Little Lyra

This is a re-post from my old blog.

Lyra* just turned 4 recently. She’s a cute little thing with shiny straight hair and big expressive eyes. She’s very talkative and outspoken. It was pretty obvious that her aunt (I never met her mom) and her grandmother and maybe the rest of the family, adore her and that they are very vocal about it.

They enrolled her to my reading and writing class. Apparently, they all think that she is old and smart enough for the program, and why wouldn’t she? It’s just letters and tracing, how difficult could that get? They didn’t even have her assessed. They simply enrolled.

The moment she sat beside me I smelled trouble. She was extremely talkative, for one, and she was SO AT EASE with adults, which is not SO COMMON with kids her age.

And I was right, she may be smart, but she didn’t want to work… AT ALL. She just wanted to talk, and she wanted to talk about things about her, and nothing else. As a teacher, I tried to assert my authority by reminding her from time to time to finish what she’s doing and all that. The following day, her aunt talked to me and told me NOT TO PUSH Lyra too hard, and that they are worried that she may be traumatized if I do that. I told her my observation of her niece, but she just smiled and said that Lyra is just like that because she’s a little spoiled. 

Lyra’s program ended yesterday and I was left frustrated knowing that I wasn’t able to teach her anything she didn’t know yet. Her writing got a little better alright, but it was something she could have done even if she stayed at home..

*not real name