Can't Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me

Ok, maybe not clowns, but I can't sleep.

See I have this problem, I think I have to be a perfect teacher. I received some input today from my paraprofessional, that essentially (albeit well met and nicely put) I'm too hard on the kids sometimes.

We had our first spelling test. Four words: rat, bat, cat, and flat. I'd told the kids that spelling in lowercase letters would count. The reading unit we're using has been teaching things such as capital letters to begin sentences. We've learned the difference between nouns verbs, and we've talked about proper nouns and adjectives. What makes one word be capitalized and another not (name of a month, vs name of an animal). We've practiced writing the spelling words in class, in games, and in homework. One boy, who's missed a *lot* of school this year, wrote bAt, rAt, CAt, on his test, and I marked them incorrect.

She feels I should have given him credit. Two years ago, I would have, except that I saw students getting to first grade, still making mistakes that I'd glossed over and not corrected, and by then were a habit with the child. My feeling is that I have to show him the expectations, and that next time he'll meet them.

So I second guess myself about if I've been too hard on kids. We're also doing Dolch sight words, and the kids pretty much know who the really super readers are. But my friend doesn't want the kids compared to each other. But they compare themselves anyhoo. Don't mistake this as a "I glean out the "gifted" vs low students. It's not. I teach that we're all smart at something. It may be reading, or running, or drawing, or math, or building, but no matter who you are, you have something you're very very good at- that we're all different.

So I'm trying not to beat myself up too much over it. Kindergarten these days isn't the same as when I started in '98. I look across the hall to the Pre-K, and they're teaching what we used to do back then. We've become a sort of mini-1st, or Pre-1st.

I'm going to a math training seminar tomorrow to learn about new GA performance standards for grades K-2 in math. Later I'll reteach it back at my school to my peers. So I can't just walk back into class tomorrow and immediately make a difference in ensuring that all my students know they're loved. Monday there's no school with the holiday, so it's a long weekend.

I just hope the clowns won't eat me.