school is no place for a boy

Post Reply New Topic

I homeschool, but my son still gets speech therapy through the public school system.

They do not understand boys at all. After speech today, the speech therapist let me know that my son had "a very bad day" and that his behavior is deteriorating. I asked my son if he yelled out or hit anyone during class. No he didn't do any of that. He drew a picture.

They were supposed to take the teacher's sentence and make it longer. My son couldn't spell one of the words in her sentence, so he made his own. She said that he couldn't do that and had to use her sentence. He didn't know how to ask for help because he was embarrassed, so he drew a picture of her getting hit by a bolt of lightenning. She's keeping the picture as EVIDENCE!! !!

No wonder so many boys hate school.

Just wondering.... why do you think it only applies to boys, and not girls?

yes... Why just boys. I had LOADS of problems like this as a child.
I got sent to the principal's office once because I dropped a stitch in knitting due to clumsiness.
Girls get misunderstood just as badly.

I agree- there is nothing in that post at all that has anything to do with sex.

As for the picture, you're really lucky it wasn't turned in as a death threat, and that would get a much more serious punishment than just hitting another student would. Ever since Columbine schools take anything that can remotely be considered such as a very serious issue. I've turned in a similar picture- though it was me being shot with a gun. I really didn't think the kid was going to shoot me, heck I doubt he would have even slapped me, but I'm required to turn such pictures in. In this case the kid was already seeing a psychologist so the picture was handed over to her, I've no idea what happened beyond that.

Girls are also just as likely to draw pictures as boys. I can show you my college notebooks - you have to put forth some effort to find the notes, because even in the instances I did take them they are surrounded by pictures

I do empathise with the not knowing how to ask for help. Did the teacher know he couldn't spell the word, or was he just showing a refusal to do his work? If its the latter you need to work on some sort of IEP with the school, so that when he doesn't do the work she is required to ask questions like "Is there something preventing you from writing this?" "Do you need me to help you spell a word?

forget gender, folks....the OP is just expressing frustration over a seemingly non-understanding Speech therapist........Triangular Trees is right, unfortunately~drawings these days are taken very seriously. you are lucky that it wasn't taken as a threat.
the speech therapist should've been able to pick up on the fact that your son was struggling with his work.

I only have a son, so I see how he's been pushed around by the system. When he was in public school full-time, he was in a special contained classroom. There were no girls in that program. It wasn't supposed to be a gender specific placement, but that's how it ended up being.

If girls want to hate school for the same reason that my son hates school, then I fully support that girl in her decision.

Yes, she should have. She seems more interested in catching him doing something bad, than working with him. I'm leaning towards ending the speech therapy through public schools and finding a private speech therapist.

A lot of people state that boys are reprimanded for being boisterous, their "natural" state. From my own experience from being the girl in the family and from raising a boy-it seems that boys are raised by their families to be more boisterous and girls are conditioned very early on to be quieter. So, the school seems to be discriminating against boys because boys are more rambunctuous, louder and don't hide their incompetence as much.
Just my opinion. But boys were the class clowns, the overt behavior problems and didn't hide their physical aggression as much. Girls did a lot of "naughty" stuff but hid it all the time.

I've noticed that the SLP can be the brightest one in the bunch or the dumbest.

Sounds like a good idea. Can you try it out, if you feel that your son doesn't get anything from the public speech therapy? I don't know about financials or else, different in every country, but I think that if you have the chance and you feel bad about your son's current speech therapist, then definitely try to find a private one that is good.

The public speech therapy wasn't really addressing the speech issue. I was trying to use it as social learning tool. I was hoping he could learn how to sit through it quietly. I guess he did learn something since he drew a picture instead of yelling out something inappropriate. But, I think I will give up on public school and find another social outlet for him. Private speech therapy is not so expensive.

KimJ~ school personnel frown on boisterous behavior from whoever it comes from....my daughter, who's current dx is ADHD, has been having severe trouble with this this year. the teachers feel that now that she is in 4th grade, she should be able to contain her exhuberance.

School is designed to shape and mold everyone to the same boring person. Those who already have strong passions, strong ideas, and personalities typically do not do well in a system designed to make everyone the same.

It would be a sad day for me if my child stopped having a hard time with people who are trying to make him think and act like everyone else. I don't want him to give in.

I remember in school compromising my dreams because I didn't understand spelling. I remember very vividly being told I would be a failure in life if I never learned how to spell. I remember all of that as I hit F2 to spell check this and I want to draw pictures of all those jerks getting struck by lightning. I want to send them my W2 form, to show that I pay more taxes than they make in income, I want to send them that and a poorly spelled note that says "thanks for attempting to crush my dreams"

Ster: that makes me so angry that they said that to you about your daughter. It's not "exuberance" it's ADHD, something she can't control. For some reason that just made me so angry to read that!! !!

Ster, that was my point, that the:

(Shaggydaddy)
I was agreeing with y'all that have daughters or experienced school as boisterous girls. My observation is that boys are more likely to exhibit those personalities and behaviors that schools are in the business of quashing. It seems that even among those on the spectrum, girls are conditioned by their families and communities to be quiet, contained and submissive.
I wasn't loud by any means when I was young but I was not socially appropriate either. I'd get in trouble for "laughing" at the class clown. I"m sure I wasn't the only laughing but I got singled out because I couldn't stop as fast or quickly act somber.

I've heard accounts from parents of autistic girls that can't get any school services because their girls are introverted and thus, "not a problem" in the school's opinion. Tortuga brings up the exclusiveness of the special ed program, having no girls. I've always seen girls in every special ed class my son's been enrolled in. Always fewer but there just the same. And they're the "boisterous" ones.

With regard to the teacher, I'm wondering why she didn't write out her sentence on the board... that would have saved your child from worrying about how to spell a word. Not all children are auditory learners - one of them could have missed a word or misunderstood the instructions. Simply writing the sentence on the board would have saved your son frustration.

The teacher should also have a format where the kids can ask for help... even when we teach adults we put up pictures showing different people asking for help in a classroom situation. Such simple changes could be made in that classroom to make it a more learning-friendly environment for all of the students.

Considering it was speech therapy, she could have been using words she knew they couldn't spell to see which letters they wrote when trying to sound out the words - ie does he match the sound to a letter/set of letters than can actually make that sound