Tuesday, December 13, 2005
It was a fairly uneventful day yesterday. Only one item worth posting on.
I did get an e-mail from Miss Kerivan, Alesia’s teacher, saying she had talked to her about her anger issues. Here is what she said:
We had multiple mini-discussions throughout last week with Alesia. She does get offended and becomes defensive about the possibility of making a mistake or not knowing how to do certain things. I had to give her a couple of examples when I myself misinterpreted people's messages or intentions although I understood every word that was being said. I even told her how ignorant and inferior I sometimes feel when I speak to my English-speaking peers. She was very surprised!
She has raised her little voice at me a couple of times when she was reprimanded for socializing during class, which she tries to do a lot. She does not accept disciplinary actions very well. She would not admit she was doing anything wrong, in fact she would talk back, "I am not talking." or "I am reading." And she is one of very few students that talk back to me. However, this is a "normal" teenage behavior, and she does not hold the grudge, get over little disagreements very quickly. My feeling is she is a good-hearted girl, kind, generous, good with kids. Just too sensitive to criticism, which is probably because she has been criticised a lot before and could not respond. Here in the US the home and schooling atmosphere in general is a lot more permissive. She will grow out of this.
Thank God for her. She can communicate with Alesia in Russian and express things so much more clearly than we can. I did reply that at hmoe we are not permissive, we are pretty strict with her.
Alesia still doesn’t understand things a lot, and it gets her angry and frustrated. I was trying to help Alesia with her science the other day and we looked up the word “suggestion” on the computer. She didn’t know that word. Every time I get too complacent about her English knowledge, she does something like that and I am reminded she is still on a steep learning curve.
