What do you get when you cross a child diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and a set of boring, too easy classroom activities? A bored child who finishes his activities, correctly, then is forced to entertain himself but ends up getting into trouble with the teacher for not wanting to sit there doing nothing while others struggle to finish.
This baffles me. It baffles me a lot!
I asked the teacher whether the activities were different each week.
Rarely.
Hmmm OK. Then I asked her if she gives him something else to do now that he knows how to do whatever she’s forcing him to re-do. She said “no” because other children are yet to ‘get’ it. Curly is a little ahead. Ahead in some cases, not all. He’s not a gifted child, not that we know of.
So he can’t just read a book or something?
No. He needs to sit and wait.
Each week?
Yes.
So I asked the teacher this: “if someone was giving you the same thing to learn each week, and you had already mastered it, how would you feel? I would probably ask for my money back, strike or sneak my iPad in for entertainment!”
Then I smiled. And did this thing I do with my eyebrows as if to say “huh!”
She insisted that he needs to learn to sit there and redo it.
Every week? I double-checked.
Yes.
Excuse me? Holy crap! And then I blurted:
Who would want to do that?
The education representative jumped in with:
No one. Maybe it’s time we teach him how to use what he knows!?!
Thank God for that! I thought, but with the F word.
Wouldn’t it had been much better for the school to meet without me first? Discuss what worked and didn’t, correct their strategies and then meet with me? Then the conversation would have gone like this:
“Curly is a little ahead, we now have to show him how to apply his new knowledge, let’s say start adding numbers, not just recite them? And we think he can read, let’s test him…”
-sigh-