Lion and Magic Boy

I’ve been largely silent about the incredible pressure Serena felt, and as an extension of that I felt, as a result of our last-minute end-of-summer decision to move the children from their Waldorf school into public school. Public school where the focus is heavily on reading. Public school where nearly every activity throughout every single second-grade day requires reading. Public school where the focus is very different from the Waldorf curriculum that gently encourages the children to really know the letters and all their hidden qualities, ensuring really strong readers by the end of third grade. Public school where for the first time Serena struggled and felt she was the straggler, the new kid, lagging behind.

Every weekday she cheerfully approached her homework, though, and as the weeks passed I saw her progress in terms of the waning help she required from me and the number of spelling words she spelled correctly not at the end of every week (where she never missed one after having worked with the words all week) but in the first-of-the-week pre-tests where she was clearly beginning to apply her new-found abilities. Every night she reads in bed with a flashlight, and there is no part of me that wishes to discourage her from this at this point. I cannot tell you what it means to me that the children adore books and love reading, and with this huge push to catch up, this intense focus on her obvious lack, I was afraid that the light in Serena’s inherent love of books would be extinguished.

It is not, although still I am careful not to push her. I give her books with increasing difficulty and point out how far she has come. Indeed, it appears that she has done the work of two grades’ worth of reading instruction in just two and a half months, and I couldn’t be more pleased.

So she brought her first report card ever home today. It reflects where she was, not where she is now. I expect huge changes in the next one, and she already has set high goals for herself and is seeing them manifest even now. I couldn’t be more pleased that Serena never gave up, never got more than momentarily discouraged , always kept trying, and always did her best.

Nathaniel, on the other hand, is still kicking himself about the low grade he received in one class. It was a 95.

And then Eric’s meeting to discuss his future, his next year at school, was also this week. That’s a bit of a different area. What the district that provides the funding and even the school does is try to give a child the least amount they can as long as they can say the child is progressing.

I, on the other hand, want the best for my child, as does most every parent. Who wouldn’t?

But simply saying, “He’s making progress” isn’t enough for me. Let’s compare his development to someone else, shall we? Then maybe we’ll see that we should be raising the bar. Simply doing more than before, while wonderful, may not be enough. How do you determine a child’s real potential? Shouldn’t we be aiming for the stars here?

In that case, let me see what developmental milestone norms are for typical children and for children with Down syndrome, and then let’s compare Eric to those. He should do at least as well as his peers, shouldn’t he? He would “progress” in almost any environment. Let’s give him some real goals that aren’t just do-able in the natural course of things, but that challenge him.

This appears to likely be a lifelong rant. Eric may never see the inside of a “typical” classroom vs a special needs classroom. And frankly, I have no idea at this point what would be best for him.

But: his report card was all A’s. He met or surpassed every goal. I just wish I had access to the inside of his head to know what he really wants from his life.

[tags]education, special needs, Waldorf education, Down syndrome, reading[/tags]