Today was Tyson's parent-teacher conference. YES, I know he is only in Preschool. YES, I know he is only there for 3 hours 4 days a week. I still feel like I needed the conference anyways. Tyson's teacher is a little bit of a hermit at times with info for the parents. Every day I try to get info out of her about how Tyson is doing and what I can do to help. Her response is always, "What does Tyson say he did today?" in her overly cheery slightly condescending voice. Then when I ask Tyson I get, "We had snack" or "Nothing" or "I don't know". Maybe he is too young to convey the whole story to me, but at least a little snippet from the teacher would help. If she would tell me what they did then I would at least be able to have a guided conversation with him. Bummer.
So I went to the conference last semester and I did not feel happy afterward. After 45 minutes (I know it is overboard) I had more questions than answers. She always has a way of being limited in her responses. I felt like I wasn't getting any guidance from her as to how to help Tyson and even what the curriculum was about at the time. Frustrating!
Now today I went in with a different attitude. I said to myself that I was not going to let this lady get under my skin. I asked straightforward questions and continued until I got satisfactory answers. In the end I was only talking with the teacher for about 15 minutes, much better than the 45 minutes in Fall.
In conclusion, Tyson is doing "well" in class. He is younger than almost every kid in the class and it shows in his work. His birthday misses the cut-off so he should not be going into kindergarten until 2013 anyways. We talked about testing him in for Fall 2012 but it doesn't look like the best plan at this point. He doesn't color exactly in the lines like some of the other kids. He doesn't use patterns as well as some of the other kids. He doesn't write all of the letters perfectly like some of the other kids. Now, normally this would concern me. I have been known to pour over mommy books looking for guidelines to tell me "what a ____ year old should be doing" Fill in the blank with whatever age Ty was at when I was reading. However, I do not feel even the slightest urge to make sure that Tyson is up to par with these kids. He is doing very well at a lot of things, very few of them pertain to the classroom. I would also like to add that I am thankful that he is not trying to be something he is not. It is far too early for that.
It turns out that Tyson is more interested in learning what he wants rather than what the teacher wants. For example, She wants him to learn to write all of the letters in the alphabet and know their phonic sounds. He wants to learn more about Dinosaurs. End result: Tyson knows ever dinosaur name by memory and even what most of them eat, where they lived and what they did to hunt. He can scribble only a few of his favorite letters, namely the letters T, Y,S,O and N.
I know he is enjoying his new friends he made in preschool. I know that this experience outside the home has been important for him. And I know that he will one day want to learn all of these things that his teacher wants. In the mean time my plan is to encourage him to continue learning. I don't care if it is about dinosaurs, robots, horses or letters. I think if I can foster a love of learning then the rest will come. Today I am proud of Tyson for being an individual and I am loving him with every ounce of mommy love I can give to him.
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