Q: How can you tell if your child has a great educator?
A: When they write poetry about him. Today, Reed came home from school clutching a paper. I had to wait until after he went to bed to read it, because he wouldn't give it up before then. Here is what I found:
Funny Boy
by Mrs. C.
I work at school with a boy named
Reed,
Sometimes I laugh as he’s doing a deed.
He analyzes, often
surprises,
Comes up with words of colossal sizes.
After being
in school for just two weeks
The progress he’s made has come in
leaps.
He’s sitting longer, listening well,
Taking his turn, there’s more
to tell…
As he reads a book, he may laugh and giggle.
My
nickname for him has become “Mr. Wiggle”.
Reed has taught me to be patient,
have compassion and joy-
Teaching is a pleasure with this great, funny boy.
I've always loved his aide, but now I
really love her. The boost to his self confidence is just awesome, and it's so great to hear how much she loves working with him.
Progress Report
I've been lax in posting again. Sorry about that. The end of summer and beginning of the school year has found me quite busy. We went on a fantastic vacation. Reed did so great! There was only one minor meltdown, and one destructive episode, but otherwise he was charming. Not bad for an 8 day vacation that took us across 4 states. We even had what Heath jokingly calls the "Wallyworld experience" in which the amusement park we had advance tickets for was closed for the week when we showed up at the front gate. I thought for sure that would be a deal-breaker for Reed, but he handled it like a trooper. He was clearly disappointed, but cheerfully participated in the remainder of the activities we planned for the day. Luckily, the park re-opened for the holiday weekend, so we still got to use our tickets (although we had to skip the family reunion we've been planning to attend all year. Oh well.).
And now for the best news of all: Reed is doing great in school! I was so sure that this week would be a disaster. We got home from vacation 45 minutes before bedtime the day before school started. After more than a week away from home, I was anticipating the transition from vacation to home to be difficult enough on its own. Add to that the transition from summer vacation to school and I was certain we had a recipe for disaster. Boy, was I wrong. He has had phenomenal days all week (school started on Tuesday). His teacher and aide have been thrilled with his participation. But hands-down, the best moment of the school year so far for me happened before school even started. We were standing in the hall outside his classroom waiting for the teachers to check the kids in. The hallway was utter chaos. Reed was looking a little anxious, but was overall taking it well. All of a sudden, a boy from his Kindergarten class last year rounds the corner in front of us. Reed jumped out from the wall, looked him squarely in the face and said “Hi Alex! It’s me, Reed. Are you in my class?” I nearly fainted. In spite of being pretty overwhelmed by the noise and confusion, he still managed to initiate an age-appropriate conversation without any help from an adult.
Holy cow, where did this come from? The next morning, he stood in line with another boy from last year’s class and chatted while they waited to be let into the classroom, while his aide looked on from a distance. She commented that, while he mostly listened as the other boy talked, he did interact in the conversation as well. Woo Hoo! He’s making friends this year, not just “friends” (which seemed to mean anyone whose name he knew and could identify in the hallway at school last year).
One last, but
HUGE victory to report for the week: Yesterday, our library had a special event to unveil the newly renovated children’s section. Reed loves the library, but has trouble with the basic library rules, so we don’t go often, but since there were going to be special guests reading stories and crafts and games for the kids, I decided this would be a good chance for him to spend some time with his beloved books without having to worry to much about being quiet and still. Not only did he do crafts with a couple other kids, and listen attentively to the celebrity guest readers, he
READ ALOUD TO THE ENTIRE LIBRARY. Yes, you heard me correctly. One of the volunteers asked if he’d like to read a book, and he jumped up on stage, and read 3 short stories to 2 dozen spectators. He even remembered to turn the book to show the illustrations at the end of each page, proving that he realized that he was interacting with the audience. Naturally, I took lots of pictures, but it was with the old film camera (my digital’s been acting up lately), and I haven’t developed the roll yet. But you can bet I’ll be posting them as soon as I can.
