The Po Show

Fourth Grade Morning

I was so afraid, yesterday, that today I would be writing the post that I am about to write. I've been afraid for years, since Tessa started nursery school, that my children's school years were going to be a continuous Tale of Two Conferences. That my view of Tessa's school life would be a constant delight, while Matthew's was a source of constant worry.

Today his class was preparing for the ELA state tests in January, and they were doing a listening exercise. They listened to the teacher read a story aloud, and they were to take notes that would enable them to answer questions later on. Each had a sheet to write down the major characters, events, plot points, and resolution of the story.

There was no way in hell Matthew could do this. He can't write. He simply can't. He has no idea how to spell, and he won't just try to put things down phonetically. Because for him there is no such thing as phonetically. His aide was next to him, but he was too overwhelmed to even try to put down a single word. His pencil never touched the paper. He just sat and looked distraught, or stared off into space. If the teacher or his aide would try to help him, his eyes welled up and he started to cry. If someone said to him, "It's okay," he'd shout "No, it's not!" I mouthed "It's okay" to him once, when he looked over at me, but after his outburst I refrained from doing so again. He was right. It wasn't okay.

Then the kids were given another sheet, and were told to start writing a short story about someone helping someone else (which had been the theme of the listening exercise story). Matthew's aide tried to help him brainstorm an idea for a story, but he was just too far gone to try. He sat sideways in his seat and faced away from the table. No one pushed him, and he didn't really lose control of himself, but it was awful to watch nonetheless.

He looked over at me several times over the course of the hour I was there, and at first they were wary looks. It was out of the routine for me to be there. But he had been really happy when I came for the classroom visit last year. As the hour progressed, every time he looked at me, his face would fall into a scowl, like it was my own personal fault that he was suffering. I just sat there, trying to maintain an encouraging look on my face, and wondered over and over what the hell we should do.

His teacher is really wonderful, very funny and enthusiastic. A couple of times he glanced over at Matthew as he was vocalizing his distress and he'd say simply, "Relax," and Matthew actually visibly unclenched a bit. I really think that if he'd had this teacher last year, a lot of the behavioral problems we had, and are still dealing with now, wouldn't have arisen. But now that Mr. Fried has inherited the problems, he's working hard to help. He spoke to me briefly outside the class as the parents were leaving, telling me that it's really only the writing element of ELA that Matthew is having trouble with. Reading and comprehension are fine, he can answer all the multiple choice stuff perfectly, but the writing isn't coming. I knew all this of course. But he was SO upbeat, saying that we would sit down and work it out, and he promised me that things would get better.

In 2 weeks we have a program review with all of the team, plus people from the district special ed. It was convened by the school psych., who put in a request for Matthew's aide time to be increased to full time. Naturally that would be great, but it's painfully obvious that a lot more needs to be discussed. Something needs to be done to help him, because of course this is impacting other parts of his ability to learn as well.

I'm reminded of when he was 3, in daycare. Lunch was served family style at our (wonderful) daycare, and for two years Matthew ate nothing but fruit for lunch. At one point, though, the teachers decided that it wasn't really fair that all the other kids were required to try the different foods, but Matthew was not, so they started telling him he had to just try one other type of food everyday. This was so horrible for him that it completely affected his behavior before and after lunch. He would get so anxious prior to lunch, causing all kinds of behavioral problems, and after lunch he would still be so wound up that he couldn't function.

I am really afraid that writing has become this year's lunch.