The Intimidator...

The World of Luke.

Luke is a very bright kid. But Luke is also hyperactive and impulsive. He gets his work done in school very easily and quickly and becomes quickly bored. Bored, hyper kid = LOTS of discipline problems. Add to that the fact that:

He never gets intimidated.

Dateline today. He has his very first football practice tonight, so he is very excited. He was high energy about it this morning already before school. Kelly just got a call from his teacher already at 12:30 today:

• not listening
• talking in class
• getting out of his seat
• been placed in the corner
• has to have "silent lunch"
• had to sit out of recess
• already has two "letters" today before lunch on Monday (1 letter=5 points deducted from weekly conduct grade)

His teacher tells Kelly that when she was going over some math concepts in class today, Luke was rifling through his desk and not listening to her...

She says, "Luke, because you are not listening that must mean that you think you already know how to do this."

"Yes ma'am."

She continues. "Now Luke, this is rounding to the thousandths. We've never done that before and you didn't do that in 2nd grade. Are you sure?"

"Yes ma'am."

And his teacher goes on. "OK. So if I went ahead and gave you the test right now then you would pass, right?"

"Yes ma'am."

The teacher keeps digging her hole deeper (thinking she is digging Luke's). "Now this won't be a practice test. This will be your test for the week and whatever your score is will count for your grade."

"OK."

She does not have the test ready.

BAM! He called her bluff. Now, the thing is, Luke was probably being honest in all his answers, truly thinking he already knew it and could pass the test. The thing is (which we can never admit to him), he's probably right. His teacher assumes that he cannot do something unless he has seen it first, rather than taking a concept he is familiar with (rounding) and extend that concept out to the next digit. The problem is this - we'll now never know.

By not having the test ready, we are now in a bad position. He still thinks he was right and justified in acting the way he was. His teacher will still look at him like all the other students, and assume he was just being nasty rather than being honest (and proving to her he probably could have done it). So she is already starting to see him as an attitude problem rather than a bright kid who needs more challenge.

And poor Luke just does not seem to see the inappropriateness of his behavior. We have gone over and over with him about this stuff - no talking in class, listen to your teacher at all times, don't talk in the hall, don't get out of your seat, yadda yadda yadda... Yet when he gets home after a hard day at school he sits in the floor crying not knowing exactly what he did that was so wrong...

I think this is just gonna be one of those issues that we are going to have to struggle with every year in school until one of Luke's teachers "gets him" and makes an effort to see WHY he acts the way he does (bright and bored vs. "attitude problem") and then works with him to challenge him...

In the mean time, he's gonna keep his teacher's hopping... and his conduct grades are going to keep dropping...