Teacher rant.

For obvious reasons I generally avoid venting/writing about work here. This is an unlocked public blog and I would like to keep it that way. But I am not stupid enough to think that one of my parents couldn't stumble across it. And of course, I want to respect the privacy of my students and their families. But I'm going to break my rule and vent here (in a general way).

please

please

please

please

If you have a preschooler do you future kindergarten teacher a favor and teach them some skills to be independent in every day life. There is no reason for your child to be in kindergarten and be unable to zip their coat.

There is no reason for your kindergartener to not dress themselves. Today my co-teacher was talking to one of our students about remembering to put on her classes. She said she hadn't brought them to school because her mother hadn't put them on her. My co-teacher said"When you get yourself dressed, it's your job to put on your glasses." The girl gave her a weird look. My co-teacher was like "You do get yourself dressed don't you?" The girl said no. We quickly polled the kindergarten class and discovered that about a 1/3 of them are dressed each morning by their parents. This is a group that we have really struggled with to get them to understand classroom rules, routines, expectations, etc. The fact that most of them are being dressed like infants explained a lot.

And, although it is a little trickier, work with your child to teach them how to tie shoes. Your kindergarten teacher will thank you.It is very daunting to have 24 pairs of untied shoes and a chorus of "MISS-IS STEVEN-SON!!!!!!!"

I have certain parents (whose child does not show a delay in fine motor skills, as some of my special ed students do), who have worked and worked with their child on reading and math skills so he would be at the top of the kindergarten class but the child is unable to pack and unpack his own school bag, zipper his own coat, open the lunch containers that are sent in his lunch or tie his own shoes. I mean, there's more to school readiness than how many sight words your kid has memorized.

As a parent of a Pre-K student I have really tried hard to practice what I preach. We have dressing and zipping down. Hopefully shoe tying will be mastered before the fall. =)