Tag Archives: Teacher

When Only My Black Son Gets Assigned to the Wrong Family

wpid-wp-1425382344453.jpegThe gym daycare, where we have gone twice a week for a year, assigned my black son to the wrong family while he was wearing the exact same shirt as his brothers.

We came into the gym daycare together. My three children – one black and two white – were all wearing the same shirt that says “I Love My Bro”. I purposely dress them alike when we go out, for the express purpose of keeping them together. There were no other children being signed into the daycare at that time. None. Just my three in their matching shirts.

As I was signing their names into the registration book, the teacher was putting their numbered bracelets on their arms. Each child gets a numbered bracelet to correspond with his parent’s numbered bracelet, for the express purpose of keeping us all together. We do this at least twice a week, every week, and it is quite routine. (I get to lift weights with three paper bracelets on my arm!) The teachers know my children.

I finished signing their names into the book, and I bent down to help a twin take off his shoes. The twins had their bracelets attached by that point, and the teacher was just about to attach my oldest (black) son’s bracelet too. Just then, another mother and son came into the gym daycare too. They happened to be black.

I noticed a situation developing behind me. You know: some mumbling, nervous laughing, flustered-teacher type of situation. I looked up to see the teacher cutting off my oldest (black) son’s bracelet, with an embarrassed look on her face. She is apologizing. She had given him a bracelet to correspond with the black mother who had just come into the daycare.

Even though she knows my children.

Even though we’d been going there for a year.

Even though my children came in together.

Even though my children came in with me.

Even though there were no other children being signed in at that time.

Even though my children were wearing matching shirts.

Even though he had called me “Momma”.

The (black) mother noticed what had happened and she tried to make a light joke or comment. I guess she and I both knew it was an honest mistake. I am a teacher, and I’m sure I’ve made plenty of stupid but honest mistakes throughout the years. I am also not the kind of person to shame someone publicly. I let it slide. I made sure that my son got the right bracelet to match him to me, and I went to work off my frustrations with a barbell.

My friend had been standing off to the side and had witnessed the whole thing as she waited for me to sign my children into the daycare. I asked, “Did what I think just happened actually happen?!” She nodded emphatically. I knew I wasn’t imagining things.

Okay, now, I’m not angry at the daycare. I know not every child looks like his parents. But, dang it, what does this feel like for my son? What does it feel like to have people assign you to the wrong family in so very many situations? What does he think of these things? What is that like for him?

The part that hurts is that his skin color was what the teacher was using to label him. His skin color trumped the fact that he came in with me. His skin color trumped the fact that she already knew who his family was.

She saw his skin color before she saw that his freaking shirt exactly matched his brothers’ shirts.

It’s a slippery slope.

 

 

This Kindergarten Teacher is Now a Kindergarten Mom – Who Wants to Apologize

wpid-wp-1441391990182.jpegAs I send my first child off to kindergarten, I want to apologize to the parents of my all kindergarten students. I taught for five years before I had children. Being a parent is NOT a prerequisite to teaching. Not ever. I was a darn good teacher without children. However, now that I am a kindergarten parent myself, I would like to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t truly understand everything. I sympathized, but I didn’t empathize.

I would like to go back and teach my childless teaching self a few things. Here we go.

It really hurts. It hurts because that child has been with me for 24 hours a day for five and half years… and now I have to let him go AWAY FROM ME FOR THE ENTIRE DAY?! My teacher self wasn’t patient enough with the sappy parents and the maudlin first days of school.

I still see that child as a baby. You, the teacher, will see him as an independent person, with habits and a personality and a learning style. To me, he is still the person whom I dress in jammies and snuggle when sick.

It’s really freaking scary. It’s scary for so many reasons. I have been there for every single injury, every single success, every single wrongdoing, and every single snub. Now what? All these things will still happen, but I WILL NEVER KNOW?

It’s really freaking scary because of the way time is bending all wrong since he was born. “The days are long but the years are short.” Becoming a mother five years ago has altered my sense of time. It feels like an eternity ago, and the blink of an eye. It’s confusing and gut-wrenching.

It’s really freaking scary because I don’t know you. No offense, but you.are.a.stranger. I never fully grasped that fact when I was a teacher. My son and I met you for like thirty seconds. He doesn’t trust people easily, and now his every need depends on you. His physical safety. His emotional health. His cognitive gains. His ability to wash his hands of those school germs… (Will you help him keep his hands off his face?)

It’s really freaking scary because you don’t know my child. You don’t know what to do when he has a meltdown, or all the ways he can’t express himself, or all the amazing things he knows and doesn’t know. You don’t know that he can’t open his string cheese at lunch, and you don’t know what scares him.

