A Distant Soil: Seasons of Spring Page 23
This is about as bad as my old lettering gets. Naturally, when we update this and bring it into print, it will be redone.
This is about as bad as my old lettering gets. Naturally, when we update this and bring it into print, it will be redone.
14 Comments
Queen Ynci
Okay Pal, I don’t care if you’re a ‘Gifted Children’ teacher – MY GIRLS DON’T TRUST YOU, AND NEITHER DO I!!!!!
Marlene
That teacher looks a lot like Mitch McConnell… Run, Aeren, RUN!!!
RabidEwok
I keep wanting to look around for a sharp stick to poke Cari and Tiar’s teacher with.
StoryWriter
My girls are going off too Queen. I don’t like the idea of them being separated
RabidEwok
My girls don’t trust that teacher either! They could probably knock him out in more ways than one if I really wanted them to. In addition to going after him with my stick!
RabidEwok
Couldn’t they just put the kids up a grade level or three and keep them together? Sheesh and here I thought that the worst that would happen is Aeren and the twins all get sick and die. But it looks like that might only be the end of the worst.
Beth
As a parent of a strongly introverted, gifted child, this teacher is trying to give very good advice. (Today, the kids would be more gradually moved into independent activities to avoid trauma. This takes place in the 80’s, and PTSD wasn’t even entered in the DSM until the mid-80’s.) Especially for intellectually advanced children, making friends and interacting successfully with peers can be incredibly challenging. If Cari and Tiar are enabling each other’s isolation, that is seen as a major block for their social and emotional growth. Kudos for the teacher for actually noticing this problem, investigating solutions, and trying to enlist the parents to help their children become emotionally healthy kids.
Now, it may indeed turn out that he’s the turning point for bringing the family to the attention of the institute; but for now, he’s being a great and supportive teacher.
Colleen Doran
Hi Beth, thanks for your comments.
I personally witnessed and experienced things like this at my school, for example when I had to be put into a program for a speech impediment.
Gillian
I also support the Cari and Tiar’s teacher’s concerns, but his solution of forcing them apart strikes me as targeting their weaknesses rather than building on their strengths – and likely to be very painful to them as well.
My reaction of “there’s a better way to go about this” comes from my personal experience in the mid 1960’s, when I was as an introverted, young (I skipped Grade 2), small, glasses-wearing, low-income, bookworm of a student in Grade 6 or so. I was lucky enough to have a supportive and creative teacher who figured out a way to help me learn to relate to other students – teaching them math. I loved math (still do) and when I’d finished all the class work plus all the extra work the teacher could find for me, he assigned me the job of moving around the classroom offering help to anyone who wanted it. This let me interact one-on-one with my classmates and provided me with an automatic topic of conversation. Better yet, because I really did want to figure out where my classmates were stuck and was able to help them, some of the more popular but math-challenged types who previously had considered me invisible actually started to like me. I could have spent many hours day-dreaming in that class, but thanks to that teacher, I had a wonderful time being useful.
If my teacher had tried to remedy my weaknesses by forcing me into group activities at that stage in my life, I think I would have just turned into a scared little clam. Instead, he built on my strengths, so that I learned to trust others not to hurt me and to interact positively with people I didn’t really know. That confidence really helped me as I grew a bit older – I even won a school public speaking contest in Grade 8.
Colleen
These are really interesting comments. Thanks for posting them.
I’m really flattered the story has sparked so much commentary.
RabidEwok
The teacher gives me the creeps not because of his message but how he delivers it. He doesnt come across as Aeren I truly and deeply care for your kids and I want what’s best for them even though it seems like it will be hard for them at first. Instead he comes across to me as Aeren Your Kids Are Freaks! Yes Freaks Indeed! THERE’S SOMETHING SERIOUSLY WRONG WITH THEM and I don’t like them and I want them out of my classroom! Except that they make me and the school look fab because of their test scores so I begrudgingly will keep one of them hehhehheh. In contrast with Aeren himself its obvious he really does care deeply for the kids in his class.
StoryWriter
I had to be given special privileges due to a speech problem and a bit of a learning problem. But they never did anything drastic like this guy is doing. I think them being in a different class is a good idea but to transfer one to a different school? I don’t think that’s the best choice and it’s a bit drastic. In this case I think you’d want to gently ease them into it
Beth
Gillian, what a great success story! I hope your teacher had a long, fulfilling career. He thought to tap into your less developed talents, and you took the opportunity and ran with it. That’s awesome. 🙂
Yeah, he could have approached Aeren with a “let’s brainstorm about this” approach instead of a “here’s the solution that I have come up with” tack; but he does seem to sincerely care about the kids, and have concerns for their welfare at heart.
Daisy
It’s like you’re on a miosisn to save me time and money!