I’ve had this inner struggle going on since we started Honeybun in a two morning a week French Preschool program last year in Dublin and switching to Pre-K this year has been no easier. It’s not the guilt of not having her at home or missing her, in fact I find it overwhelming when she has days off now and is home all day. My inner struggle is between the Mom in me and the Educator. The mommy in me knows it’s important for her to get out and be with other kids and learn to listen and work with other adults. But unfortunately the educator in me has a hard time seeing past all the things in the classroom that are not Developmentally Appropriate Practices (aka DAP) or that are not Best Practices. To put it more simply: I see all the things that are “wrong” and that I would change if I were in charge.
The French school program was 3 hours, twice a week. It was a language based program and they also did a lot of arts and crafts. But what she brought home was a myriad of worksheets (so not DAP) and what I refer to as “teacher work”: projects that were completely product centered rather than process centered and obviously required a lot of teacher help to get the exact desired finished product. We stuck with the school though because the few hours a week (which happened to coincide with Sugarplum’s morning nap) was extremely helpful in my being able to get things done. We ultimately did pull her out a few months early when she began exhibiting terrible behaviors that she had not learned at home and started every conversation with “Caitlyn said/did/has…” There were only 3 children in her class up until the last month and she had begun idolizing Caitlyn who was more than a year older and just sooooo cool in Honeybun’s eyes (and a brat in my eyes).
Her new school looks really great from the outside. It’s a brand new facility with clean, bright classrooms and generally arranged the way I expect (things organized in different work centers with shelves labeled and everything easily accessible for the children) though I will say there are way too many materials out. She started the VPK program (a free year of preschool for all Florida 4 year-olds) this past August and her first teacher was pretty disastrous. She didn’t have control of the kids and Honeybun told me how she was late almost daily. A new teacher started in October and things are generally better.
I’ve raised a few concerns with the new teacher and frankly, I think she might be a little bit scared of me. I always try to be tactful but sometimes it’s hard for me to come up with nice ways to approach a situation when it’s something I expect an early childhood educator to already know. This is something I need to work on as Mommy. For some reason, which I can’t really explain, I also don’t like her teachers to know my background, I guess I’m afraid of how it will affect Honeybun as well as my relationship with the teacher. The director of the school knows (she even offered me a teaching job at the beginning of the year) but I try really hard to be the mommy in the situation with the teachers. I guess I don’t want them to think I’m constantly judging or critiquing them, which in reality I am but I’ll only raise a concern when it’s something really bothering me.
My biggest beef this year, though, is the homework. Yep, that’s right, my 4-year old has been getting homework since the 2nd week of school. I politely told the first teacher thank you, but no thank you. We would not be doing it as a power struggle with my 4 year-old over homework was not something I was interested in. I did not mention the complete lack of appropriateness in both the idea of homework and the fact that it was all worksheets as I knew these concepts would have been lost on that teacher (I’m almost positive she would have had no idea what Developmentally Appropriate means). When the new teacher came in and the homework came in the first week, I again politely told her we would not be doing it. Both teachers seemed shocked by my refusing to participate and both cited “parent request” as reason for sending it home. Sorry, not this mommy! My child is 4, she should be playing, exploring, reading, singing, running around and (within reason) making messes. She should not be sitting at a table doing worksheets, sitting in a circle reciting information or being told how to make art (which is still a problem, every snowman on the wall looks the same, and what do children in Florida know about snow anyways?)
