Today he said, "mom, if I get Ms. Rosedale* again next year for first grade, I'm done. I won't go to school." Feeling the same way, I said: "I can assure you, honey, you will not have Ms. Rosedale again. Not going to happen."
Kinder was a rude awakening for me and Max. Before it began, I thought naively: "they'll teach him the alphabet and numbers, and how to count." Apparently, he - at five-years old - was supposed to know these things when he walked in the door. I felt like an under-functioning, negligent parent when all the other kiddos in his class were prepared for kinder (or so it seemed to me), some could even read. We were in trouble. I have never had a teaching bone in my body. If I had known that I was supposed to educate my child prior to kindergarten, I would have hired a tutor.
Of the twenty three - yes TWENTY THREE - five-year olds in his class, Max was consistently in the bottom learners those first few weeks, presumably because he didn't know his numbers and letters. Silly me. I thought that's what they would be teaching him in grade zero. After the first couple of days, the homework started. Some of the Pearson (more on them later) developed curriculum worksheets were so cryptic and difficult to follow, even I, with a graduate degree, didn't understand the instructions. There was a learning curve for parents, too. And I was failing.
*Names are changed to protect the innocent
