Distractions

Today while painting our soon to be completed classroom, I started thinking about how I was spending so much time getting the room ready to teach and not nearly enough time on preparing to teach. How true is that in the brick and mortar schools?? There are so many things the administration gets caught up in that have absolutely nothing to do with learning. That's what school is for....learning, right? Instead they need to worry about No Child Left Behind, safety in the schools, problem students and don't even get me started on sports....

I'm taking comfort in the fact that once I have given the initial time investment to establish our little learning zone we will have little to concern us beyond actual learning.


We have our GIEP (Gifted Individualized Education Plan) meeting Thursday the 28th. It will be a phone conference. We received the NORA (Notice of Recommended Assignment) in the mail this week along with a questionnaire for both the parents and the student. On the child's portion, when asked what he expected to learn this year, our son wrote, "improve my reading level, understand more of what I read". I thought that was kind of funny considering he's 7 and already reads somewhere around a 5th grade level. The reading materials they have provided are not going to help him meet that goal. I decided I would finally let him start reading The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkein. He's been bugging us to let him read it for a year. I was holding off until he was a little older. I'll just need to find a good study guide online to make it work.

The other funny thing about the papers they sent, was the NORA. As a charter school, they are not held accountable to Chapter 16... they don't have to provide anything special for gifted kids and are not subject to the regulation. It was a painful experience to sign my name to the most inferior GIEP I've ever accepted. But I know the GIEP isn't what's important in this situation. We can allow our son to learn. I don't need a special paper that will make that happen now. I get to make it happen!