We went to school today and had a conversation with the principal regarding Rebekah and her teacher. It went pretty much as expected. Teacher is the best, you child needs to learn to control her behavior.
As far as the remaining 4 weeks of school are concerned. Adam brought up a point that the daily happy/sad face cards work as a punishment to Rebekah without any kind of reward for good behavior. Principal agreed and we came up with a few suggestion for the teacher on what she can ask Rebekah to do in-between assignments (that is where she fidgests the most and plays with things like erasers, pencils, and paper). Normally kids are expected to either read a book or practice their cursive writing if they are done with the worksheet. That does not work for Rebekah. She gets bored doing same thing over and over. Some of the suggestions were to give her an extra worksheet to work on, let her write in her journal, or ask her to read a book and write a small report. Also, as part of the reward we agreed that if Rebekah behaves well for 2-3 days in a raw, she would be allowed to spend some time drawing or working with paper. Will it work? I don't know. We'll see. *
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As for the main reason of our meeting, we told the principal that we want to make sure that next year, Rebekah would be in class with the teacher that would be a better personally match and who's teaching style would be more suited to Rebekah's kinesthetic way of learning. Also, we would want a teacher that would take the time to get to know our child as a person. As an example, I told her how Rebekah's last year teacher, noting that Rebekah is very artistic and into fashion, took the time to talk to Rebekah about fashion for a few minutes a day. The principal kept stressing that in 3rd grade there would be even higher expectation in terms of discipline and school work. We kept stressing that we have no problem with the school work and expected discipline, as long as the teacher shows some kind of interest in child's personality and allows for creative outlet.
As for the meeting itself, Adam critiqued me afterwards that I talk too fast, don't let people to put a word in, and repeat the same point over and over. I told Adam that I felt like he was falling asleep after every word. Oh well.
Update: Got this email from the pricipal
Hi,
Thank you for coming today. I spoke to Ms. Idiot and asked her to give Rebekah choices other than reading when she completes her work. Ms. Idiot said she has a menu of 5 things from which to choose; read, write in her journal any thing she likes, study spelling words, review math flash cards (which she can move around her desk), continue on writing projects in the class. In addition on Fridays there is always free time if the children followed the rules during the week. Ms. Idiot said that she will reward your daughter with art type activities if she has a few good days in a row.
Enjoy your weekend.
Ms. Principal
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