Meet The Teacher

We met Jared's first grade teacher on Thursday. She was nice enough, but didn't seem to take us seriously when we tried to talk to her (or warn her) about Jared. Because his kindergarten teacher had no clue what Magic Treehouse books were when we met her last year, Ryan decided to take in one of Jared's latest reads. His new teacher said, "Oh, do you like to read? I do too. I really liked that book.  Do you like picture books, too?"

Jared gave her an "are you kidding me?" look and answered, "Sometimes, when I'm reading to my little brother."

"Oh, isn't that nice to read a book to your brother!" she said.

Ryan tried again a few minutes later, but the teacher just said, "Well, we'll be doing reading comprehension this year, so it'll be different."

Huh?

Feeling totally blown off, we left and went to visit Jared's engineering teacher, who goes to church with us and taught Jared last year. He told me, in his charming Swiss accent, "Your child is special. Maybe you know this already." And he vowed to challenge Jared as much as he could in his class.

The contrast in the two teachers' reactions gave me a new perspective on the situation. It's the same old problem we've run into before. Almost everyone I've talked to in the school system has an attitude of "everyone thinks their child is special, but they all even out by third grade." But when they get to know Jared, they understand that we weren't just overly-proud parents.

On the way home, Ryan said, "Well, we did our best. We tried to warn her!"
"She'll just have to figure it out on her own," I replied.

I wish her luck!