Not So Great Start

I have wanted to write about B's journey so far in school and though I started it I have not finished it. This is not surprising to me. Instead of that right now, I want to write about what happened yesterday on my sons 2nd day of school because it just makes me crazy to the core.

Yesterday was my son's 2nd day of 2nd grade. I have been told by many that his teacher is the best teacher in the school. I trust people are not lying to me. Also? She called me the day before school to discuss how she was familiar with Braden's plan that was put forth last year (upcoming post). She went on to describe many things that sounded perfect for him. She used many gifted tag words that I have not heard any other teacher say. I am confident that he will have a good year with her. Again, I will say that I believe this WILL be a good year, but when that part starts is anyone's guess.

I pick B up from school and ask the usual "how did it go today?" and he replied "fine, except for one thing that I don't want to talk about." We were at the playground so I dropped it. I asked again once we were in the car. Again, he didn't want to talk about it and then changed his mind to saying that he was just joking and that it was a fine day. I knew he was hiding something.

Again before bed I asked again, and he insisted that there was nothing and he was joking.

This morning he decided to talk about it. He said that when it was reading time the teacher told the kids to go pick a book from their classroom library and that everyone was supposed to pick a blue label book. Braden said that all the blue label books were beginning books and were too easy so he asked if he could have a different book that he saw. Then he said to me "she flat out said no.” I'm not sure how this came about but she said "reading harder books won't make you a better reader, reading easier books will." and then my son said to me "And you this summer told me that I should read books that are harder and now my teacher says easier books so now I don't know who's right cause you’re my mom and she’s my teacher."

To give some background, over the summer B had fallen into a pattern of only getting comic books from the library. At some point I had suggested to him that he really needed to read a mix of both comic books and regular reading books to keep up his reading skills.

Oh, and he was NOT happy about only being able to chose the blue label books. I can't blame him. Why is this teacher (who knows his reading level) making all kids take the same level book? Is this going to inspire my son to read? Trust me it's not. He could not have been less interested in those books. Isn't that sort of anti-reading? I mean I understand if this was part of some assignment or for a project, but as I understand this was FREE reading time. Why not let a kid pick a book that they WANT to read? Isn't the point? Getting the kids to WANT to read?

I'm not sure that they have a "get kids to hate reading" program but if they do my kid must be first on that list.