In the Fall my
son’s school conducted some standardized testing. A few weeks later the results of these tests
were mailed to us and I read them, filing the document away afterwards. In the early Spring we got a phone call
asking us to come in for a meeting with the principal, the teacher, the
school’s proctor (my son’s French teacher), and a rep from the Board of
Education.
At this meeting we
were informed that our son is gifted, according to his test results. While this result was not really a surprise
to me, what did surprise me was that the school had called us in for a meeting
about it. I was surprised because being
a small rural school, they have no facility for effectively dealing with or
managing gifted children. I think the
days of promoting kids beyond their age level have gone by the wayside. It’s probably just as well because since it
is a small school of only 130 kids, any kid that was either failed or promoted
would have to endure endlessly being singled out as “different” by their
peers. This would doubtless continue
right up until high school graduation as the friends made in kindergarten are
the same kids he will eventually graduate with.
The school’s
proposition was to create an “Independent Education Plan” which would outline
ways in which to challenge my son’s strengths while providing remedial
attention on his struggling areas of learning.
At our request, further more in-depth testing was effected in order to
determine what my son’s strengths and struggles might be. A few weeks after that testing was completed,
a further meeting was set up to discuss the results. This was the “Identification, Placement and
Review Committee” and included the same people as before.
At this IRPC
meeting the list of identified strengths and needs once again didn’t really
present any surprises to me. Never fear,
though, as there were a number of things that not only surprised me, but some
completely blew me out of the water.
One of my questions
to them was about spelling in the curriculum.
The answer was that beyond the primary grades (1 to 3), they no longer have
spelling per se. Rather, and this
shocked me for several reasons, they have a computer program that allows a
child to type in the first few letters of a word and the program makes a list
of several suggested words. The child
scrolls through the list, clicking each one, and the computer says each word
as it’s clicked. Then the child simply
selects the right word by its sound and it is inserted into their
document. WHAT? I mean, WHAT?? How on earth will children learn to spell if
they aren’t taught to?
Then I asked about
cursive writing. I know that email and
typed communication of one form or another has pretty much taken over writing,
but I believe this skill is still necessary.
Imagine my surprise when I was informed that they no longer teach
cursive writing! I asked how my son
would ever sign a marriage certificate or a mortgage application if he couldn’t
write, but there was no answer. I’m
still gobsmacked over this one and have decided I will teach my son this
summer.
The list
continues: the teachers say my son is
having a hard time with research. I
dropped that one right back in their laps.
I said that they should not assume that every child has free access to a
computer or that they have developed the skills the school deems necessary. I told them before they plunk a kid in front
of a monitor with the Google page open and tell them to research something, the
school should first make sure that those same kids actually know how to use Google!
Now I realize why so many young people are heading off to college and university so ill-prepared for it. In September when my son's teacher asks, "What did you do on your summer vacation?" my ten-year-old son will reply, "I learned how to write, how to spell, and how to multiply and divide." What will your child say? Take action now so they can say the same. Our children's education is no longer provided by the educators, it's provided by us.
