I recently ran into a former student of mine. He is now in kindergarten but will be moving onto first grade this fall. He asked me: “Is first grade hard? Will they be giving me a lot of homework?” I looked at him and could clearly see that he was worried about moving onto first grade. But the tone in his voice hinted towards a bit of stress too. I was kind of taken aback…how is it that a 5 year old can already be stressed out about school?

The thing is that this particular student is extremely bright and eloquent. So I was just kind of baffled that he was even worried. I reassured him that he was super smart and could totally handle all the homework he was given. But I’m still kind of worried about him. I don’t want him to give in to all this high stakes testing nonsense.

So my preschoolers have all moved on to kindergarten and I was super bummed to see them leave. I seriously cried a lot. It was hard to hear them say that they will miss me and it was really hard to see some of them cry over it. Really hard. I still get choked up thinking about it. I love them all so much and will miss them dearly as well. They were my first real class and I had an amazing time with all of them. It was seriously difficult in the beginning, no lies. I was devastated by how much the kids were testing me in the beginning. But in the end, it was utterly amazing to see how far we’d all come and how we all mutually respected each other at last. It was an amazing summer and I’m so glad I got to be the teacher of such fantastic children. It’s been a blessing. But alas, all good things must come to an end. I know they are going to grow up to be some really amazing people and I wish them nothing but good fortune. :)