Is this the best for them?

I think I thoroughly understand parents of my students now, when they receive telephone calls from their child's school.  Nine times out of ten, their child would have erred in some way.  The remaining time would be a toss up between the child falling ill or injuring him or herself.  I cannot 'escape' from my children's teachers when I fetch them from play-school almost daily and had an interesting discussion with Felix's teacher recently...

"Felix is getting my reassurance for almost every single detail in his work in Art.  I don't expect that of him," she began.  Felix's teacher explained that Felix is considered 'ahead' of children in his class in his learning and one of the few who could be left alone in his work after the initial instructions are given.  The teacher can then concentrate on his classmates who do not comprehend her or are unable to accomplish their work as they need help in reading or writing.  This is the second time that she had let me in, that Felix had been running to her to ask the simpliest of questions (e.g. "Can I draw a cat?", "Which colour should I use?", etc.) and staring blankly after getting back to his seat.

The first time we spoke about this a couple of months ago, she had felt that the Art enrichment lesson Felix is attending on Sunday, whereby he does only painting with a teacher's instruction and much help in touching up, is not beneficial in his creativity and cognition.  I had felt that way earlier but had allowed him to carry on with Yen's reasoning, that the lesson kept Felix occupied while Rachel is having ballet.  Moreover, Felix enjoys the lessons too.

Following my initial conversation with Felix's teacher, the Art lesson taught Felix more things apart from painting - they involved him in making imprints of things of different textures too.  At that time, Yen told me that she had just paid up a few month's fees upfront and I left it at that.

Another conspiracy theory would be that Felix was trying to get the teacher's attention.  He might have noticed how his classmates had got teachers' attention when they did not know how things were done, and he clamoured for attention too.  Or perhaps he was 'pushing his luck' to see how much he could get away with.

I had reflected to Felix's teacher that he was not displaying that kind of behaviour at home.  I was waiting for her to give me some suggestions at what she felt I could try out.  But perhaps I was too hopeful.  She went on during that discussion, stating that Felix was top in his class for reading (my teaching and the phonics lesson he attends had helped) and word recognition.  However, when his classmates go to him to ask him if he knew how to spell a word that he had spelt correctly in front of the class for the teacher previously, Felix would shy away and say that he forgot.  The teacher was not sure if he was trying his best, or was he being pressurised not to be 'smarty-pants' in front of his friends, to avoid being shunned by them?

You see, Felix is good at reading and remembering words in the English language.  When I teach Rachel and Felix together, Felix is almost always the quicker one to get the spelling of words, and he would remember them better.  Rachel, on the other hand, is much stronger in numbers.  Felix has developed this keen interest in reading, although I am not very sure he comprehends what he reads.

Felix's teacher continued to say that not all parents of the children in her class spend as much time teaching early reading to their own children.  Tired from the day's work, parents were probably leaving this job to the children's teachers.  She also explained that my children could feel that they knew all that their teacher was teaching in play-school, resulting in them not paying attention in class later.  The discussion we had brought no conclusion, but left some questions in my head.

Am I wrong in teaching my children what they could know?  Am I pushing them too hard??  I have my own brand of thinking.  The discussion with Felix's teacher left me some reason to examine what I had believed was the best for my children again...