Response to Prompt 5
On my first visit to the school that I am in I witnessed an interaction between my teacher and a parent whom I would later learn was the mom of a student I have worked with in class. The mom had come in to school to take "Joey" out early for an appointment. I was standing to the side but I heard the teacher telling her that Joey had getten in trouble again at lunch for behavior problems. He also hadn't finished his worksheet that was supposed to be for homework. This didn't appear to be the first time they had discussed Joey and it seemed like this was an ongoing problem. The teacher told her that she had recommended he stay back and repeat the first grade. This was not something the mom wanted to hear and she got a little defensive and brushed off the recommendation.
Since that day I have worked with "Joey" several times on one-on-one reading and writing. My teacher has informed me that he has trouble paying attention, and I have witnessed his distraction firsthand. He is capable of doing the work but has fallen so far behind because of this problem. While doing a writing exercise where he was to write a story, his was short and repeated the same words over and over, clearly aprehensive to challenge himself.
Today I learned that although "Joey" had not made the progress neccesary for her to feel comfortable with him going to second grade, he would not be staying back and repeating first grade because his mom didn't want him to. Even though she wanted Joey to have a better opportunity that she did (my teacher told me that the mom had dropped out of shcool in 10th grade), she still wouldn't hold Joey back even though he clearly needed the extra year.
I was disappointed to hear that this parent was not accepting this recommendation when it was so clearly needed. I can't imagine how frustrating it is for my teacher to work with this particular parent and putting the time and effort into this student when it seems like he is not getting this reinforcement at home.
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