Met with-the Spanish teacher yesterday

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
She wasn't *that* bad but I can see the difficulty.

First of all, difficult child did not want to go to school. He and I have colds, plus he pulled out a rib from coughing so much so he could hardly sit up. He called around noon but I was too sick to go get him. I had the nurse give him some pain medications and send him back to class to wait. husband was at the gym but must have had his phone in the locker.

At the end of the day, I forced myself to drive to school to meet with-the Spanish teacher. I texted difficult child but he was h*ll bent on taking the bus. His text said, "I TOLD you I was going home."

Grr.
I found his locker, his Spanish papers, (filled in the assignments but never did them) and found the teacher, alone, grading papers. Many of her students are struggling, but not all. Maybe half the class. She is very liberal in her grading.
I saw her grading sheet. She has columns, and where there is a missing assignment, she puts a yellow marker spot. difficult child's was an entire line of yellow from the first week to date. I could see it 3 ft away. Sigh.

She spent nearly an hr with-me, recreating the assignments. I had to clarify several things, and again, can see why the kids have problems. She assigned a drawing and explanation sheet to do the flag of Mexico, with-the population, statistics, etc., all in Spanish. She called it the Independencia de Mexico, y la bandera de Mexico.
She kept repeating "Independencia" so I said, "So the kids draw people fighting? with-guns? Or do you want a map with-borders?"
Nope. The flag. Huh?
Then she wanted names spelled out. She called it the spelling assignment. Easy names--Mariya, Eduardo, etc. difficult child had written all the names on the left side of the paper, then equal signs, and then nothing. The teacher showed me the overhead projector with-the alphabet and phonetic spellings of each letter.
A is "ah," for example.
I still wasn't certain of the assignment but brought it home anyway.

The teacher said she is speaking in Spanish 1/4 of the time, then 1/2, then 3/4, etc.
She said the kids all balk at that but she has to do it to get them ready for HS. This is a HS credit class.

So, I sit down with-difficult child to make up 4 wks worth of work in one night. We negotiated a game to be downloaded from the Internet, since he had a good report card, but never told us about his F in Spanish. No homework, no game. Even though I promised him a reward 2 wks ago, he basically lied. Period.

You've never seen anyone work so fast! I was happy and mad at the same time, Know what I mean??

The spelling assignment went like this: Mariya = Ma-r-ee-ye-ah. Or something close.
difficult child knew what it was. Why he didn't do it until I forced him is beyond me.

I think the teacher should have called it the phonetic pronunciation list. She is a rule follower, at least in this classroom and school district. I do not think she is a great teacher. Her English is lousy but I had no problem understanding her accent. But she's not going anywhere so difficult child and the other students will have to just do their best.
If difficult child gets through the class with-a C I'll be relieved. I am going to have to stay on top of him. To have to leave town, and then be sick with-a cold was a huge setback for me, and thus, for him.

difficult child did all but one assignment last night. He absolutely hates to draw so I left him one to do tonight. It's actually fun--you draw yourself as others see you, and then draw arrows/labels if applicable, or just list adjectives about yourself, 5 positive and 5 negative, all in Spanish. "No me gustan insectos," and "Me gusta y Juego Besbol," for example.
 

buddy

New Member
Sounds like you too will be fluent in Spanish by the end of all of this! So great that he did cooperate with the homework, Ican't get FIVE minutes of reading that is assigned at night...sigh. I do know what you mean that it is also frustrating that he didn't do it at school but it does (maybe) show how just the tiniest bit of organizational support from them and maybe a reward could have helped him do it AT school.
 
T

TeDo

Guest
Did you ask him why he hadn't just done that homework in the first place after you saw how easily he breezed through it? Just curious. Does he realize that he doesn't have any more excuses now that you've seen he can do it??? **raises one eyebrow**
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Not yesterday. husband and I agreed we would not discuss behavior at the same time we were getting him to do his work. (by the way, husband sat at the kitchen table and read, in case he had to play interference. Yaaayyy!)
So ... today I will broach the subject. I have learned not to pile it one with-difficult child. He can only take so much.
 

keista

New Member
Yay and congrats! Sounds like he might end up pulling an A in Spanish if he keeps up the good work!

My son just flat out refuses to learn another language. Fortunately it's not a requirement to graduate :)
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
I brought up the subject. He blew up.
I nearly did his homework for him, which included drawing, his biggest aversion.
I very lightly penciled in a sketch which he could color in, drew arrows where he was supposed to label, but it wasn't enough. Even coloring it in was "drawing," which he refuses to do. We got into a HUGE fight. I went to bed for awhile. Got up and paid $60 to upgrade my Care.com search and found two possible after-school caregivers. Their descriptions incl transportation, nonsmoking, work with-Asperger's, making meals, sports.
I. Give. Up. It's just not worth it. I am making myself sick. I'll pay someone else to raise difficult child.
 

keista

New Member
Would he maybe consider doing digital drawing? Maybe finding an paper doll outline online and then coloring in through paint edit? Or just doing the whole thing in paint? Could be fun. After all this isn't art class. The means of doing it shouldn't be graded, just the end results.

Funny thing is that teachers assign this kind of stuff to make it "fun" It's absolute torture for our kids!
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
You won't have this around, likely. But difficult child had to do a self-portrait for some school project. He has some gadget that allows him to copy/enlarge/shrink a drawing, by moving a pointer over the "original" and having this contraption move the "real" pencil. He took a photo of himself, and "enlarged" it. Teacher found that to be every bit as acceptable as free-hand - in fact, she thought it was a great way to accomplish the same task with a different method.
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Yes, there are things on the computer he can do. I just wanted to get it overwith. I'll work on that for the next drawing assignment. Probably civics. But he's okay drawing bldgs, which are essentially rectangles.
:mornincoffee:
 
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