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 teachers that Ryan did (we’re not sure if that’s a coincidence or not) except Nathan has the opposite teacher for home base that Ryan had.  And let me tell you about Nathan’s teacher, because we could not have asked for a better classroom.

Nathan’s teacher is Bill Cecil, the Michigan Teacher of the Year for 2003-2004. He spent that Sabbatical year developing a program and writing a book called “Best Year Ever!“.  Mr. Cecil not only has devoted himself to helping new teachers learn to succeed in their classrooms, he also helps each of his students have their Best Year Ever as well.  He asks his students to try their best, to respect him and each other, to bring a positive attitude to class, to learn from their mistakes.  He is one of the most energizing, motivating, caring teachers I have ever met.  When I got the letter over the summer that he would be Nathan’s teacher, I literally jumped off the couch and yelled YES!  I just knew that with Mr. Cecil guiding him, Nathan was going to have an incredible school year.

What we heard at the conference last night was that Nathan is a great student.  Mr. Cecil did not say one negative thing about Nathan. He didn’t say “Nathan can’t do this”, he said, “this is an issue for Nathan”. It was such a relief to not feel like the teacher was blaming us, like last year.  And, some of the things that last year’s classroom teacher and resource teacher told us to do? Mr. Cecil and this year’s resource teacher are saying no, no, that just makes it harder for him.

Last year’s teacher told us that Nathan absolutely had to learn the multiplication tables, had to be able to calculate each fact, no memorizing. We’ve been trying to teach him the multiplication tables for three years!  A math learning disability means it’s HARD FOR HIM, something last year’s teacher just didn’t seem to care about.  Mr. Cecil made this awesome suggestion to use flashcards, and if Nathan gets stuck on an answer, just tell him the answer and move on. Here we’ve been so hard on him about learning the facts, and then we get told it’s okay for him to memorize them!

His resource teacher called Nathan “a very bright kid”, and Mr. Cecil said that Nathan is going to be very successful in life. Do you know how good it is to hear that?  We were so worried that he wasn’t doing his homework, that he was blowing off assignments, but it turns out, Nathan is really trying his best every day.  As we walked out of the school, I told Chris I was stopping at the store for ice cream, because Nathan deserved a reward for getting such a great report. And then I came home and hugged and smooched him and made sure Ryan and Kaitlyn knew that they were getting ice cream because Nathan had earned it and was sharing.  It was all about Nathan. I think it’s going to be a great year for all of us.