Teaching Babble

For months now, I've been anxiously preparing to start my long term sub assignment. I've been thinking, researching, reading and listening to all I can.....trying to find ways I can be most effective for these Kindergarteners. I have tips on lining up, on behavior charts, on taking roll, on teaching phonemes, on communicating with parents, and on potty breaks.

But it still doesn't feel like enough.

I honestly feel like I could never prepare enough because so much of it you just HAVE to experience and learn along the way. A lot like parenthood.

It's so easy for me to compare myself with veteran teachers and feel so inadequate. I feel like people look at me like "ha, you don't know what you're getting into" or "you are so naive". Even if they're not thinking that, I assume they are.

So I'm like a sponge. I look at everything other teachers do and want to take bits and pieces of them and put them together until it looks like my style. I'm trying to soak up so much, that things are falling out of my brain. But I just want to do SUCH A GOOD JOB. For the sake of these precious kids, I don't want to screw up their Kindergarten year!

Through all my inadequacies, I have learned to trust my instinct. (Isn't that a lesson we learn over and over?). I have learned to be authentic and true to myself and not do something just because that's how the other teachers seem to do it.

I have some specific philosophies and they all revolve around the individuality of each child AND family. All too often I hear teachers complain about the families. Either they are too pushy and involved, OR (and this is most common) they are too uninvolved. But I always wonder....have you taught, trained and guided these (many times brand new) parents as to their role in their child's education?

It may seem obvious, but often times it's not. The classroom is foreign and intimidating to many parents. New parents often wait for the teacher to take the lead. Parents are also hungry to know what the teacher thinks of their child. I mean, the teacher gets to see their child in comparison to hundreds of other kids, for heaven's sake! A parent often wonders where does my child fall on the spectrum.

But so often, teachers are so caught up in the curriculum and the meetings that they don't realize how much the parents need to be taught, trained and guided. And encouraged!

So here's an example from yesterday that has weighed on my mind:
A parent wanted to bring in cupcakes for her child's bday. Unfortunately the only time to do so was right before lunch (here's a huge pile of sugar kids!). Anyway, she showed up about 25 minutes early. The kids had just sat down for their math lesson. When the mom opened the door with all the party stuff, and two other kids with a big stroller, Mrs. R was very obviously taken aback. All she saw was "distraction!" walking in the door. She rushed to the door and told the mom (semi firmly) "You are way too early. I told you 11:30 and it is just after 11:00. You will need to come back in 20 minutes". The mom was obviously deflated a little bit. I mean, it was freezing outside and she had a 7 month old with her. But Mrs. R was not budging.

I, too, saw "distraction" just like Mrs. R. I mean, Kindergarteners can be distracted by a fly on the wall. BUT, let me tell you what ELSE I saw.....

I saw a mom who had just gotten a ride from her neighbor because she didn't have a car. I saw a mom who's second daughter walked in her big sister's classroom so proudly with her empty backpack in her arms. I saw a mom who had planned a little party down to the paper plates, napkins and drinks. I saw a mom who had heard her daughter talk about her "party" for a solid week straight with excitement. And then I saw a mom who didn't understand why she couldn't just wait in her daughter's warm classroom until the lesson was over. I didn't either.

I walked the mom down to the library had asked the librarian if she could wait there since it was so cold outside. When she came back 20 minutes later, we had a nice (rushed) party, and I stayed to help her clean up while Mrs. R walked the kids to the cafeteria. While we were cleaning up, the mom timidly asked me "How's Emma doing?". She wanted to know what WE thought of her daughter.

This situation caused a big dilemma inside of me. I asked a lot of questions of myself. Did I need to be more harsh? Did I need to be more firm? Does curriculum always trump feelings?

Finally I found my answer. No, no and no.

Maybe I would have let the mom sit at a side table with her other daughter and offered her some crayons until the Math lesson was over. Maybe I would have dealt with some distracted kids? Or maybe I would have decided that somehow, someway I would make up that math lesson later, even if it seemed impossible. I don't know. But I KNOW I would not have been able to de-personalize that mother. I am a mother (for the record, Mrs. R is not yet). I know what that mother put into that little bday party. I know what it took her to pack up her baby, big stroller and cupcakes. I know the sparkle she'd seen in Emma's eyes for days. And I saw the deflation in the mom's eyes when the only thing that mattered to the teacher is that she was "too early".

I don't know what my point is except that I cannot deny my need to connect with people and their feelings. I cannot omit this from my personality just to stick to a pacing guide of learning. So I'll just need to figure out a way to follow my heart AND the curriculum. Therein lies the challenge!