He’s not ready.
I know this because he told me himself last night: “I’m not ready for kindergarten! I can’t even read!”
“Sweetheart,” I said, trying not to laugh, “that’s what you’re going there to learn how to do. And reading is going to be so great!”
“What if they ask me to read?” he said, his eyes welling up with tears. “What if I make a mistake? What if I get in trouble?”
I told him I doubted you would ask him to read — not on the first day. And I told him that he probably would make a mistake, but that didn’t mean he was going to get in trouble, because you would be there to help him figure out the right thing to do.
“Didn’t you like pre-K?” I asked. He said, “Yeah, but that’s because the teachers in pre-K were nice.”
And I have no doubt that you’ll be nice, too.
In another life, I was a teacher. And I vividly remember those nights before the first day of school, when you wonder what your class will be like and how the year will go.
I know you’re just as nervous as the kids. I know how hard you’ve worked to get your classroom ready for them, how painstakingly you’ve arranged those little cut-outs with their names on the door, how carefully you’ve smoothed all that backing paper on all those bulletin boards. I know you have a vision for how the first day of school will go.
Now that I’m on the other side of this first day of school thing, I also know that my kid has the potential to torpedo your vision in seconds flat.
He’s loud. He doesn’t always raise his hand. If you put him in a quiet spot on the carpet, I can’t promise you with 100% certainty that he’ll stay there.
He’s a lot like other 5-year-old kids you’ve had in your class, in short: noisy, impulsive and strong-willed.
He has the potential to be great — a natural leader and an eager contributor of his knowledge and ideas.
But I’m not going to sugercoat this for you: He also has the potential to be “that kid” in your class.
You know. That Kid. That kid you call home about on your prep. That kid you have to make a sticker chart for. That Kid.
Know this: I am on your side. No one wants my kid to succeed in school more than I do (and only partially because I was a dream student myself and it both fascinates and horrifies me to see my own son head down a different path). You should feel free to call, email, text or ClassDojo me anytime. (Eli was, discouragingly, pretty concerned when I told him I’d be in fairly regular contact with his teacher.)
But in return, I ask you: Please be gentle with him. Please judge him by his sweetest moments and not his worst ones. Harness his curiosity and his boisterousness and his sense of humor. Give him a job to do and a hand to hold. Please make him feel respected and valued and important.
Because you have the power to do that — the power that only a kindergarten teacher has.
I’ve jokingly told Eli that I will love him no matter what: “I have to love you; I’m your mommy!”
You, on the other hand, don’t have to love him...but I hope you will anyway. I hope you love the funny faces he makes to make the other kids laugh (even when he’s probably not supposed to). I hope you love his excitement about science. I hope you even love his bossiness and his penchant for correcting every teeny mistake you might dare to make.
That famous quotation by Maya Angelou — “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel” — never rings truer than in kindergarten. Years from now, Eli will probably have only hazy memories of the time he spent in your class. But he’ll always remember how his kindergarten teacher made him feel about school — and about himself.
I know that’s a lot of pressure, but you wouldn’t have become a kindergarten teacher in the first place if you didn’t believe it too. I’ve done my part to hype up kindergarten and how awesome it will be. Now, it’s up to you. Please help him understand that school is something he should love, not fear. Please help him feel encouraged and not ashamed. If you can fit any reading and writing and math in there after all that emotional intelligence, that'd be great too. I promise to repay you with my eternal gratitude (and maybe a nice big bottle of gin at Christmas).
He’s not ready. But then, they never are. So I can’t thank you enough for everything you’re going to do for him this year. It’s going to be a great adventure for all three of us, so let’s get to it.
With thanks,
Eli’s Mom
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