Last week, she'd sent home a note with something about him not meeting his grade-level expectations for paying attention and group cooperation.
Let the games begin. Making matters worse was the fact that I was heading into this meeting on one cup of coffee.
Just not fair.
I had already prepared myself - don't react, no matter what. Take a breath and respond. Explain what Aspergers is. Patiently listen. Ignore urge to snap pencil in hand and breath angrily through the nose.
Here's what really happened.
NJ's mother and I came into the classroom to meet his teacher. He went over to the reading area and grabbed a book, asking the teacher politely if he could read one of the "big books" on the top shelf.
And Mrs. P began to tell us about NJ's problems...
- He was reading at least two grades above his class
- He was doing GREAT at math! This was shocking because he says he hates math all the time
- He was "interacting socially very well" - an opinion that was shared by the school's ESE coordinator, and his other teacher - this was unsolicited by the way
- He did have a bad day on Monday
In fact, there was nothing too negative - like, at all.
Of course, there were usual observations you would have expected. He's opinionated. He has an attitude sometimes. He did have to have a "quiet lunch" for three days in a row. That's where you can't talk during lunch. Because he'd been disrespectful. But since then, he'd shaped up and was doing fine again.
As we left the class, NJ had fallen into conversation with Megan and Darren, the two kids HE calls his friends... I say HE because I really care more about who he thinks of as friends, and why he thinks of them as friends, than who I think are his friends. (There is at least one boy I think he should like, but he just doesn't seem to agree.)
Again, the lesson is: Try to avoid expectations, good or bad.
But it's just getting more and more difficult. Because I'm starting to expect good things.
Can that really be bad?
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