarten – just 3 short years!)…but she’s enjoying it as she doesn’t remember much of the detail.  She’s listing the ingredients that are in the medicine and she gets to the end, takes a breath, and says “you know what mum, it should be called George’s LETHAL medicine!”

That was the moment.  She’s 8.  Most kids that age wouldn’t know the word lethal existed let alone use it in such a precise way.  She then went on to tell me “Or murderous, or…or….or…”  She came up with about half a dozen equally fitting words.

That’s when it hit me.  Teacher’s new to the journey of working with PG kids need to learn to LISTEN. Shut your mouth.  Shut your eyes.  Park your prejudices at the door.  And listen.  Get these kids to talk about something they’re passionate about.  And then listen with an open heart and an open mind.

That’s what these kids need from teachers.  They need to be heard.

Hope that you’re all doing well.

Archie’s Mum

Archie’s school bell goes at 14:55 and she normally comes straight out.  Yesterday I sat and waited patiently for her.  And waited.  And waited some more.  By 10 past she still wasn’t out and the playground was almost empty.  Seeing as we were now going to be late to get TeenQueen I figured I’d better go and find out what the hold up was.

Archie and one of her ‘friends’ were chatting with the new teacher, Ms W.  Her friend B waved at me and gave me a hug and Ms. W.   immediately assumed that I was B’s mother.  A shake of the head and a smile and I say nope, that one’s mine and point to Archie.

“OH, YOU’RE Archie’s Mum!”.  Hmmm….I’m not sure if it was said in surprise (as in you’re not what I expected) or if she felt sorry for me :-) 

She’s being good to Archie so far.  Archie collects bit of paper in her desk and it appears that the old teacher let her do it without clearing out her desk for the whole year.  Not good.  Yesterday she couldn’t find a book she needed.  Instead of getting angry Mrs. W. suggested that she and Archie clean it out together.  And they did.  She also mentioned that Archie’s desk looked like a stick-nest rat’s nest!  Looking at images of one this morning I can only imagine.

Archie said that she’s got ‘the folder’ on her desk so hopefully she’s had a flick through it.  She’s also trying to get Archie to look up when she talks – I told her that if she can work out how to do that she’d be the first in 8 years!  Oh, and Archie pulled her copy of Eragon/Eldest to read in reading time yesterday.  Apparently the teacher was a little shocked but didn’t stop her from reading it (lucky for her!).

Anyway, so far so good.  It’ll be a real shame if she’s great with Archie as she’s only there until a permanent replacement is found.

Archie’s Mum

Archie’s new teacher started yesterday.  The jury is still out as to whether Archie is going to like her or not but she seemed relatively pleased with the start yesterday.  She apparently doesn’t take any rubbish from the kids so it will be nice to see some discipline put back into the class.  She’s also organising a class time table so structure should rear her head again too.

The only thing that Archie was confused about was whether she liked the teacher’s attitude towards reading.

Her classroom has a small bookshelf.  The children are free to grab a book during free time or when their work is finished and take it back to their desk.  New Teacher has said she’ll be bringing cushions in for the kids to lounge around on (inviting trouble if you ask me!) and she’s going to obtain more books.  The children are encouraged to bring their own book in though so Archie has taken Eldest in to finish off.

What confused her though is the teacher has said they’ll get 5 minutes first thing after lunch to read.  A bit short according to Archie but better than nothing.  New Teacher then went on to say that if they didn’t behave, they would get another 5 minutes of reading time.

WTF?  Archie and I don’t understand why reading is being used a form of punishment?  Am I so out of touch with the ‘normal’ world that I fail to see that as completely backward?  Don’t we (as a planet) have issues with literacy and a reluctance by a lot of children, especially boys, to read? 

So – should reading be used as a behaviour modification tool?  Archie and I vote no although she is now secretly hoping that the boys are true to form and muck up so that she gets extra reading time

Archie’s Mum

Where did that weekend go?  It seems like we hardly have the time to take a breath before we’re launched full throttle into the next week!

We achieved heaps of things on the weekend.  Saturday morning was given over to cleaning up after a week of laziness.  Our initial plan had been to meet with our educational psych for a catch up on Saturday and then a day trip to visit my folks on Sunday.  Plans changed though so that we were meeting with our psych on Sunday so we headed to the folks Saturday afternoon.  Hubby and I had words about my thesis.  I’m obsessing over small details at the moment and getting stressed by the big details at the same time. 

Me and the group are nowhere near ready to present to the cognitive scientists next Tuesday.  Nowhere near it.  But that’s what we’re doing.  I’ve spent the whole weekend trying to mush my project up into something presentable and I’m desperately hoping that my latest list of questions will satisfy my supervisor.  Anyway, I spent a fair bit of time on Saturday afternoon/evening chatting with my old man about the project and he really helped me express what I was thinking. 

I rang our psych Saturday night to organise a time to meet on Sunday and left a voicemail message for her.  I was pretty despondent by lunchtime on Sunday when I’d not heard back from her.  Around 2ish she rings me and asks why I didn’t call her!  Huh?  Voicemail never went through apparently!

So hubby and I raced home to pick up the MENSA application we need her to sign for Archie and then went and picked her up and whisked her off for coffee.  We had an amazing few hours with her.  I always feel reinvigorated when I’ve spent time with her.  She reminds me of why I’m doing this…why it’s important.  We had a quick chat about my current Honours project and decided that I just need to do it and then pretty much write it off but hopefully she’ll help guide me with a project for next year.

My only other really exciting news is that there’s a conference in July of next year and I mentioned that I’m looking at going to it.  Next thing you know I’m being told I WILL be going to it and that she’ll introduce me to her circle of friends – which includes some of the biggest names in gifted education in Australia.  So I’m feeling very blessed to have such an incredible mentor in my life.

All else is just bubbling along.  I’m looking at an online language program for Archie to try and enrich her at home.  SwitchedOnMom uses Powerspeak so I’m having a go at their free trial to see whether it suits Archie.

Oh, I just remember, Archie and I are off to see David Helfgott in August performing a solo recital.  We thought that seeing as she had just started Piano perhaps this opportunity will inspire her to keep going!  So it’s going to be a girls night out and we might even grab a meal out before the show.

Time to go get my girls from school.

Archie’s Mum