"Cathy Kearns" wrote:


"Chookie" wrote in message
...
The
second was that he would do best with a teacher who would not interpret
his
enthusiasm (which can include calling out, bouncing in his seat, etc) as
rudeness.

My daughter is now almost 13 going into 8th grade and I'm still trying to
deal with this. There are always a few enthusiastic kids in her class that
tend to call out answers, and have been doing so since they were little. My
daughter has alway started the year by raising her hand, as that is what the
teacher asks the children to do. By teacher conferences two months into the
year that is the one question she always asks I bring to the teacher (for 7
years now), do they really want her to raise her hand, as the child who

When I was in 6th grade, I found that the teacher would not call on
someone who waved their hand in the air wildly and wanted to answer.
(I don't think calling out the answer was allowed.) This was because
if you raised your hand, she knew that you knew the answer, and she
wanted to involve the students who did not know the answer.

I dealt with this in two ways.

One - If I really wanted to give an answer, I pretended to not be
paying attention, or to have dozed off so that the teacher would call
on me.

Two - if I found the discussion boring, I would hold my hand in the
air and read a book under my desk as I knew that if I raised my hand,
I would not be called on.

I don't know if something like this would work for your dd or not.

calls out gets the attention. Should I push her to show her enthusiasm more
by shouting out the answers too? I've suggested this to the teachers, they
would prefer they have the chance to call on her, which they then never get
to. By mid year my daughter has alternated calling out herself, which she
doesn't feel comfortable with, and just withdrawing completely. To her it
seems that since the teacher is allowing these other kids to call out
answers, instead of raising her hand that the teacher doesn't like her. So

I think it is more likely that the teacher has to deal with those who
really don't understand the material and need help, and your dd
doesn't. I think this may be different when she gets to HS because
she will have a lot of different teachers. But in the meantime, you
might just have her raise her hand on the more difficult questions.

And also analyze what the teacher is doing - making a chart of who
calls out answers and gets away with it and who doesn't call out and
gets called on and the reverse.

despite the straight A's on her report card we always get the "doesn't
participate enough" or "too chatty" or some other comment that is probably
right on but is my daughter's way of coping with a teacher that is showing
more attention to the kids who are too enthusiatic to follow the rules the
teacher sets down. How exactly do I get my daughter to understand the
special attention other kids get? Especially other kids in her advanced
classes? I'd really like to get this right with this daughter, my older
daughter is off to college, and is very assertive everywhere except in
classrooms. I've seen that hurt her in high school.