Note From School

Caleb came home Monday with a note from his teacher. She said that he was having problems staying focused on work. Last week he got in trouble for working on his homework during a lesson. Monday he got in trouble for reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea during his Spanish lesson.

I read the note, set it down and did not say anything other than "we will discuss it when your father gets home." He hates this response, so this is typically what I do. He is the type of kid that would rather suffer the consequence of his actions and get it over with. When I do this, he worries about what is going to happen. It is not that I want him to worry excessively, but it keeps him thinking about what he has done wrong.

So, he goes and locks himself in his room. He did not come out until I called him for dinner. He was expecting his lecture. We did not say anything. After dinner I told him to go clean his room. He just looked at me like "lets get this over with already."

After he got his room cleaned up we discussed what he had done and his punishment. We really were not that mad about what he had done. If this is the worst he gets in trouble for, we are doing good. At the same time, he does have to learn that there are lots of things we have to do in life that are not fun, rather boring, but we must do it anyway.

We made him write letters of apologies to the two teachers he was ignoring. I told him they had to be super neat and he had to show he was putting forth an effort. The first paper he came out with he had ripped out of his notebook. In one of the letters he wrote "I am sorry a read a book in your class." We made him go back and rewrite it because he should not be sorry he read a book in class (most teachers would want that at some point) but he needed to be sorry he read a book during a lesson and did not pay attention to what the teacher was teaching. I think he had to write one of the letters 3 or 4 times and the other one twice, but he finally got them.

Here is the big problem. Caleb did not get in to the GT program. In LA, you must take test to see where you are academically and psychologically. Caleb blew away the academics part. BUT, things like the above are why he did not blow away the psychological part. When it comes to maturity he is not where he is academically.

His scores on the academic part ranged from grade level to 10.9 (that would be TENTH GRADE NINTH MONTH....almost 11th grade). Which explains why he gets so bored, but does not excuse it. I am unhappy that he will not be challanged because he is not as mature as the school thinks he should be to be as smart as he is.

I have not told Caleb he did not make it yet. I have had the results for a couple of weeks, but he really wanted to be in GT because he wanted to have the oppurtunity to do projects and harder work. The standerdized testing he is doing this week and next determine whether he moves on. While I am not concerned whether he will pass, I did not want to put any more stress on him. We will probably wait and discuss it after school is out in May.