Kiki just came storming in after her second miserable school day in a row. This is the second time in two days she’s been required to do group work with kids who don’t care about getting good grades and who tease her because she does care. I now have to figure out how to walk the delicate line between letting Kiki solve her own problems and going to bat for her. The first step is to gather more information. I’ve left messages with the teachers. Hopefully they’ll get back to me soon. Mostly this is just a reprise of the ongoing disconnect between Kiki and her age-peers who don’t often share her interests and are not her intellectual peers. I know so much that would help Kiki deal with this stuff, but I can’t give her my experience. She has to muddle through and learn her own lessons. Much in the same way that I am still muddling through and learning lessons.
2 thoughts on “Still learning”
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I sympathize.
LightningBoy’s classmates make fun of him for his love of learning and needing to make sure things are done right and obeying the rules… etc.
It must be SO maddening for Kiki to have to work with people who don’t care but, your grade depends on it. argh! for her!
I’m so glad you are an involved mother.
Please pass on my sympathy to her, it sucks being bright in a group of people who don’t care. Hopefully, there’s a way for the kids who want to do well to get together, but sadly they normally get distributed around the class; in this country at least there’s an unhealthy desire at the moment to fixate on results, not of indivudals but of schools. So, in the interests of increasing the overall score, the bright ones have to effectively help the less-bright or lazy, then the school’s figures look good at the end of the year.
IMHO, this is completely wrong. The bright kids shoudl be encouraged to seek eachother out and get together on projects etc., and the less bright should work at their own level rather than being pushed too hard. The lazy can be left to get on with it. I can’t see it happening, mind. But then I want to re-organise the whole education system, so that everyone gets basic learning (what we used to call the three Rs) and then gets the choice of whether to continue learning or to leave and try to make their own way in the world. The twist is that they all, every one, get a single free (i.e. state funded) shot at doing as much education as they want to (up to basic degree level, I would think), WHEN they want. The ones that want to work when they’re 14 stay in school and work. The others leave, but can come back to education at any time, even 10 years later, and they still get their shot at it.
It makes no sense to waste resources on trying to teach those who have no desire to learn.