History Girl has settled into the Middle School without a problem. She has made new friends and she is loving taking French and she is doing her homework without me being on top of her about it all of the time. I am very proud of how well she has bounced back from her awful year last year. What upsets me is that her teacher from last year will take the credit for History Girl stretching herself this year, but nothing could be farther from the truth. If History Girl didn't have Fly Guy and myself backing her up and helping her when she needed it her teacher from last year would have driven History Girl into the ground without a second thought.
History Girl has joined the drama club and she want to be a part of the girls only book club and she is planning on joining the swim team. So she is really stretching her wings.
Horse Girl has had a cold for the last few days, but even with the cold she has been working so hard and has impressed her teacher with her work ethic already. I was pleased with her teacher when I first met her at the beginning of the month, but the more I interact with Horse Girl's teacher the more I am amazed with her. Teaching is her second career, she has her masters degree in city planning and she is two courses shy of her masters in education. What has impressed me more then anything else, is that she has been teaching them how to do quiet reading. She first had them start with only reading 3 minutes the first day and they talked about what worked and what didn't. They are now up to reading 20minutes quietly. She is also teaching them how to work independently. She will have them work in small groups later, but she thinks it is pointless for them to work in groups if they don't know how to work independently. She is working closely with Horse Girl's special ed teachers and actually having them guide her to make sure she give Horse Girl enough challenge without frustrating her which is a hard balance to find sometimes.
The other thing that is interesting about this teacher is that she was born in the United States, but as a child she moved to Argentina and didn't speak Spanish and she was dropped into a school not knowing how to communicate with the teachers and her peers. She ended up living 12 years in Argentina and learned to speak Spanish fluently. Now she has English as a second language students in her classroom and she can completely relate to what they are going through. She uses her Spanish to talk to the Spanish speaking parents and so those parents are getting more information about what is going on in the classroom then they have gotten in the past which is nice. She is developing an new curriculum because in second grade at Horse Girl's school they study the neighborhood and how cities are laid out and stuff like that. With her city planning background she is creating a new way to teach that segment.
Oh it is becoming more clear that second opinion we got on Horse Girl and ADHD was correct. Now that she is able to read and write more, she has no attention problem and only a very little bit of fidgeting problems. Her teacher said that Horse Girl was one of the few kids she knows listens to her all the time and gets the directions the first time. There have been times that she has been made an example of because she listened and got to work without any more prompting. The teacher even used to word attentive to describe Horse Girl. So this all makes me glad that it is more clear that it isn't ADHD...with it being up in the air before and me feeling in my gut it wasn't ADHD and the first person saying it was and the second person saying she didn't think it was, but she would have us wait and see how Horse Girl was doing when she was 10 because then the dyslexia should be under control and not a factor in figuring it out if Horse Girl had ADHD.
I was reading this article. A couple paragraphs really stood out to me.
"If you're born with a brain that harbors dyslexia, I would say, "Lucky you!" You have untestable and immeasurable potential. You're a surprise package; no one knows what you can do, including you. But I can tell you from years of experience that you can do special things. You have many talents that can't be taught, and a brain that eludes the predictive powers of our wisest sayers of sooth.
But I would also say, "Watch out!" You need a guide, one who has been down these trails and can show you how to get through the desert and over the mountains. You need someone who will never let you give up, someone who can make you know that there's more to you than you can show or tell right now."
These paragraphs are what I would love to be able to say to Horse Girl and maybe someday I will. I am proud to be able to be her guide. I know more about what she is going through then most teachers. Even her teachers know this because it is not often that they get a parent who has the same LD as the child and the parent was diagnosed and treated for the LD since she was 6 years old. It has really given them some insight that they didn't have before.
Well it is getting late for me and I should try to get a better sleep schedule if I want to keep this depression at bay. So that was my overly long update on what is going on.
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