A Letter to Parents

Dear Parents,

I do not want to hear about your divorce, custody agreements, or complaints about your ex or current partner, although it often explains a lot, if not, everything about the way your child acts, treats others and understand the world around them. It is awkward, and even though I may agree with you, or the other parent, or both, please don’t expect that I can make my own beliefs clear as a teacher. I’m here for your child. Six to eight hours of the day, my mandate and belief as a professional dictates that I am essentially, a stand-in “parent” for your child, who promises to stand up, advocate for, and guide your child. I do not want to be caught up in custody battles, or a he-says, she-says discussion. I just want to spend time with your child, getting to know them and supporting them.

This year has been very parent-centered, rather than child-centered, and it bothers me to no end. I don’t have solutions, but please, have faith that your child is bright enough to say or show when something is wrong, and that I will do my best to support them, and you as a parent, as best I can.

Please, put your children first by giving them a chance to speak for themselves. Sometimes the best support you can give is by standing behind, rather than ploughing the way through, even when your child is 4 or 5 years old, with a limited vocabulary. They are fully capable of communicating, and I can hear them.

My partner ATE my math project...another day in the life?

Seriously, my partner (a grown up, certified, educated...teacher) who I share a classroom with....ATE my math project. Thank goodness most of my kids had already done the activity, but the pre-K kiddos and any kids who were away got their chance eaten up. I'm not sure whether to be mad or laugh about it, so for now, I'll laugh and try to forget (after writing about it). I teach at two different schools, alternating days, and when I came back on a Thursday and was planning activities with the ladies for the afternoon, we went to do some Lucky Charms math. There was the box on the shelf where I left it, but totally empty. She even admitted it, just didn't feel the need to throw the box away or replace it. Yeesh.

It's 9 pm and I got home about half an hour ago after a busy day. On a typical day I'm up at 5 am and leaving the house by 7 to get to the school (10 or 20 mins away, depending on the day, and the crazy fog that sneaks up in pockets here!) and prepare for the day. School starts at 8:35 am and goes until just after 3pm. Then we have meetings, running club, or prep to do. Today I had to make sub plans and attend a literacy planning session for the morning, then rushed back to the classroom for the rest of the day. Parent-teacher interviews went from 3:30-7pm and then I needed to head back to town again (another 15mins in the opposite direction of my house) to pick up Easter supplies and seeds to plant with the kiddos for Mother's Day (I have a group of boys who love to garden- awesome!) By the time I got home, all I wanted was to change into comfortable clothes, have a glass of wine and write, so here I am!

I apologize for the rambly writing! I assure you it's exhaustion...

There have been some really funny moments over the last few weeks, and some really neat discussions with kids too. One day, with about 20 minutes left, a little boy came up behind me and said, "Ummmmm, Miss K--------? You haven't blown my mind today."

I almost fell out of my chair, and that comment made me pull out my best youtube videos I had been saving to show the kids... Look up "mimic octopus" on youtube one day...our world is a very cool place. After school I saw the little guy and asked him if I had impressed him, "Ohhhhhhh yea!" was his response. That week we also did mini-experiments by putting Peeps in the microwave (their eyes kind of floated around and I was glad to have a bunch of farm kids around), and by putting drops of food coloring into a pan of milk, then adding a drop of soap and watching the 'storm' of color that occurs. We tried to make our own chalk out of cornstarch, water and food coloring, then used it as paint when it got too crumbly, made green pudding in bags for St. Patrick's Day, and made 'fluffy stuff' out of shaving cream and cornstarch. It's supposed to end up feeling like snow- packable, but essentially 'explodes' when you throw it. It didn't work so well for us as we had the measurements wrong, but we had some very happy, shaving cream covered boys. I would have loved to have seen our little german boy come off the bus smelling like a man, grinning from ear to ear and trying to explain to his Mom what he got into at school.

Thank goodness for all of the funny, heart-warming things we have to balance the frustrations! Who wouldn't smile at a little boy pulling out a pencil crayon and saying in a very high-pitched voice, "now this is just the color of my zinnias?"

Come on spring! I can't wait to take these kiddos outside to learn!