We had Connery's first public school parent-teacher conference last night, and the three of us--Chip, Connery's teacher, and I--ended up talking a lot more about systemic failings than we did about Connery's actual performance. For a variety of reasons--excellent preschool preparation, natural curiosity, accidents of birthdate--Connery is not your typical Kindergartener, as I know I've mentioned on these pages before.
What we didn't realize until all the tests came back was how far ahead he is from a skills standpoint. He is reading at an upper second grade level and his math skills are already far above every Kindergarten benchmark. He is remarkably interested in higher level concepts (like algebra) and reasoning (like chess). I realize that this probably sounds like I'm bragging--and I guess I am--but that's not my point. My point is that he is not being served in his current environment. His teacher is concerned because she knows what his skills are and knows that her classroom is not the best place for him, but she is unsure how to help him when the system at large is set up against kids on the extremes.
In our attempts to get him some accommodation, we have been heard some amazing things: that the problem is not the system but that he shouldn't have been taught to read so early and so well, that if we advance him now, we will have no way to help him in the future, that there is just no money for "luxuries" like gifted education, even though having a gifted program is a state requirement for accreditation. I have spoken to the Office of Public Instruction. I have spoken to educational professionals in other districts. And I have now promised to pursue some grant funding opportunities to initiate a gifted program at Connery's school. But I know how the wheels turn. Even if I were to help secure funding, nothing would be likely to change until long after Connery needs it. That's frustrating.
I confess that I have always thought that parents in Montana who choose to put their kids in private schools or to homeschool were a little deluded. Montana's public schools are known to be some of the best in the country, and there are few questions of safety like those you would find in an urban setting. (A friend of mine from a large California city had to put his son in private school after researching the public school to which his son had been assigned and finding that there had been 15 murders within a three-block radius of the school in the past year. Not really a question there.) And I still believe that Montana public schools are good. But they have changed since I was a student in Great Falls many years ago. Money is tighter. Teachers have much less flexibility. Instruction is, by necessity, based on helping kids pass standardized tests, which severly downgrades instruction in critical thinking and other skills incapable of being measured by a Scantron sheet.
Given the requirements that private schools and homeschools must meet in Montana--very few--I'm not at all saying that they are a better option. But I guess I understand how in some cases they might meet individual needs better. Connery's preschool and Kindergarten years at Montessori Island School were marked by rapid development and joy in learning, as well as some remarkable instruction. I'm not at all sure that we shouldn't have kept him there--if money were no object, which it obviously is for us as it is for most families. It's disheartening to feel as if he is not working to his potential. I guess only time will tell whether it makes a difference or if we can fill the gaps at home.