Dante's School Issues: Also a Rant in Parts

Part 1: I hate public schools. I hate what they do to the teachers and the kids. I hate what they've done to the institution of teaching. You should eavesdrop on some of the conversations that soon-to-be teachers attending the university have with each other. ("I can't wait to have my own classroom, so that I never have to analyze anything again. Books are analyzed to death." Says the almost graduated soon to be high school English teacher.) I think most of them go into the major just to be sure they'll get their summers off. The old and established teachers are no better. And here is where my problem comes in.

My son right now is in hot water with his grades. My son has never been in hot water with his grades. But this year, he's brought home D's in a couple of subjects on his report card consistently. And I'm so spun around by the whole thing, I'm not sure what to do. It isn't that he can't do the work. On the papers he turns in, he gets A's and B's. But apparently, the teacher's method of making them turn in their papers to a certain box near her desk isn't working out so well for him. Because if he doesn't turn that paper in to her that day, it gets a zero. That's what's bottoming out his grade. He doesn't yet understand the concept of an "average", so I can't make him understand how bad it is when he doesn't turn in his papers.

Dante has never been an organizationally gifted child. What little boy is, really? His favorite method of controlling his toys is to keep them in a big pile on the floor. You put something away, he forgets he owns it. I'm sure the same is true for his papers. If he sticks them in his desk, it's as though they've vanished through a portal into another universe. When they move on to other subjects, he forgets he even has a paper. It boggles my mind. I was not this way when I was a child. But he is, so that's what we have to work with.

His old teacher, who is too fat to get up off her butt most of the day, wasn't very sympathetic. She even has an aide, so she really doesn't have much excuse for not making sure the 9 year olds turn their work in. Would it kill her to announce to them to make sure their papers are all turned in before they leave that day? Apparently it would. I solved the problem of Dante not turning in unfinished papers. He may not understand the concept of a zero yet, but he sure as hell knows what a low score is. He wasn't turning in unfinished papers because he didn't want to see that low score--and instead was ruining his average with zeros.

Third Grade Teacher began to change her tune, however, when I did a little bit of research. When I called to check up on his work in KY, she gave me that same old song about how sucky he was (keep in mind the tests/papers he does turn in are above average work); "Well, maybe he needs a section-504 plan." That stopped her mouth. That plan is a little gem that says if a student can do the work (as Dante obviously can), but has difficulty accessing it (as in, does not have the organizational skills needed to follow through), the teacher has to accomodate whatever it takes to allow him to access the curriculum. Which means, she'd have to get up off her fat ass and ask him for his papers. She's done a total 180 in talking to me now. It pisses me off, though, because what of those other kids who don't have a Virgil to bring down the hammer with their professional lingo? Do they just go on and suffer? Likely.

If Dante gets too many D's, he may have to go to summer school, which means he won't be able to come and visit me. Which means I'll probably go on my own destructive behavior bent. I explained to him the situation, I remind him every time we speak to turn in his papers, etc. This last period, instead of two D's, he only had one in Social Studies (which used to be his favorite subject). Last night, I found out he got 100% of his Social Studies test. So it's a good start. But my plan, provided he can even make it up this summer, is to do some extra work with him to prepare him for the 4th grade. I'll have 9 weeks.

For those of you who homeschool, I'd love to hear what you'd do. My plan so far is to check out tons of library books--I feel like if his reading is doing well, most other things will come along with that. I'm going to get him some Mad Libs to help with grammar identification (he's having trouble with adverbs right now). He loves it when I make up paragraphs full of mistakes and let him find them and correct me with a red pen. He loves marking up my papers! But other than that, I'm not sure what to focus on. I may not focus on much more than that. The more he enjoys what he does, the more likely he is to actually want to do the work when he goes back to school.

I know one thing. Regardless of all the people involved who want Dante to stay in Kentucky (which is more or less everybody but me), if he has the same grade issues in the first two grading periods of 4th grade as he did with 3rd, I'm pulling him out at Christmas and enrolling him in private school up here. Then the chaos will really start, but I can't stand to sit there and watch his grades go down. For a public school kid, they rarely start going back up.

-- Virgil