Teachers

I am so happy about this year.  I think that my kids have great teachers! Adelyn had a wonderful teacher at Edith Bowen last year.  She really improved towards the end of the year and seems to be at a more average level.  I wish I could say that about her Kindergarten teacher.  I don't know if it was because it was her last year or if it was just that Adelyn required a little extra attention.
When Adelyn first got into Edith Bowen I was pretty happy everyone asked how I got her in and who I knew.  So many people just raved about how good the school was.  After about a couple months I thought what is so great?  It seemed to be pretty normal to me and then as time it got worse than normal in my opinion.  Every teacher taught a different way so every year the kids had to learn a different way of learning.  This seems pretty easy for kids who are already very smart.  Adelyn is so smart but has the hardest time focusing so this was not easy for her.  They had more half days and days off than anyone else I knew and not to mention the countless assemblies they had.  They seem to waste a lot of time on things that did not seem academically challenging to me.  Needless to say I was so worried about her so I decided to pull her out and we are now going to Mountside Elementry in Mendon.  They ride their bikes to school!!  SO NICE!!!!

I never life altering Elementary is for kids.  I don't remember much but I do see so many things in Adelyn that I remember about myself.  I know that I was the kid left behind year after year.  It is so frustrating that teachers can do this.  I know that it is not always the teacher who is at fault.  I didn't pay much attention during the entire 12 years of my education.  I liked elementary but I didn't seem to have a teacher who cared enough to help me learn.  Then by the time I got old enough to realize that I wasn't very good at Math, English, Spelling, Reading, History and whatever else there was, it was to late.  I certainly wasn't going to give up my Friday nights with friends to stay home and study what nobody cared enough to teach me along the way.  I have a friend who teaches in a middle school and she has discovered children who have severe learning disabilities and handicaps.  She teaches 6th, 7th and 8th grade, really no one noticed before then?  I think some teachers just pass kids on so they don't have to deal with it.  How sad is that?  Why is it that schools do not have something to help kids from getting ignored and pushed out of the way?  I am almost 30 and I do not know how to use the word there, my spelling is getting a little better but mostly thanks to spell checker.  I learned to add and subtract quickly from working at the Owl and having no calculator or computer to do my change for me.  I can read a lot faster after reading 300,000 books to my kids each year.  It really makes me feel jipped.  I know that I could have tried harder once I got to high school but I don't think I should have had too.  If I would have been taught from the beginning then it would have been a lot easier. 

Thanks for listening to my venting.  I just really want the best for my kids and I am so worried about the school system.  It is so scary to me that we are trusting the future of our kids to complete strangers.  I think most of them are great and wonderful and do a great job like they are supposed to.  But it still scares me.  I try to be as involved as I can because I feel that at least if they know me and know I am going to be in the classroom once or twice a week they can't ignore my kid.  Right?