Teacher Appreciation Week

Next week is Teacher Appreciation Week. And I don't really appreciate my child's teacher. Nothing so bad has ever happened that I've considered having her changed to another class (mostly because I think that would be harder on my child than just staying in the class she's in).

There's been nothing really big--just lots of little things that have frustrated me. The teacher is not great at communicating with me. I ask direct questions and get responses that don't even acknowledge the questions. When my daughter pretends to read to a class of kids, she yells at her fake audience to calm down and that everyone will get a chance to see the picture and if you don't sit down you're going to have to move your color! (Their color is the system of showing their behavior that day.) Last week my daughter came home without a homework packet. I e-mailed the teacher to tell her and asked her to put one in my daughter's folder the next day. The teacher e-mailed back that she most definitely put a homework packet in the folder. Ummm... So mistakes happen, things get overlooked, I wasn't the least bit upset about it being forgotten. Until I felt we were being accused of losing it. How about a simple, "I'm sorry. I wonder what happened to it? I'll be sure to give her a new one tomorrow."

Anyway. Just lots of little things over the course of a school year.

Now regardless of my feelings about them personally, teachers have a hard job. They do something I would never attempt. They don't get paid enough. But whatever happened to a reminder about Teacher Appreciation Week and letting each parent/child decide how they want to celebrate their teacher? Why isn't a homemade card from my child enough? And even if you make some suggestions, having a certain thing we're supposed to do each day creates anxiety in a Kindergartener if she's not doing the same thing as everyone else. Is this a way to help us feel better about the fact that teacher's don't get paid enough?

I'm not buying a plant or flower for her teacher. And honestly, does she want 18 plants on her desk on Thursday?

My daughter will fill out the My Teacher is a Star Because... paper. She can wear blue on Friday. And I'll do her teacher another favor by waiting until after Teacher Appreciation Week to send back my honest teacher evaluation that she asked for. (Which she claims is anonymous but how can it be if my options are sending it in my child's folder or e-mailing it back?)

I look at this list as Mother's Day approaches and I'm thinking we need to change it to Mother's Week. Because let's be honest, teacher's are great, even the so-so ones like my daughter's do a lot of work. But mothers do a lot more.

First Time Kindergarten Mom

What I Wish I'd Known:

Call Ahead:
When signing your child up for Kindergarten, you'll need about a hundred different papers and the website won't tell you what to bring beforehand. They'll assume everyone knows what's going on. But you won't so you'll have to drag your kids back and forth from school to home and back again trying to get everything in order. And you still won't have all the paperwork you need because you forgot where you stashed her last medical check up paperwork and she won't have had all her immunizations yet because she turns five over the summer. And everyone else you see will appear to know what they're doing and have no problems whatsoever.

Buy More:
On the huge list of school supplies, they will request that you buy approximately 16 thousand glue sticks. Buy a couple thousand more because Kindergarten homework will need glue sticks. And you'll be really frustrated that you didn't buy more and when you go to Target you won't be able to find glue sticks because all the back to school stuff is gone. You'll be able to buy Christmas ornaments in October, but it will take you ten minutes to find a glue stick among all the office supply stuff.

Don't Throw It Out:
You will finally throw out all those old magazines. And then your child will come home with an assignment to make a collage. So you'll dig the magazines out of the recycling bin and you'll cut out pictures of things that start with the letter "T." But you won't think about the fact that there are 25 more letters in the alphabet and you'll probably be making collages for each one, so when you're done with "T," you'll put the magazines back in the recycling and it will be taken to the recycling center before the next collage assignment. Just keep them. Don't throw anything out. Even toilet paper rolls because those will be needed to build a house for Hansel and Gretel at some point.

Don't Blink:
Your five-year-old will suddenly seem all grown up and responsible and will be spending so much of her day away from you. But she'll also look impossibly small as she skips into the school with her sparkly blue backpack, lunch box and pony tail swinging, and you'll want to run after her and hug her and never let her go. But you can't do that; you have to let her go. She'll come back at the end of the day with math homework that they manage to make confusing for you because of new terminology they use this year but will probably be changed by the time your next child is in Kindergarten.

STEM vs. The Arts

We have an annual pass to our local science center. The kids love it, it's much cheaper than a theme park, and it's something to do on days that are too hot to be outside (of which Florida has far too many). They especially love the travelling exhibits. Curious George just left and my two-year-old was very upset and wanted to know where he went. She figured it out though--he went into the TV.

The Orange County Science Center sent me a survey asking about how often we visit, how often we go to other museums, etc. Their last batch of questions was about how important STEM is versus the Arts and Humanities. (STEM, for those who draw a blank as my mind often does lately, stands for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics. We hear a lot about pregnancy brain, but I think breastfeeding brain is a thing. Or maybe it's just mom with a baby brain.)

I hear more and more about STEM. Those fields of study are not my strong suit. Okay, I hated most of them. But I enjoyed Geology in college. I know that they are terribly important in today's world. Can you even get a job anymore without a good STEM foundation? But I fear that they could crowd out the Arts and Humanities, which are important for another reason entirely.

This all comes from a former English major who took Art History and Political Science classes for fun. But I believe that the Arts and Humanities teach us, well, how to be human. How to communicate, how to interact, how to reconcile our place in the world. They teach about beauty and tragedy and empathy. What use is a good job if you don't know how to be a decent human being?

Why does it have to be either or? (I just read an article about how there is less time for PE in school but physical activity helps you think better which would help you in school...) Well, balance is always the question. And that balancing act was on my mind.

Sorry for two philosophical posts in a row. I promise my next one will be about something trivial, like the fact that my laundry yesterday included pooped on clothes from all three of my children. (And today's included chunks of puke. The joys of sharing a stomach bug.)