I completely understand – with my brain anyway – that you will know my child like the back of your hand within a week or two. I did, with all of my students. But, I understand – with my heart – that you will never know him like I do. You will never snuggle him in the black armchair. You will never have to force him to brush his teeth. You will never wash his beautiful skin in the bathtub. You will never watch his face of pure joy when he jumps in the ocean.

He’s mine.

If you love him a fraction as much as I do, then I love you, and that is what my mother self wants my old teacher self to know.

20 Things Kindergarten Teachers Want You to Know

1) Yes, the brand name scissors are better.
2) Yes, we really can tell everything we need to know in the five minutes we spend with your child at registration.
3) Yes, we really freaking love your kid.
4) It is a much more physically demanding job than any other grade. We get sweaty. We perform on stage. We clean up accidents.
5) We wear “teacher sacks” ( frumpy dresses) so we can move around easily and not get too sweaty on the boiling hot playground.
6) Calling in sick is harder than just going to work sick.
7) Getting lice is not a sin. Not taking care of lice properly IS a sin.
8) If we always wear our hair in a bun, there is a good chance a student has given us lice in the past.
9) If you have a girl: PONYTAILS, people! PONYTAILS!
10) No other profession seems to be as bad for your health as caring for small children.
11) I am not getting this sick all the time because I don’t wash my hands enough. What am I supposed to do when your kid sneezes on my head while I am trying his shoe? Wear a Michael Jackson mask?
12) For the love of all that is holy, VELCRO! Velcro, people, okay?!
13) For the love of all that is holy, ELASTIC WAIST PANTS! Elastic, people!!!
14) We don’t eat lunch for the first two weeks of school when we are painstakingly training small people how to get a tray, push it along the line, choose their food, find a seat, open their food, and eat their food. We shove a granola bar in our mouth and get back to work.
15) All of us have fed kids from our own pockets. Some of us might have even clothed a child or two.
16) Many of us have been threatened.
17) We are supposed to buy insurance. Teacher insurance. Against lawsuits!
18) It’s harder for us to choose our own baby’s name.
19) We only believe half of what we hear about you, and we hope you only believe half of what you hear about us.
20) Name brand Crayola crayons. Always.

Benign Neglect: A Case Against Preschool

okayestmom strikes again

Since I am both a mom and a former kindergarten teacher, parents are always asking me what they need to do to “get their child ready for kindergarten”. I always say, “The fact that you are asking means they are ready. But if you really want to know, the secret is (drum roll please) Play-doh, crayons, and scissors. That’s all it takes.”

I am so tired of the competition and pushing kids too early. Kindergarten teachers have a real beef with preschool. We have certain state standards that we have to teach, which do include basic things like letters, numbers, and counting. Preschool teaches a lot of that same stuff too. Sometimes children are pushed to learn things too early, and it isn’t always developmentally appropriate. Preschoolers and even kindergartners should still be learning in a very hands-on way.

The dirty little secret? Kids even out. Parents may think that their kid is getting a head start, but children who go to preschool and children who don’t end up scoring the same by third grade.  What I’m saying is: it doesn’t make them smarter.

Memorization isn’t the same as learning. Pushing kids too early isn’t teaching.

I didn’t quit a successful teaching career to send my child to another teacher. The only reason I might consider sending him to preschool is because I can’t give him the time and attention that I could have if we hadn’t had twins right after him. If I did send him to preschool, I would want it to be something that I couldn’t offer him at home. (I have one word: Montessori.)

There are many different, and worthwhile, reasons that stay-at-home moms might  send their children to preschool. I am not ever going to say (or even think!) what is right or wrong for someone else’s family. However, if you are sending your kid to preschool because you feel pressured by other moms or because you have a tiny competitive thing going on, you might want to back up and slow down.

The most imaginative students I had during my years as a Kindergarten teacher always seemed to be the ones who had the most free time. My friend Chrysta said she provides three things to her kids: classic toys, free time, and “benign neglect”. That is the best thing I ever heard. That’s what I’m doing. I didn’t know it had a name. Benign neglect. It’s the opposite of overscheduling and helicopter parenting. Benign neglect.

Despite graduating cum laude with a B.S. in Psychology and Early Childhood Education, my personal parenting and teaching philosophy comes from church. The wife of the former president of my LDS church, Sister Marjorie Hinckley, said, “Give them time to explore and learn about the feel of grass, and the wiggliness of worms.”

My gift to my preschooler is not rushing him. That is the best I can do in this crazy Okayest Mom household. When he was given to me, I promised myself never to interrupt his play if I could help it. I promised myself that he would learn the feel of grass and the wiggliness of worms. I quit teaching so I can give him this gift.

***

Insprired by an article I read that summed up how I feel:

http://magicalchildhood.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/what-should-a-4-year-old-know/