curiousillusion

I’ve spent a lot of time noticing the differences between the school I currently work at, and the two I’ve worked at previously.  My most recent example would be the Scholastic Book Clubs order I placed today.  Usually I’m lucky if I can get $20 total in a book order from my students… it would be like 3 students placing orders of about $3 each.  Today the order I submitted was just under $200.  I can barely get my head around it.  Wow.

Now if you’re not a teacher, you might not understand the big deal.  The cool thing about Scholastic is that when parents buy books online, I get a coupon for a free book.  And the more they order, they more points I get (and then the points start doubling and tripling), which is cool because I can use the points to buy books for the classroom.  I’m betting I’m going to have quite an impressive library by the time the school year is over.

But enough about me… If this shows you anything, it shows you not only the socioeconomic status of my parents (that they can actually afford books, for starters) but also their involvement in the lives of their children.  These parents actually read to their kids at night, encourage them to read by buying appropriate books.  Which is great and these kids are proof of the importance of parental involvement.  On the other hand, these parents are VERY involved, to the point where I feel like reminding them that these kids are only 5 and don’t need to have been at tutoring over the summer for reading, shouldn’t be pushed to get into first grade already, that they still need time to be kids.

I have had more parent-teacher conferences and parent contact so far this year (and we’re only a month and a half in) than I have in the past 3 years combined.  I’m sure of it.  This is both a good thing and a bad thing.  Sometimes it’s exhausting trying to keep up with the parents, the pressure they put on me and their kids.  But the fact that they actually work with their kids at home when I ask, volunteer to come in to help… I’ve never had that before.   That’s sad.   Parental involvement is so very important and I wish it could be mandatory.  It should be.

Anyway this all feels like an interesting experiment.  Comparing and contrasting different types of schools/students/parents.  I’m not completely fond of the school and I’m already thinking that this is going to be my first and last year here… but it’s intriguing either way.  Oh and P.S. Did I mention that I have quite a variety of nationalities in my classroom for a change: I have students that speak/understand Russian, Bosnian, Turkish… I’ve never had that before.  Should be quite the year.

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