Words from the teacher

 This afternoon, I hung around to talk to the teacher about how Jensen is coping socially. We're concerned that the smarts he has will alienate him from the other students. Some of the other kids in the class already knew each other from Kindy or daycare, and Jensen is completely new and fresh.

We did discuss that Jensen is doing well, playing with the kids in the yard, and gets along great in the classroom with the others. She did note that while they are sitting on the mat, Jensen tends to sit away from the other boys. She thinks perhaps it's because they're rowdy and he wants to listen and pay attention...

She showed me a drawing that he did today, and was quite excited to do so. I was so excited to see it, as it was drawn in orange - and not green. She obviously saw I totally missed the reason she showed it to me and pointed out that he wanted to write by himself. He has written "Happy" "Sad" and "Love" with each drawing. Jensen had told her "Don't tell me how to spell 'sad', coz I already know how to spell it".

While I was marvelling at that,  lost in awe that this kid can do all this - the teacher pipes up with "There is such a thing as too smart". We wrapped up our conversation not long after that, but to be honest, I can't remember what was said. I'm freaking out about that one statement. What does it mean?

I've spoken to Andrew's brother and his wife (both teachers), and they think maybe she's a little thrown by Jensen. It's her first year of teaching and maybe they didn't teach her about how to handle a smarter child.

I'm going to leave it for a few days and then try and see her again. I don't want to be the pesty mum bailing up the teacher each afternoon!