It was back in October when C’s school agreed to let him use EPGY there. However, many weeks went by without anything happening. I casually asked about it at one point and they said they were waiting to hear how it was going at home. I explained it was going fine and so I thought they would start at school at this point, but again weeks went by with nothing. Finally C starts to ask them about it and they said to him that they were waiting for me.
I contacted them again asking about it and finally they said they would begin, but needed us to bring in a laptop. While in our first conversation I offered to send in a laptop if they didn’t have a computer for him to use, they never made it clear that they would need it. By this time it was almost Thanksgiving. I scrambled to clean off an old laptop and get C used to using it rather than my desktop computer he had been using up to this point. That’s when we discover that EPGY has issues on our laptop…
For some reason, odd white boxes appeared over various parts of the EPGY content, particularly answer boxes. Often, C could not see what he was typing in, because it would be hidden behind a white box. This caused a lot of problems, to say the least. I had to then tell the school we needed to wait while I found out what was going on. EPGY support was extremely slow in responding and then completely useless. They made no suggestions and gathered little information for troubleshooting beyond what operating system and Java version we were using. After saying that they couldn’t duplicate the problem, I sent screen shots and additional information I thought they may need. I never heard anything more and the problem remained unsolved.
At this point I debated buying a new laptop or netbook, even though we can’t actually afford anything right now. Most netbooks were so small that C would have to scroll to see the whole EPGY program. I also didn’t know if a new computer may have the same issue as this older laptop. Luckily my sister had an old laptop she wasn’t using, so we gave that a try and found that it didn’t have the issue with the white boxes, thank goodness.
By this time it was December and C had been working on EPGY at home for quite some time. While he started out working on the program quietly, working at home seemed to open the door for him to make the program more interesting by spinning in my chair, talking to himself, playing games with the keyboard (like trying to type the answer and press enter at the same time), going wild with the mouse, etc. I’d warn him that he wouldn’t be able to do those things at school, but after warning him for weeks (while we waited on his school and then the laptop) he just tuned me out.
Finally, earlier this month C has a laptop at school and tries EPGY. They have technical problems with their internet filter, but eventually work around them. They observe C for two days, a total of about 45 minutes and then tell me that we need to meet. Of course I immediately think that C is being too noisy there, but then wonder how they could determine anything worthy of a meeting with so little time. He would need more than 45 minutes to adjust to working in a different environment after working for months at home.
I spoke to C to let him know that they may not let him use EPGY at school if he can’t work quietly. I then spoke to the school to say that I didn’t think they gave it a fair shot. After that they observed two more sessions, which seemed to go better. They said tomorrow or Tuesday they would move the laptop to his classroom and see how he does. However, I won’t be surprised if we end up having to just use EPGY at home. It’s pretty clear that his school is not enthusiastic about him using it there, quiet or not.
I have to say that C is less bothered than I expected by the repetition of first grade math at school. I think it’s partially because he’s not forced to do math homework like his old school. They have no math homework this year and little homework in general. While I’m happy that C is being more compliant with the review work, I still don’t like the fact that he’s not being challenged.
Now that C is finally at new material in EPGY math (he’s around grade 2.4 now), he’s had to relearn how to learn. At first he’d see a new concept and then just freeze up, saying that he didn’t know how to do it. A great example is when EPGY introduced the area of rectangles. First it explained length and width, which were review. It then explained area, but this was just counting up the unit boxes inside each rectangle. C completed these problems with ease until a screen came up with the same exact problem, but it happened to show that you were multiplying the length and width to get the area. Mind you, it didn’t ask you to multiply. It simply showed that what he had been doing all along could be expressed as multiplication. When he saw that, he stopped immediately and came running to tell me “I don’t know multiplication!” I had to then calm him down and explain that he was doing the same exact thing as before.
This is exactly why I don’t want C to go through school unchallenged. Right now he thinks school requires no real effort (so far it hasn’t) and that it’s just a review of things he already knows. Give him something that requires effort or is totally new and he leaves his comfort zone. His school wrote me to say that he requires more one-on-one time for new concepts than his peers. I believe this was in part to imply that he didn’t need math enrichment. They may have been surprised at my response, but I basically said that they have set him up to be that way. His peers are used to being challenged, he is not. They also seem to jump to help him one-on-one at the least sign of frustration, which has only reinforced that behavior. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they help him and that they have the resources to work with kids one-on-one, but overall I think they need to change their approach. I want them to help C develop skills to deal with frustration by providing him more opportunities for challenge, not less. I feel their current tact will only lead to more dependence and frustration.
Maybe one day I’ll be able to research things like this myself and then have more to present to schools than common sense. Let’s hope I get into one of the two graduate programs I’m applying to!
