My sister is more than a bit of a genius. She has a real talent for being able to reinforce connections between people with little traditions, one of which I’d like to share with you this morning. Every year, at the start of the school year she sits down with her sons and they dictate a little letter to their teacher. At the end of the school year they do a follow up letter. I just received a copy of my nephew’s first grade letters. (Note to protect everyone’s privacy I have shortened all the names to the first letter).
"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"
Below are the letters:
August 10, 2009
Dear Ms. C.,
I was very excited about the first day of first grade – it was very fun. But I just wanted to tell you that the day before first grade, I went off the high dive even though I was really scared.
Today, my favorite thing was when we got to color those pictures and doing reading workshop. I did a picture of me as a scientist because I am a scientist. I like science a lot – it helps me to know lots of stuff, like that there are arteries all through your body.
Another science experiment that I learned, Ms. C., was how many little sponge squeezes it takes to fill up a big cup, which was 223 squeezes. It took a very long time.
This year in first grade I want to learn what would happen if you cut a tree open in the middle by making a sideways triangle in a tree, and the tree was tilting. I would like to know if the tree would fall down if you did that. And I would like to know if a tree fell down in a fire – would it burn up?
I also want to learn about if the stem of poison ivy is as poisonous as the leaves, or less, or more. Finally, I would like to learn about how high every type of animal can jump, or which one can jump the highest.
Ms. C, I have one more thing I want to learn, and that is how high a mountain has to be before someone cannot climb it.
I hope your baby learns a lot of stuff from you. I hope to learn a lot too.
Love,
F.
May 27, 2010
Dear Ms. C,
Tomorrow is the last day of first grade, and I am going to miss you. I wish we could get two more weeks.
I like how when you are angry you don’t shout a lot, and you also care for other kids, and you don’t just do Y’all Know What; sometimes you tell us we are going to be working on being good to the world or making our Y’all Know What’s with sound words and dialogue.
I liked the expedition and what we learned; I liked the Ben Franklin one the most. I loved how he was able to invent things out of nature and he made a butter-churning rocking chair – that was really cool. He made a rocking-chair that fanned you when you rocked too.
I like math a lot because you make math learning fun. We get to sometimes do active things and we sometimes sort shapes and fun stuff. I also like sorting words because it’s actually fun; it’s not boring. If you’re done, you can check people’s work. I also like that you can talk while you are working, and we can do games of the sorting words which is still doing work, it just makes the work into a game.
I like you a lot. I hope baby B. is doing good. I hope you have a good time with Baby Bennett and you don’t miss me too much over summer break.
I want to thank you for teaching us, Ms. C. You are a great teacher.
Love,
F.
Of course I find the letters that F. writes charming, he is my nephew after all and a great little kid, but the point I wanted to make was the impact that primary school teachers make. My nephew started the year really loving math but not really grooving on reading. He is very quick but I know from personal experience that not being able to read at grade level can be a huge drag on your early education. By the end of this year that small deficit had been wiped out.
He had a fabulous teacher who worked to bring all the children in her charge into a strong relationship with the English language. The Ya’ll Know What F. talks about is a version of show and tell. The kids don’t just bring in objects but they also talk about things that are going on in the world or what they can do to try to make the world a better place. When they do this the Mrs. C. would often ask them to use "really beautiful words" or include dialog in the storytelling.
This is what early primary school teaching should be like. Yet in the coming year it is likely that as many as 100,000 teachers will be laid off due to budget problems in the states. There is a bill in Congress that would provide 23 billion in funding to head off this, but of course the Blue Dogs and the Republicans are balking. Rep. John Boehner said the following about the bill:
"Giving states another $23 billion in federal education money simply throws more money into taxpayer-funded bailouts when we should be discussing why we aren't seeing the results we need from the billions in federal dollars that are already being spent."
The spray-tanned Minority Leader is widely known to be completely clueless and this is just another example. He is putting up a strawman. Yes, we would all like all schools to be more effective, but the reasons they are not is not going to be helped by cutting 100,000 teachers like Mrs. C. from the classroom.
Like most Republican arguments this one is penny-wise and pound-foolish. Money could be trimmed from state education budgets, but the long term effect on the nation is one that will cost a lot more to correct. The cost of teaching high school graduates the skills they should have had before graduation by business is estimated at 16.6 billion annually. Well educated high school students start from first grade. Which is why we need to keep the teachers in the classrooms and keep the class sizes down.
There is always a role for parents being involved in education, which is part of why I posted about my sister having her kids write a two letters every year. The connection that her family makes with the teacher and the investment of the small amount of time helps to assure that the lines of communication for a successful school year will be in place right away. Mrs. C was so touched by this little tradition she is going to frame the letters she got from F to remind her of what all the students she sees want and need, a teacher who sees them as individuals and who truly is invested in their future. With a little luck she will still be teaching this fall.
Please take a minute to call your Representative and Senators and tell them that Congress must prevent the massive layoffs that will result without this funding. Even if your kids or nieces and nephews have already finished their schooling, there is an entire generation that needs help and needs it now. You can look up their contact information here.
The floor is yours.