will WE play in Peoria?

I think that this morning Bill figured out why Kaitlyn is struggling so much to learn to read in French. It’s not because she’s “not invested” in it, like her teacher told us in a meeting. It’s because she does not even know the alphabet in French. She has been going to the same school for the past three years. This is her second year in a row with the same teacher. But apparently no one bothered to make sure she knew this most basic skill… the alphabet.

I’m so angry… angry at myself for not practicing the French alphabet with her although we were busy practicing the American English alphabet. Because she has French all day every day… except Wednesdays and two mornings a week when she has English classes. I’m very angry at the school and the teachers. How do you let a child sit in your classroom and not make sure she knows the freakin’ alphabet? If this was the United States, I’d march into the principal’s office and make a stink. Demand a different teacher. But it isn’t. And I won’t. So instead we’re entering hour three of tag-team alphabet learning. And it isn’t going well. We’re tag-teaming the effort because it is so frustrating that each adult can only take it for so long before your only options are to scream or to walk away. So we’re opting for walking away. Although screaming is creeping up the list. Quickly.

Homework for a first grader shouldn’t be this way. It shouldn’t be this hard. Or frustrating. Or endless. And it shouldn’t end with the entire family in tears. Which is exactly how I predict today is going to end. Badly. Very much so.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 12:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.