Ironflower started Kindergarten yesterday. She loves it, not that this surprises me. I think she's only disappointed that it's half day. Between her starting public school and the research I just did about high schools, I sort of got motivated to check up on former students.
The very first class that was all mine, that didn't involve student teaching or subbing, graduated from high school this year. I had them in first grade in a technology magnet school in a tough neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas. I loved that class just a bit more than any other class I ever had. I remember my little group of super-smart kids, four of whom graduated from a top-ranked high school this year (there is one in KCK, believe it or not). And then there was, well, let's just call him VR. He drove me to distraction, it was so hard to get him to focus and keep his hands to himself. But in the end - after many visits to another teacher (who not only had taught VR's parents, but still scared them) for time out - I managed to teach VR to read. He actually has a football scholarship now. Sadly, I can't find the rest of my students. I can only hope it's not only those 5 who managed to graduate. But that is a possibility.
What breaks my heart even more, though, is the realization that Ironflower could easily do all of the assignments I gave my former first graders the first few months of school. And she would do them better than half of the class. Not because I'm supermom, or because her preschool was highly intensive, or because she's such a genius, but because most of those kids I had started out so far behind.
And what breaks my heart most of all is that I know some of my former students are parents themselves already, or in jail, or even dead. And that kind of puts into perspective all of my anxiety about Ironflower enjoying kindergarten and not getting her feelings hurt by any mean little kids.
