Reply to Advice Needed - 1st Grader in MCPS

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[quote=Anonymous]This scenario is sadly familiar to me.  My child was also advanced in math.  While we supported her and sometimes did math things with her, she was the driving force.  She had a tendency to figure out mathematical concepts that was a shock to me.  When she started school I knew that she wasn't learning any math at school, but it didn't bother her.  She enjoyed playing games in math, etc.  I didn't  worry because I knew she wasn't falling behind and the main thing was she said she was happy.  By third grade and yet another iteration of place value happiness was a distant memory.   She was starting to hate school.  Worse, when she told the teacher that she knew the material and asked for something to learn, the teacher just sent her away.

I would suggest you think about what your dream outcome would be, preferably one that places minimal demands on the teacher.  Would you like him to be moved to a higher grade?  Do some sort of distance learning on the computer (you'd almost certainly have to foot the bill)?  Do you want him to work through a textbook independently (MCPS doesn't use textbooks, but they might have an old one lying around or you could provide one)?  Do you want to send in work for the child to do in place of the class assignment?

Once you have your dream scenario, run it by the teacher.  There's always the possibility you might get it.  In my case, the teacher who wasn't willing to provide anything for my child agreed that I could send in work on the same topic at her level.  As long as she did a couple of the hardest problems on the class assignment she could then do what I sent in for her.  For example, while the class worked on place value, we worked on decimals, powers of 10 and metric prefixes.  A lot of times she wanted an easy day and opted for the class assignment.  Knowing she had the choice made a big difference.  The drawback on this arrangement is that I spent a lot more time preparing the work than she did completing it.

If your teacher isn't willing to work with you, you can escalate it up the chain.  You could try the principal or the office of Advanced and Enriched Instruction at the central office.  I think it is absolutely the duty of the schools (even if they are public schools) to provide children the opportunity to learn.

Good luck!

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