To ask the teacher to pair DS up with someone else sometimes?

[Natsku]

DS is 7 and in 1st grade and has seemed to enjoy school but he told me today that school isn't fun anymore, I asked why and he said its because every time they do a pair activity he is paired up with the same person, even when others get to choose their own partners he gets told to partner up with the same boy (I suspect there is a bit of exaggeration about the 'always' but its clearly often enough to bother him)

Now I understand why he is getting paired up with this boy, we're in Finland and DS is fluent in both Finnish and English, and this other boy is an immigrant who doesn't know much Finnish yet but is quite good at English, so of course it makes sense to pair him up with the one child in the class that he can communicate easily with, but DS is getting fed up and wants to sometimes pair up with other friends. He's especially fed up of being paired up with this boy when they are doing a reading task because the boy can't read in Finnish yet so its frustrating for DS.

WIBU to send the teacher a message asking if DS could sometimes be paired up with one of his friends instead, even though it'll make things more difficult for this other boy and the teacher? I feel conflicted, I want DS to be happy about school again but I can also understand how it must feel to be a child in a class where everyone is speaking a language they don't know, but there is one child they can understand who doesn't always want to work with them. DS isn't asking to never be paired up with this boy, he likes him and is friends with him, but he just really wants a change sometimes.

Teacher convenience pairings created such problems for our ASD dd we had to put specific language about them in her education plan. It’s shockingly common for teachers to use these pairings for one student to help teach another under the premise of “reinforcing skills”, but when it happens excessively and only in one direction it creates issues.

It is a sure fire way to make your son dislike the other child when everyone else gets to choose their partners. The other child will become very isolated then.

I would have a word with the teacher that your son isnt really enjoying tasks anymore and would like a change. It isolates your son from the rest of the class too.

Not unreasonable at all. I had to have this conversation several times when my eldest was in primary. She was academic and well behaved so I think they were expecting her to be a good influence on some of the other kids, but she was also very shy and completely dominated by the more assertive children that they kept pairing her with. It would have made her time in primary completely unbearable if I hadn’t intervened. It is not your child’s job to help another child with their language skills. Nice if he’s willing to help out a bit sometimes, but completely unacceptable for the teacher to keep expecting it.

YANBU to ask the teacher to pair your son with other classmates sometimes, so he gets the chance to interact with others. It is tough for the new boy and I hope he can make new friends and improve his Finnish soon, but your boy shouldn't feel like he's being treated differently from the rest of the class.

Pairing him this way will delay his language skills as he’ll rely on English rather than develop his Finnish.

I wouldn’t say anything. It doesn’t sound like the boy is naughty or mean to him or holding him back (unless your child is falling behind in reading because of this?). And at that age the kid will be fluent in Finnish before too long at which point things will change.

Besides, it’s good for our future men to learn that sometimes their desire for fun can come secondary to doing something nice for the community.

I am concerned about that too, though I suspect this is just a stopgap while the boy improves his Finnish in his Finnish as a 2nd language class which he'll be getting a few hours of a week. Though I wonder why he wasn't put in a prepatory class first but it might be that our school doesn't have one as most of the immigrant children go to the other school.

The boy isn't mean or anything and DS likes him and I do think its important for children, especially boys, to put others first sometimes but DS is a kind boy who has kept quiet about this until now because he is the kind of child who wants to be helpful and not make a fuss but he's getting really upset by it now. I've told him that as the boy gets better at Finnish he'll be able to pair up with others easier but it seems to be taking longer than expected for his Finnish to improve.

I agree with @Simonjt that this is not actually benefitting (either) child.

As a former teacher we were aware that this is not the best way of helping new children who - in our case - did not speak any/much English. eg if you get a Lithuanian child move into the class don't partner them with another Lithuanian child, or they will simply communicate in that language. It's tempting to feel it is helping the child, but it really isn't. If they put this boy with a child who ONLY speaks Finnish then it will help him far more.

I've sent a message now, hopefully his teacher will pair him up with someone else today.

Yes it’s common, my asd ds always gets paired with sweet quiet girls. I get it’s easier but it’s also unfair on them to manage my sons regulation.

Yanbu and you need to highlight to the teacher that DS is 7 years old, shoukd not be expected to act as a teaching assistant and his educational experience and wellbeing are being damaged for the sake of the teacher's convenience. What would the teacher do to support the other child if there didn't happen to be a bilingual child in the class? She should do that at least 75% of the time and allow your DS to have an equal value and freedom to all the other children in the class. Tell the teacher that if there aren't significant changes over the coming week you will be raising a complaint about her discrimination against your son because he is getting less advantages than other students.

Got a reply from the teacher, she spoke with DS as well at school today. She says she's been reducing the times they are paired up as the boy's Finnish improves and is making sure DS sometimes gets to paired with other friends and that she tries to choose the most suitable partners for different work. DS seems happier today so I think he's been reassured that he'll be getting different partners more and more often.
I doubt he's been getting disadvantaged by this (beyond the emotional aspect), he's well ahead at the moment so going a bit slower at times isn't going to affect his education. The main thing is that he knows he's not always going to be his partner any more so that should ease his frustration, hopefully.

I guess if DS wasn't there the teacher or the TA would have to spend more time helping this boy, which would have a knock on affect on everyone else. I guess there's no easy solution to dealing with children who don't speak the language, they can't be with the Finnish as a second language teacher too much because she has to teach children in other age groups as well.