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The Teacher Thing Again

March 26th, 2014 at 05:29 pm

F started the week with her new teacher, and so far she's not thrilled. I think the new teacher is really nice (and nice goes a long way for me, better than really mean!). But F says she's not challenging enough.

The spelling words were "too easy" and there weren't enough (used to be 15 per week, now 10). F actually made me call her friend's mom to make sure that they had the same words; she was convinced that she somehow got the easy word list. (There is a small group of them who get challenge words rather than the regular words, but I think this week the whole class has the same list).

Soooo... I had to talk to the teacher this morning who looked shocked that F thought the words were too easy. I didn't tell her that F was screaming at me on Monday: "Purpose! Who doesn't know how to spell purpose?!! And injustice! We had that word in second grade!"

She yells with me, but with the teacher she's completely non-confrontational. Actually, I spoke to the teacher specifically because yesterday in school she'd asked F if the words were too hard, and F was too shy to say the opposite. I asked her what she did say, and she told me "Mommy, I just stood there. I didn't say anything, because I didn't want to hurt her feelings."

I told F we should see how the words are next week, and then maybe have another discussion.

I suspect that maybe it's easier for the teacher, being new, to just have one list of words. But my husband makes this point: we don't pay all this money for a private school to have it be easy for the teacher; we pay for things to be somewhat individualized and we go to this school specifically so that our daughter is challenged.

Posted in Not-so-Frugal Education | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “The Teacher Thing Again”

  1. creditcardfree Says:
    March 26th, 2014 at 05:36 pm 1395855394
    1395855394

    Do you have any of the old spelling lists? You might provide that information to the teacher so she is aware of where she was at earlier in the year. Wishing you the best...we do have to be the advocates for our kids!!

  2. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    March 27th, 2014 at 12:19 am 1395879568
    1395879568

    I think CCF has a good idea. I'm actually surprised that the previous teacher didn't leave notes regarding the academic level of the students - especially if the teacher knew in advance he/she was leaving.

  3. Buendia Says:
    March 27th, 2014 at 10:23 pm 1395959002
    1395959002

    The previous teacher not only left notes, but she met with the new teacher about every student... we were assured that the new teacher would follow the old curriculum exactly. We also met with the new teacher (they call it a connection conference) and I was very clear about F's strengths and weaknesses. And I told her, above all, don't talk down to this group of kids. The parents don't talk down to them, and they absolutely hate that (it's that time between being a baby in the school and a big kid when you really want to be treated like a big kid and given responsibility; they're a very responsible bunch).

  4. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    March 28th, 2014 at 01:22 am 1395969762
    1395969762

    Then wow ... Maybe the new teacher is just getting the feet wet and will be changing things up later? If that's not the case, then I would think a parent/teacher meeting would need to be imminent.

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