Jack ‘n Tracie

I need to rant a bit about Casey’s kindergarten class. First, he has a ton of homework. And his teacher has changed the way she wants homework done three times. It’s been a bit maddening. When I first met this teacher I thought ok, she’s new. She looks really young. But then she said she’s been teaching kindergarten for 12 years! Why doesn’t she have it figured out by now? And why has she changed the homework format 3 times in the 2.5 months my son has been in her class so far this year?

Well, it’s all about the WASL. And she even admitted that to us at his conference. She didn’t say this but basically what we have figured out is that our kids are no longer students who need to be taught, but numbers and statistics. All teaching is now done so that these kids do well on the WASL tests they take 3 - 4 times through all their years in school. Every conference we had with each teacher has been about WASL this and WASL that.

When Casey’s teacher changed his homework again, I was relieved when I first read it thinking she was giving less homework, but then I read closer. I thought we were supposed to do one thing listed on this sheet each night. It turns out we are supposed to do all five things each night PLUS the homework sheets and projects she sends home 2-3 times a week. On top of that she sents little homework packets in addition to the required homework that they are supposed to do at home but do not have to turn in. As if she wasn’t already piling homework on him already?

Doesn’t this seem a bit excessive for KINDERGARTEN? Melissa and Kevin don’t even have this much homework.

Oh and the clincher. Once a month they have “Show Not Tell”. It’s some sort of variation of “Show ‘n Tell”. The rules seem the same though. Or so I thought. Casey’s turn was this last Friday. (When it’s each kid’s turn, they also have to bring a snack for the whole class. Casey brought peanut butter crackers.)

He wanted to bring pictures of his brothers and sisters and one of him and Cody that we got a few months ago. So I put the pictures in a zip lock bag and in a cardboard sleeve to help protect them. I read the instructions of what we were supposed to do. It said “give clue words for the object they are showing”. So I printed out a sheet that explained that these were pictures of his brothers and sisters: “The picture with the green background is…” then I listed all his brothers and sisters in the picture, etc. The instructions also said to go over the cues about the object with Casey so that’s what I did. He was pretty excited about it. I added at the bottom of this sheet a request to please help Casey put the pictures back into the protective cardboard sleeve.

Well apparently we did it WRONG. She sent it back (not in the sleeve) with instructions and an example of how to do it next time. Grr… ok, this is Kindergartedn SHOW n’ TELL. How wrong can it be??? What does “Show Not Tell” mean? To take those words literally, he’s supposed to just SHOW it and give hints about what the object is? But not tell? I think Casey was supposed to describe the object.. like: “it’s shaped like a rectangle, you can see people in it”. And I guess what was in the picture wasn’t important because it was supposed to be about guessing what the object was? It didn’t say that exactly in the instructions. Heck I don’t know. This teacher seems to make everything 10 times more complicated than it should be. This is my third kid in kindergarten and I’ve never been so lost before, lol.

I guess Casey and I are going to flunk “Show not Tell” of Kindergarten.