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School is almost here!! (edit: it’s been going on for two days now, these are my initial thoughts, original one’s at the end of the post)

Is it just me as the child of an educator, or does everyone have prejudices about what kind of teachers their children deserve?

My oldest has been in public school for two years. The first year, he had a veteran teacher who was awesome! On open house night, we stopped by her room and she till had a picture of her and Ethan on her desk and she was downright authentically disappointed when she learned she wasn’t our daughters kindergarten teacher. Now I’ll admit, he was absolutely her pet. She told us outright that he was. She has been an educator for about 34 years and said that he was the kind of student of which she had only had maybe three before. And believe me, I know that was/is not normal for a teacher to express such preferential treatment. But for us and Ethan, it was an awesome way to start out at public schools, especially one we were leery of in the first place.

When he went to first grade, I knew he would be the “Jesus” child for his next teacher or any other teacher, and I’m sure she liked him well enough, but my gosh. I disliked her from the start and never could shake it. She had a lot of things going on in her personal life that couldn’t be helped and for me, it all added up to strikes against her instead of sympathy for what a hard year she was having. If I had seen her organized, self-assured and controlling of her classroom, then I might have had more empathy for her personal life. But I didn’t. Instead, I saw chaos every time I went to the school.  I mentioned all this in a blog before, but I mostly feel sorry for the students in her class. They had to pay the price for her unprofessionalism. I really would like to see what her test scores were like at the end of the year.

So after a veteran and a newbie, I have prejudices.

Our kids got letters from their teachers last week saying “Congratulations, you are in MY class! wooHoo!”

I read the letters and form more judgments. Suzanne, starting kindergarten, has a veteran teacher. Her letter said “33 years kindergarten experience”. Yippee I thought. Then after I started to tell people at church and her former kids day out program who her teacher was, I got the same comment. “oh…well…” And when I would press for more information, no one was very flattering of her. Mostly it was “she’s not especially loving, and she’s very disorganized, and my favorite “just keep an eye on her and make sure Suzanne is learning her basics, she tends to drift away from the curriculum” wEll! Those are some of the things I hated about Ethan’s teacher last yeaR! GREAT!

When we meet her at the open house, she seemed warm and nice enough. She had their cubbies labeled, but when I looked around, she had no names taped to the desks. I asked “Where will the kids sit on Monday?” She kind of fluttered and said “Oh, we’ll figure that all out after I’ve met them”. ACK! Way to make the kids feel secure lady!

Ethan’s teacher, on the other hand, graduated high school in 2001. Do you see that??!  OMG! She’s a BABY! She’s taught only three years and to top it off, her letter stated that she is opening a tanning salon this Fall. *gulp* Great, she’s a teacher who is promoting skin cancer! I look her up in last years yearbook and Ethan is thrilled. Why? She’s a hottie. Skinny, blonde, modern haircut. Luckily, she’s married, so he’s already told me she can’t be his girlfriend. Ay yi yi!

So I’m not to thrilled about these things when I go to meet her. And you know what? She had labels on the tables for where the kids will sit, she had a folder with information ready to go, and a gift bag for each child. She had her room decorated brightly with a Hawaiian theme while Suzanne’s kindergarten teacher had no decorations up at all! The only thing I thought might be amiss was she sent home every child’s cafeteria card. However, Ethan mentioned that maybe some kids will be eating breakfast on Monday, which makes sense, and after all, he is in the second grade and they have to start being responsible for things like that eventually.

So basically, I get letters, form an opinion, then have it turned upside down. So I’m TRYING to staying open minded. But not so open minded that I let any bad teacher have my kid for the entire year. I’m keeping a close eye on them for the first two months. And if either one of them screws with my child’s education, then I’m visiting asking for a one on one conference and if that doesn’t fly then it’s off to the principals office with me.

What about you? Do you have a notion of what a teacher should be like? What circumstances would cause you to actually bring it to the principals attention and maybe even move your child to another class? If I have to do something like that, how do I do it without totally offending the current teacher??!

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Okay, that was my original writing except for the bit at the top letting you know to expect more at the bottom.

So the first day of school went fine, both children were in general feeling like school was blah. Suzanne was so excited the night before and then came home utterly exhausted and acted like the whole day was a let down. I explained to her that the first couple of weeks is a settling in time period and after a while, the fun stuff like learning to read, going to art etc. will start to happen. She informed me that the only time she cried during the day was at lunch time.

Meanwhile, on Monday, I had errands to run in Conway, and every time I saw a stroller or a mom cooing at a toddler in a shopping cart, or a pregnant women, I would start to get weepy. I am NoT usually the emotional type so the whole day struck me as if I was having an out of body experience.

Ethan’s first day from his recollection was “eh.” He did say that he and another boy were picked to take the important papers to the office, and I could tell that he thought that was a good start because he loves being singled out as a helper. And it helps his self esteem to be needed. (a lot like his Pop!)

The second day, Suzanne said she cried almost all day. Ethan was asked to be the class monitor and report if anyone talked while the teacher was gone. *sigh* I think Suzanne was distraught because she had woken up at 4:30 a.m. and so she always has her emotions right at the surface when she’s tired. Ethan took great pleasure at being the class monitor but I had flashbacks to my own childhood and being labeled a goodie two shoes because yes, I would report names because I was more scared of the teacher than the kids. But it’s a hard line to walk being responsible to the teacher and being singled out by your peers for what they view as tattling.

This morning when Suzanne was leaving, she was calm about going, and ready to ride the bus. It’s her favorite part of the school experience so far. I asked her to try not to cry and if she felt like she was going to, then it was time to count how many girls were in the class. And to do it over and over till she could remember the number. And when she memorized that number, count all the boys. After all, I told her, I need to know how many there are in her room in case I bring special treats to school for Halloween, like scary teeth for the boys or something. She seemed pleased to have an assignment, and I did remind her that Halloween is far away so if she never got upset and didn’t count, that it was alright with me.

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So back to the question above, I know an educator reads my blog, so I’m sorry if my blog seems really biased today. Rest assured, in front of the kids, we are careful to NEVER say anything negative about teachers. Their job is hard enough without having kids coming to school says “My mommy said xy&z about you”. And other parents reading, do your kids and your kids teachers a favor, and remember “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it at all” (except behind closed doors with only your spouse. )