I had a bit of a freak out last week because I got a call from Aidan's teacher. I'm sad to say that the inappropriate sexual comment another kid said to her on the playground was the least of the issues.
The teacher, who is the Head Kindergarten Teacher and has been there for pretty much ever, informs me, with about 4 weeks of school left that she thinks Aidan is showing signs of ADD. Now we've had a couple meetings during the school year and she's emailed and sent notes home, so I know she has known how to get ahold of me this entire year. Why she chose to wait until now to bring this up is beyond me. HOWEVER, being the mom of an Aspie, I know it's best to jump right on these things just in case. When she said she was worried that if Aidan went into a classroom with only one teacher she would fall behind, my panic meter went off. So I schedule her for an appointment with the doctor on Thursday and arrange to take the day off on Friday so I can go sit in the classroom and see what's going on.
Thursday comes, John takes her to the doctor, the doctor looks at her, asks John some questions and promptly declares the ADD thing to be a passel of bunk. She gives us the name of a specialist, however, if we'd like to confirm it. Ok. Then comes Friday and I head off to spend the day in a classroom full of 6 and 7 year olds. NEVER do this, by the way, unless you are about 10 years younger than me or are so used to it it has no affect on you anymore. I was so wore out by the end of the day I crashed almost right after the kids went to bed. My first clue should have been when I got there and the badge they gave me said Volunteer rather than Visitor.
As Grissom is always wont to point out, the mere observation of a phenomenon changes it in some way, so I didn't expect to see a pristine example of the behaviors her teacher was describing. Aidan has always had sensory issues, so the fact that she is more comfortable sitting away from the group at floor time didn't surprise me. And the teacher had dealt with that rather well by "giving her a bubble to sit in". Aidan gets to sit apart a bit and imagine a bubble around herself to reduce her anxiety at the proximity of the other kids. The majority of the day went rather normally, I would say. The teacher only has about 15-17 kids and a full time assistant so it never really got out of hand at any point. The teacher was pulling about 4 kids out at a time to do an assessment on the kids' understanding of the "product/consumer" unit they had just covered. Then they had a letter writing time. All the kids sat on the floor and she drew the letter "u". Down, travel, up and down. She traced it on the board and had the kids repeat the steps. Aidan was watching and repeating but looking at me rather worriedly. Then when the teacher asked Aidan to repeat the steps, she said she didn't know. THIS is what the teacher was talking about. She pulled Aidan aside when all the other kids were getting seated to do the writing practice in their workbooks and told her "this is why you don't know because you weren't paying attention when I was explaining it, you were looking at your mama." Well, now I knew what the problem was.
Having been through this same thing with Ian I spotted it right away. When Aidan came and sat down with her work book, she said she couldn't do the work. When I pressed her a bit I got the answer I knew I was going to get, "What if I don't do it right?". See, I knew she was going to say that because Ian did the same thing. If they can't do something just right they don't want to do it at all. Only where Ian would just silently refuse to do the work, Aidan says she doesn't know or she can't do it. LUCKILY, the teacher was walking by when Aidan said that and heard me reassuring her that this was practice and that's what practice is for so you can learn how to do something right. I saw the light bulb go off over the teacher's head and when I went over to her after the kids were putting their workbooks away. Once I confirmed the explanation with her, and was sure she got it, she took Aidan in for her assessment. This time, when Aidan said "I don't know" the teacher said "I know you know, your answer doesn't have to be perfect, just tell me what you know so I can write down that you did your best". Then Aidan rattled everything right off. The teacher came out and said she did very well on the assessment.
WHY would a teacher just take at face value that an otherwise intelligent child who scored so highly on all her testing and other work would suddenly develop ADD? And why would she not notice Aidan displaying this behavior all throughout the rest of the school year. Because I know good and well she was. That's just what she does.
So big ol' dope slap to the teacher for being so darned lazy and making me take a day off of work to do her job. Grrr.
at 2:40 PM :: ~#~
