Letting Go & Moving Forward
We have a very active, yet highly intelligent 7 year old, who has been struggling through school for the past 2 years. It has recently come to our attention that his gross & fine motor skills foundation has not been addressed properly at a Gr. R level. He is also a visual & active learner & this learning style is not catered for in most of our schools today.
"A mother’s first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet and growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it for the most part spent out in the fresh air." ~ Charlotte Mason
And that’s where the "system" failed our little one quite miserably…
Already in Grade R we called on Tannie Hettie to help, because by end of August, he still didn’t know his alphabet. Within 3 weeks with 1 hour at Hettie, twice a week, he knew half of it & by the end of the year he had it all. During this time hubby started suggesting homeschooling, but I resisted because I just didn’t feel confident that I would be able to do it. I figured, I’d probably strangle him in a week because we were always frustrated & irritable when doing homework.
But then in Grade 1 teacher insisted he needed speech therapy, so that’s what he got. But it didn’t end there, because speech therapy just caused more confusion. After 3 months the teacher figured we should switch him over to remedial lessons instead. During this time of course it was suggested that he does extra lessons. Needless to say, the remedial lessons (at additional cost to us as parents) produced no results & extra lessons were just adding to his stress. I went back to Hettie. Once again, he went to her twice a week for an hour after school. But the poor kid was so exhausted, by the time I got back to fetch him she’d mention he was just too tired to really work with, although she did still manage to produce results. At the end of Grade 1 we decided to cancel remedial as well as extra lessons & depended on Hettie entirely to help him. However, he was still tired after school & extra murals, so we reduced it to once a week, but instead of giving more work, she would work with him doing his homework so that he didn’t still have to do that when he got home. It helped a lot, but left little time for her to work with him on movement & motor skills.
With a push & a shove, we managed to get him through grade 1, but the struggle didn’t end there. He continued to go to Hettie once a week & was making good improvement, but whilst working with him doing his homework one day I noticed that he would “read” words on one page but wasn’t able to recognise them on another. That’s when we realised something was seriously wrong…He kept on insisting that teacher would read to them first & then they would read. What they didn’t realise though, was that he could memorise a page hearing it only once. he became more & more fidgety in class.
After my neck operation in June, hubby insisted we look into homeschooling as an option, even if just for a short term to get him up to standard, thus I took the school holiday & started some serious investigation in to homeschooling. After the holiday his teacher (a very highly qualified remedial teacher at that) once again requested that we to give him medication for his “lack of concentration”.
Finally we decided to let Hettie stop working with him on his homework. I asked her to go back to the basics & find the problem. Turns out he couldn’t skip a skipping rope, tie his shoe laces or cross his midlines & he remembered nothing of what he should have learnt in Grade R. It seems the school focused too early & too much on academics & neglected the motor skills as well as visual perception. Midline crossing & skipping, being very important skills for fluent reading are just 2 of many areas that have not been addressed properly. Although he can memorise paragraphs, like a parrot, he struggles to read. He Aced his spelling tests but couldn’t spell them when writing sentences. These are just a few of the issues we’ve been working on together with his pre-school teacher to get him through Gr. 2. Up to now he’s been able to cope with his intelligence, but the struggling has impacted his self-esteem very negatively & caused him to dislike school with a passion & homework for us, became an endless battle.
Although the school tried to address the problem with remedial & extra lessons, these showed very little success, but instead placed extra workload & repetition rather than addressing the foundation of the problem… hence we’ve took him back to Hettie Hen Playgroup twice a week since August last year so she could do physical activities & brain gym with him in order to get the brain development going. This has shown huge improvement, but his backlog is so big that he still gets very fidgety in class when he doesn’t understand the tasks at hand.
We met with the principal to discuss the problem & check what they’d do to resolve it, but his reply was that they’d support us in whatever we decided. In the end the teacher was expecting myself & Hettie to work at resolving the foundational problems, in order for him to pass his grade. By then I was at the end of my teather. I think I hated homework time more than he did. Due to the amount of stress caused by school pressure, Hettie & I felt it would be more productive doing this if we removed him from school & this is were our journey in to homeschooling began…
"Every student can learn. Just not on the same day or in the same way." ~ George Evans
We know now that Misha’s just a normal active little boy who’s trying to cope with a situation that’s way beyond his control. It breaks my heart to see such a highly intelligent child struggling at school & being so frustrated… We were just blessed with one of those “round kids” that doesn’t fit into the “square holes”, but refused to accept the labels, & instead, removed him from the “square hole” environment…
We’ve recently registered him with Le-Amen Education Centre in Ruimsig & have pulled him out of school on Friday. What I like about Le-Amen is that they are registered with the Gauteng education department and they supply the curriculum at very reasonable prices. The kids’ work books have to be handed in 3 times a year to be monitored by qualified teachers & at the end of the school year they issue school reports to the children. Both parent & kids are monitored & at matric level they write the same IEB exams as the private schools.
We’ll be using this week to let him destress & deschool Misha. In the interim he’ll be using www.time4learning.com online curriculum to put the fun back into learning. Then we’ll continue his schooling, but will also have to go back as far as Gr. R in order to address his foundation. I just hope we caught it on time to repair the damage & that we will be able to help him reach his full potential in life.
