Friday, August 20, 2010

Nothing New, But . . .

I don't really have anything terribly insightful to blog about, maybe a few new goings on. I mean if you wake up each morning, life IS going on so there is something to blog about! I just don't want there to be great gaps in between blogs.

I am proud to report that my Khalil is going on to 2nd grade. There was never any real concern on my part (I taught 1st grade for 4 years) that he shouldn't go on. But his 1st grade teacher thought there might be. This teacher was the teacher of the current kindergarten teacher. While that kindergarten teacher is not as old as I am (I don't think she is.), she is no spring chicken. All that to say, as good as the 1st grade teacher is, the woman is tired! Some of her teaching strategies gave me pause; such as introducing writing and 2 & 3 addition/subtraction problems with and without regrouping, so late in the year without the necessary foundations. For instance, a child must understand what a paragraph is and atleast two basic rules for writing paragraphs; for instance, have a grasp of place value. Well, I was told that summer school was mandatory for Khalil in order for him to go to summer school. I told them I didn't have the money for summer school tuition. Having been a teacher, I was allowed to provide home summer-schooling. The one-on-one was more valuable than Khalil being in a hot, distracting classroom one week after the regular school year ended. He was able to have "unstructured" structured time, utilize unrushed time on online sites for math and reading at my computer, etc., etc. Needless to say he did very very well. Yesterday, as planned, he was assessed by the 2nd grade teacher. He did very well on his assessments. Mrs. King said (what I already knew) that she saw no reason whatsoever for him not to move on to 2nd grade. Not only because of her assessment, just talking to her about her methodologies, etc., I look forward to this young woman becoming Khalil's teacher. I believe children should continue some kind of education to bridge the time between and the beginning of each school year. Khalil is still a boy! A BOY! They jump, run, flip, play, love Bakugan & Power Rangers & Transformers more than sitting and focusing on academics. By all means getting him to sit still and focus when he gets back into school will be a priority. But as folks dream of what they want and expect their kids, grandkids, nephews, neices to become, we have to realize they are still kids, not rocket scientists; at least not yet. I look forward to Khalil having Mrs. King as a teacher this year. Until I am (if at all) proven wrong, I think Mrs. King will be the teacher he remembers. Funny, the teacher I remember the most (and have run into in my adult life some years ago) was my 1st Grade teacher, Mrs. King!

2 comments:

  1. Congratulations to both you and your grandson! What a great post to read and see how involved you are with your Khalil's education...I think the teacher that makes the biggest impact on him will be YOU!!

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  2. Awwwwwwwwww! You are so sweet. Thank you for the kind,loving words. Glad you enjoyed my post. It was strictly from my heart.

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