The facts reported in this post are real and I leave the evidence at the end of the post for you to draw your own conclusions.
I remember that when I went to look for Samuel at his school he told me with emotion that his teacher had assigned them as an activity the elaboration of a story that was the product of his imagination, gave him freedom of topics as well as form of presentations, the words of my son were:
Mom! I want you to help me elaborate a story, I already have the idea and I have thought about the drawings that I will place, but I need you to help me fold the sheets so that it looks like a medium sized book and as pints more beautiful than me I would like you to help me with the drawing of the cover so that I can color it.
I bear witness that Samuel took an old notebook and began to write, structured the story by chapters, his ideas were faster than his writing, which seemed a tangle of words that made sense when he read what he had written so far. I also confess that Samuel has been a brilliant child in school but the observations have always been: "he must improve his handwriting", for this we have bought calligraphy notebooks and religiously he has agreed to carry out his daily practices (this kind of activities are not easy for a ADHD), I have seen your effort, but simply your thoughts are always faster than your hand and as a worthy child with ADHD you do not need to copy so many classes because you simply understand everything quickly and I thank God for that.
With great enthusiasm he managed to finish the story, he took pains to illustrate it with his drawings and even made his "Autobiography", my contributions were made according to the instructions of Samuel: the drawing of the cover and the index (which indicated the name of each chapter) mission accomplished! The story was ready to be delivered, let's hope the teacher likes it now.
To my surprise, this time the face of Samuel at the end of school was not the usual: he was somewhat serious and disturbed, I asked him what happened and he answered the following:
Mom, I have bad news, the teacher did not like the story, she did not even stop to read it, she just opened it, she saw my lyrics and she qualified it, I think she did not even know what the story :-(
My heart of mother's was afflicted and my heart of teacher's was infuriated, it is not possible that a teacher does not feel interested to see what reflects the mind of a student, that is not able to evaluate the creativity of a child but only the standards of a calligraphy that must be cousive, readable and beautiful What should have more evaluative weighting in a story? The history or the calligraphy with which it is presented? Would Samuel's qualification have been different if the story had been written on a computer? What are the desired results when writing a story?
Samuel's joy fell apart because he only found a note from the teacher that said:
"You must write calligraphy daily to obtain a better result" Rating = B (17 points).
It should be noted that in Venezuela the evaluation scales for primary education are qualitative and these are expressed in letters ranging from "A" to "F", likewise the teaching-learning methods must be applied according to the following extract that I have translated for you:
I ask myself again: did Samuel's teacher use the correct evaluation strategy that would allow her to strengthen her potential and abilities?
Of course not
For the time being, I leave you the version of Samuel's story, translated into English, so that you read it and to reflect on the impact of a teacher on the life of a child ADHD. For my part I will continue trusting that my son will be a great man, full of skills which I will support and strengthen, I hope you enjoy the story as much as I do:
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My son Samuel and I
References:
The evaluation in the Bolivarian educational system (2008). printed version ISSN 1316-4910. Available at: http://www.scielo.org.ve/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1316-49102008000100024
Source of the image