COME SEE THIS!
There are two weeks left in the third quarter, and an amazing thing has happened.
Some background on this amazing thing:
- When Dylan was in fourth grade, he was in four different math groups. He started in the highest level, because he obviously understood the concepts. But he never finished his work, and seemed a bit spaced out in class. So they kept moving him around, trying to find a place where he could succeed. He could not.
- When Dylan was in fifth grade, he had a teacher who let the kids move at their own pace, as long as they finished the work. They had a chart with star stickers, representing what they had done. Dylan excelled at this, and got a ton of stars. Since fifth grade, we’ve been wishing all math teachers would institute this system.
- When Dylan was in sixth grade, he was at the top of his class. He did so well, in fact, that we all agreed that he could skip the “review” class, Investigations Into Mathematics, and go directly into Algebra 1.
- When Dylan was in seventh grade, he had a teacher who constantly reprimanded him for not paying attention. We invited her to every IEP meeting, but she didn’t seem to understand that he has a biological issue. There were no charts with stars in this classroom. Dylan eeked out a C in Algebra 1, and the school recommended that he take it again for a higher grade.
- When Dylan was in eighth grade, he retook Algebra 1 with a kind teacher in a class with seven kids at private school. He got a B.
- When Dylan was in ninth grade, he took “regular” Geometry. Most of his friends had completed Honors Geometry in 8th grade, but we were afraid, given his math struggles, that he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the pace of Honors math classes. If he had turned in his work on time, he would have gotten an A in Geometry. But he didn’t, so he got a B.
- Dylan is now in tenth grade, taking “regular” Algebra 2. He started the year with a tutor, because we weren’t taking any chances. He barely saw the tutor, and still got a B for his first semester grade.
In other words, math has been a challenge for Dylan. So when I checked his grades online this week, I literally screamed.
“DYL! COME SEE THIS!”
Bill came running into the room. “What?”
“Not you,” I said. (“Dyl” and “Bill” sound very much alike, so this is a continuous problem in our house.) “But look at this!”
Bill started over to the computer.
Shane, too, wanted to know what was going on – almost enough to look up from his video game. “What?” Shane asked.
“Look at Dylan’s grade,” I said to both of them. “DYLAN!”
“WHAT!” he yelled back.
“COME HERE!”
He grumbled all the way down the stairs. Finally, Dylan arrived in the office, where I pointed dramatically at the computer screen.
“Look at this!” I squealed. “LOOK!” And he did.
“Yeah,” he said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “I know.”
Dylan has an A in Algebra.