Pushing The School System Harder

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When my children were going to school I had my eldest child doing math and reading at two grade levels above everyone else. I first had him in a private school and they were smart enough to challenge him and put him in a different grade when it was time for reading. When I was no longer able to do this and forced to put all of my children into public schools, there was no more challenge for him. This was a travesty for me and my son
Every year I had to go to the teacher and plead with them to help him along and try to tell the teacher to give him more challenging work. Most of the teachers would just give him more work...not the same thing and the wrong thing to do.
Eventually my son was given a label as "a bad child". I was appalled when I found this out. Of course he is going to fiddle-he is bored. That is why I talked to the teacher every year and told them to give him challenging work.
Let's face it; teachers are not equipped to handle highly intelligent students and time-consuming students. They are taught to teach average students and when there is anything different they do not know what to do with them.
Not everyone has the funds to keep their child in the overachievers or underachievers school and the government needs to accommodate for all students. I have seen both sides and it is not appropriate for them to allow this to be happening. The students that are falling behind will catch up if they have the proper teaching techniques. Everyone will benefit if they keep the overachievers provided for and going higher and the underachievers striving for better. What people fail to understand is what we teach children today is our future tomorrow.
Some of the teachers are too busy being angry for having to teach children for so many years. It is the job that they chose and either they get out and find another job or learn to deal with it. I guess it is not enough to get a summer off and sick days, they want more. I do understand that it is hard work, but be serious if you want to do the job or let someone else do it.
By the time my eldest son was in high school I had to change school districts. Wow...I was in for even more of a shock. We went from the problem of one district with bullying to another district of having a different goal of subjects that was more important to focus on. Theirs was science and the district that I just left must have been math. My son was already ready for trigonometry and the school district that he was going into never heard of a freshman being in that subject. All of their students that were in that subject were seniors. I was ready to fight the school system, but low and behold they allowed him into the class.
The biggest problem I had was not that they were far behind, but the "Bad Child" persona that followed him. My son was exceptionally smart at many things and computers was another of those things. He started on a computer when he was around 5. He built me a computer when I entered college so I had something to work on. He got into trouble at his new school because he overheard someone say the password of the school system computers. Of course he tried it and got onto the computers system. Wrong thing to do. He got into trouble right away. They band him from the computers for a long time only to allow him to run ALL of the computers later on because he proved the "Bad Child" label wrong. He was an exceptionally good child and exceeded in everything he did.
Labels have no position in the school system especially when they are placed there by a person that is prejudice of your child. He was not the only one that had a run in with the one that placed the label on him, I did also and I understand where it was coming from; a person that had an attitude problem. He felt himself as being "The Boss" and was able to do anything that he wanted because of his position. Unfortunately that is how things work everywhere. Power is what everyone is looking for. It helps keep people oppressed, put in their place so to speak. Why? Because they can. I watched a person that I knew for a short time, that was a mild mannered person, go to an academy to become an Oakland County Police Officer and his head became two sizes bigger as soon as he put the uniform on. Power does something to a person if it is put into the wrong hands or a person's hand that is not ready for it yet.
I was put into the position once as a house manager and did not want to overuse my power. The upper management was looking to me to start doing just that, but I still did not want to do that so I started giving out warnings and teaching the people how to do it better. The people under me thought that I was being mean because I was telling them how to do it differently than they do it and were complaining to upper management. I guess you just cannot win. You cannot please either side when you are trying to be nice, but I do not like being mean, so I will continue to go on being...ME
I believe that you look into the person's background before you start putting labels on them. What is going on in the family, what is happening with the child, what is going on with the child and his peers? It just so happened that many different things were going on in my child's life. 1. Unfortunately his father was not in the picture as much as he or I would like. 2. He was being bullied and no one would believe him or listen to him. 3. The child was developing a low self-esteem no matter how much I tried to build him up because of the other factors in his life.
Even the social worker was not paying attention to any of these factors. I was not into psychology or social work until I was 35 and I could see these things. Why are these things not being seen by the people who are supposed to see them? Anyone who works with children needs to have some psychology background of childhood behavior/mental illness/bullying. They all play a part in school children not to mention how the teacher is treating the child. My son had one teacher that did not understand my son at all (I had a hard time so I know that it was hard). She was on tenure and not caring what she did. She was just passing the time until she could retire. That was very sad to me.
My son was in the 5th grade before anyone informed me that he was a gifted child...gee, you think? They finally put him into a gifted program, but they were still not looking at his academic performance. I kept working with him at home with his self-esteem issue. The bullies were still there and it would not stop. I was in and out of the middle school to see what was going on at times and one of the bullies even tried to attack him while I was right next to him. Enough was enough. I went straight into the office and reported him.
Intelligent children never get a break. They are always picked on because of their brilliance. Finally one of my son's teachers took him under her wing. She has a gifted child also and I met her while my children were skiing and she was the head of the skiing activity. She asked me what I was doing right with my son because her son had already graduated and she felt like her she did something wrong in raising her son. Her son was working at a gas station instead of doing something better like she knew he could do. My son sometimes acts as if he is still lost, but he went on to get 2 degrees, became a lawyer and does something else at this time, but he is very successful. He can do whatever his heart desires; he has the brain to do it. After that teacher made that comment to me I finally felt valued as a mother and started to believe that I was doing right by my children.
Underachievers are in the same boat. They get picked on for not being brilliant. Sometimes they stay out of trouble; sometimes they join the trouble because of their feelings of self-worth. There are many ways of combating the problems that we have, but no one wants to get involved. Those of us that do get involved...(I'll tell you in another blog).
I have to stop hearing that “We do not have the funds” The government spends far too much money on what they consider is best for them, but they are actually spending it on themselves. How many people really need that much money to live on? I know how things work and so does everyone else. We all just sit back and live our lives because that is all we can do.
I know there are many people out there that can do these very things or more. Sometimes it just takes someone that believes in them and believing in themselves. My challenge today is that the school system takes on these brilliant students and makes them better than they ever thought they could be. The other half take on the underachievers and make them better and build up their self-esteem. Bullying has to stop also!
We are far behind in technology than we should be. Help get these geniuses out there to make our country bigger and better!