On Friday, just as I was about to leave, I got a call from the office.
It was 'Julie's' dad, and he wanted to talk about how she was doing since he missed Parent-Teacher Conferences.
Did I mention it was a Friday afternoon?
Did I mention he hadn't called ahead to schedule this?
Did I mention I send home my contact information EVERY week?
I went and talked to him anyway. Julie is my best and brightest. And I don't just mean in comparison to her peers with hearing loss, I mean in comparison to her general education peers. Her language level is very high. She outperformed all of her general education class on the math assessment.
I appreciate so much that her parents are so involved and proactive in working with her. But I sense that there's a lot of pressure on her to succeed. Dad barely heard me when I told her she was ABOVE grade level in language arts. He wanted a laundry list of things to drill her on at home.
When I told dad that when Julie grows up, she is going to SHINE, his only response was:
"She'd better."
Sigh.
Not Modern Enough to Use Modern Conveniences
1 month ago
3 comments:
sounds like the dad have this fear of 4th grade level whatever negative attitude that people view of deaf where he doesn't want to happen to his child. Very common.
Isn't it better that he wants his baby to succeed than ignoring her progress and letting her fail?
Seems like parents can't win. We are either negligent and uninvolved or pushy busybodies that are forcing our children to over-perform for "us". :(
Yikes and ouch!
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