Last night was Nathan's parent/teacher conference, and Chris and I were worried.  Last year was such a bad year for him, with a teacher who only saw his negative qualities and blamed us for everything he struggled with.  He matured a lot over the summer, but once school started, we began to see some of the same behavior as last year. Like, not bringing home his assignment book, even though there's a specific routine for getting the assignment book filled out and into backpacks. We were getting so frustrated at him for forgetting. I haven't told you about Nathan's teacher.  Our 5th and 6th grades are an Intermediate school, moving the kids from the single-classroom setting of elementary and preparing them for the multiple-class setting of  Middle School (7th and 8th grades, where Ryan is).  Teachers work in pairs, with one acting as the "home base" teacher.  One teacher covers Math & Science, the other does Social Studies & Language Arts.  Nathan has the same team of … [Read more...]