"Mothers write on the hearts of their children what the hand of time can’t erase." (Unknown)
When I look at the amount of kids in our schools that end up in remedial & extra lessons, I cannot help but wonder how many of them are highly intelligent kids, like Misha, whose foundations have been proved lacking & due to that will be struggling through school for the rest of their lives. I just cannot understand how it is possible in today’s day & age, with all the knowledge available to our teachers regarding the importance of physical activities being the foundation to develop brain functions in our little ones that they still let them sit cooped up in classrooms with academics all day at such a young age. Our little ones should be playing more & learning less, the academics will follow as soon as the body is sorted.
I must confess, I’ve spent months stressing about Misha’s situation & was fuming, when the teacher’s plan to resolve this issue was aimed at Misha’s preschool teacher & myself addressing the foundation in order to get him through Gr. 2. As far as I was concerned, we pay expensive school fees & he shouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place. Today, however, I can honestly say the burden’s lifted & I have peace in my heart that we’ve made the right decision for our boys.
"When we forgive someone, it doesn’t make them right or justify what they have done. It releases them into God’s hands so He can deal with them. Forgiveness is actually the best revenge because it not only sets us free from the person we forgive, but it sets us free to move into all God has for us." ~ Stormie O’Martian
Ever since the decision was made to homeschool next year, both our boys have changed drastically. They have become much more loveable, relaxed & no longer fight on a daily basis. They actually get along much better & I find them play-wrestling almost on a daily basis.
The school & their staff have been forgiven. I’m letting go & we’re moving forward. I pray for wisdom to make the right decisions in order to continuously guide our sons into reaching their full potential.
Our biggest challenge for now is how to repair the damage & restore their love for learning, so please if you have any tips/suggestions at all, please leave a comment.
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Clive Schwartz
Patrizia (a.k.a. Trys/Trixi) Schwartz
wow so great to realize how important our involvement is – without you paying attention to him and taking an active interest (as all parents should!) you would never have been able to help him over this hurdle! He’s going to look back and honour you both when he grows up!
again, thanks for honestly sharing your journey and your way into this – so interesting how important the fundamental basics are…such food for thought.
I’m sharing because I trust others will be able learn from our experience and prevent themselves & their children the agony we’ve dealt with. My advice for at least the first 8 years is constructive play for brain development. Addressing those motorskills at a later stage is so much harder than when you start off correctly.
Thank you for sharing your “way to homeschooling” with us. It is awefull how your little boy and you as a family had to struggle, but is so uplifting that you are seeing progress.
My youngest boy is now 2.5yrs and VERY active, and I have already been told by teachers we met at Botanical Gardens that I will have to put him on medication when he goes to school! So there is no way our boys are going in to the system.
Your story gives us hope – thank you.
Hi Elize, thank you for visiting.
Yes, there is much hope & absolutely no reason for your son to become part of the system. You CAN save yourselves the stress & frustrations we’ve had to deal with by keeping him home & drawing out his strenghts rather than weaknesses.
I’ve just finished reading the book “In their own way: discovering and encouraging your child’s multiple intelligences” by Thomas Armstrong and strongly suggest that you get yourself a copy (http://books.google.co.za/books?id=_BWU3U4W2lsC&dq=%22In+their+own+way%22&hl=en&ei=UPuRTp-7IImp8APjor00&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA). It will help you recognise his strenghts & revolusionize your journey into homeschooling tips on how to teach him the way he learns best. Had I read this when we started I would have done many things differently & our first year wouldn’t have been so stressfull. I’m sure Misha’s progress would have been much further had I known then what I know now.
Your son needn’t become part of the statistics, you can prevent it by learning all you can now so that when he’s ready, you’ll know how to approach your journey into homeschooling. My advice for now is “LET HIM PLAY” as much as possible to work those muscles & develop his motor skills.
Blessings Trys
thanks for contributing to the carnival
it’s quite something having to go through what you did. Well done for braving it all and working to find the best solution. And we get to benefit too with all your great research!
Thank you Taryn, yes I needed a system to help myself find all those awesome links again at later times & figured I may as well share them here to save some other “Newbie” some time, stress & anxiety…
This year would have been much more stress-free if I’d known what I know now when we started off…
It’s so interesting to read what started people on their homeschooling journeys!
I’m, just sorry that yours was started with your sons struggling and the school unable to help.
At least you were able to find help for him and as you say “move forward”
I hope that he’s doing much better now!
Thank your for your message Tanja. We were fortunate that their very loving play-group teacher, was willing to help. She’s qualified as occupational therapist, but still runs her pre-school/creche because of her passion for children. She’s like a grandmother to my boys & has been helping us sort the gross moter skills already since grade R, when remedial showed no results, without charging us exorbitant occupational therapy fees. He can now read, still hates schoolwork, but with Teaching Textbooks for Maths & other interactive PC curriculum we’ve been able make progress. It will probably take a few more years to undo the damage, but I trust that in the end he will reach his potencial. According to Hettie he schould be fine by the end of this term. At this stage wants to become a scientist / teacher, thus has quite a bit of learning still ahead. My current challenge is restoring his love for learning…
I’m sorry you had to go through so much in order to arrive at homeschooling. But it’s great that you are now on the right road, and I hope your son thrives in his new environment.
Thank you Corletta, yes, Misha is a new boy & we’ve seen huge progress. He can now read & is slowly regaining his love for learning although he still hates “schoolwork”.