Great Teachers are THE BEST

Okay, I'm finally getting around to writing about the thank you note I sent to Ethan's teacher I alluded to in my last post.

Ethan's current teacher was actually his first grade teacher two years ago.  I was very impressed with her even then, assigning Ethan extra homework such as oral reports on subjects of his choosing.  She could see how smart he is, and wanted to challenge him above and beyond what was the first grade repertoire.  (By the end of first grade, he was reading at an eighth grade reading level.)

So when Mrs. R. was moved up to the third grade, I was excited to request that she be his teacher for this school year.  (I love that this school district allows requests like this.)

After about a week and a half of school, Ethan started bringing home extra math homework.  His "regular" stuff is adding and subtracting numbers up to 10.  The things she is having him do include having him add three numbers together that are all between 100 and 1000. (So, for example, 639 + 244 + 115.)  Every day he has this extra homework, and I was noticing that she was printing it off of the internet toward the end of the school day or after school gets out.  The fact that she is taking extra time out of her schedule to find math that is more challenging to my son is astounding to me!

(I asked Ethan if anyone else gets extra math homework, and he grumbled, "No.  Just me.  And I think I'm going to tell her that I don't want to do extra homework anymore."  I can certainly understand why an eight year old would feel that way, but I said to him, "Do you know what this means??  It means that Mrs. R. cares for you so much and KNOWS how intelligent you are that she wants to help you become even smarter.  I think it is wonderful that she is doing this just for you!"  He smiled and has never complained since.)

So then, last week, I got an email from Mrs. R. saying that she had been talking to Ethan about giving him more difficult spelling words, because the current words are so easy and boring for him.  So she had come up with ten challenging words for him, per week, through the end of October.  She was concerned that they might be a bit too difficult for him, but she wasn't sure, because as she put it, "he is so stinkin' smart!" 

He told me after the pretest he took on Monday that he had only missed two of the words: dexterously and adjacent.  But he got words such as cajoled, delinquent and continuous correct.  I love that Mrs. R. took time out of her schedule to come up with numerous spelling words specifically for Ethan!

And that's why I had to write her a thank you note, telling her how impressed I am with her and how much I enjoy having her as Ethan's teacher.  (And I also asked her if she would please move up to fourth and fifth grade with him too. Smiley face.)

Great teachers are the best!  And seeing her in action also makes me want to be a better parent too - to not just do the minimum amount required, you know?  But to do what it takes to be a great parent, and to challenge my children to live to their fullest potential.