Figure It Out Along the Way

Now that I’m done with “my” report card, I can let out a sigh of relief. I hold my breath when I do assessments. I don’t know why. It’s just the way it is. Even when I was teaching in a school, it felt the same. You can slice the tension in a room when its assessment time. In school, I am welcomed by exhausted faces of students when I enter a room. Any room. In any class. Across the board. Maybe they hold their breath too. It’s a time when everybody needs a hug. Teachers and students feel pretty much the same way.

Anyway, this means that the following reports will be much easier. I’ve done my formatting and all I have to do is fill in the blanks and file properly. It’s not really tiring to home school. Just tedious. My learning curve is improving.

I am comforted by the idea that nobody really knows what they’re doing at the beginning. I’ve had no experience teaching a kindergartner and now I do. It reminded me of the time I took Art Studies classes and thought I was being spoken to in foreign languages. And I thought I was an art buff and have had my share of art history. It also reminds me of that first day I taught my first grade 2 class: Grade 2 Section 4. They are in college now. Some have become my good friends.

There may be some readings that advice leaving education to the experts (schools and teachers). I thought about this too when I started out. I was really tense about teaching someone how to read. But the truth of the matter is any teacher has to start from scratch. And I wouldn’t have been a teacher now if I wasn’t given a break the first time.  So if you want to home school, make room for some mistakes. Know that even the best teachers make them. There are good days and bad days just like in any classroom. Children will be children. You will always be you. You grow together in the process. Classrooms are kind of like that too.