So, her teachers were expecting me when I showed up on Tuesday afternoon.

We had an amazing talk. I wonder if they were expecting some sort of confrontation – which is how I felt the night before, but once I took the time to think through things, and was able to articulate what I really wanted…..I really wasn’t upset any more.

They talked about how in Grade 4, they really expected the kids to step up to the plate and accept a ton of responsibility.

She is responsible to fill in the nightly reading sheet. It is okay for me to just sign it once a week saying that it’s correct.

The teachers do not deny that Geli is reading. She’s in the top reading group of her class. To be honest, she’s in the top of her class in all areas, and is getting A’s and B’s. The teachers are not really impressed with the B’s because they feel that she is capable of much more. The mistake’s that are made are simple ones, and are made because she is not taking the time to carefully go through everything, and then to proof read at the end.

I have wondered about this, based on some of the papers that she’s brought home, but was unsure what to do. This was something that I really struggled with. I didn’t want to pressure her and make her feel like I was pressuring her into performing. The teacher’s encouraged me to ask her if this was the best that she thought that she could do. Obviously the answer would be “NO” She’s not giving it her all.

One of the teacher’s mentioned that Geli was not paying attention, and wondered if maybe she was bored. This was a huge problem for me in school. One teacher who recognized this, gave me a million book reports to do that year. It probably helped me, ’cause when I finished my work I had something to do, and it was something that I loved to do. I suggested that maybe they give her a project to work on quietly, if she was finished her work quickly. They thought it was a good idea, and we’ll see how that plays out in the up coming months. We are all going to be encouraging her to check and recheck her work before handing it in.

The teachers did say that they should have communicated a little better, and encouraged me to come in after school and ask about things. I was a little annoyed, because I help out their class once a week, and you’d think that they could just tell me about all the stuff that came up.

It’s the kind of stuff that shouldn’t have built up over the past month, and it really wasn’t a huge deal – BUT, we have things straightened out, and are very positively moving forward.

Hopefully, with not too many more problems.

I have to say that it went WAY better than I thought it might, and we alll walked away happy.

Yah for Constructive Confrontation!