Today we had a day of undoing past educational damage. While working on Chapter 2 of Life of Fred: Fractions, Captain Science suddenly forgot how to do multiplication. He kept using some strange method that probably works just fine on shorter problems, but not on 5+ digits! He had a lot of negative self-talk about it, how he can’t do it and it’s too hard and OMG HISSY FIT TEARS AND ANGUISH!!!!
I had him work through some 2 digit times 2 digit problems, then some 3 digits times 2 digit problems, then 3 digit times 3 digit problems. Eventually, he regained his confidence and was able to easily turn out the answers to the 5 digit times 3 digit problem (and eventually a 9 digit times 2 digit problem!) and continue with his math work.
At times like these, I feel so angry about the complete lack of education he received in his 3rd grade classroom. His teacher spent her entire day giving them worksheets to work on alone, while she sat at her desk (usually working on her computer, though this didn’t mean she actually returned emails in a timely manner) and occasionally came around to criticize.
The other day, Captain Science and a friend from up the street were playing with Legos, when the Captain suddenly blew up at his friend and sent him home. This is totally unlike him, so we asked what the problem was. Apparently, they couldn’t agree on terms of play for whatever game they were inventing, and the friend kept saying, “Concentrate! Concentrate!” Captain Science was storming around the room in a white cold fury, picking up his toys, and saying that it was just like his teacher last year, that all she ever said was, “Concentrate, Captain Science! Concentrate!” any time he had a question or complaint.
The poor kid still has a lot of demons to exorcise from last year. There’s still so much damage to undo from that horrible woman. If only I’d been braver and realized I could just pull him out and homeschool him last year, I could have saved him from this. It breaks my heart, but I also feel so hopeful about his educational future now that he’s at home with us, where he belongs.
