One of the questions that I was asked a lot and that we asked the children in the class was the all popular….
When you grow up, what do you want to be?
When we are young, our entire lives are ahead of us and there is a great big wold out there just waiting for us to dive in. But we, as adults, know the difficulty behind finding a job, getting a job, and keeping a job. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to find a job that we fall in love with. But most young adults entering into the work force is just not that lucky.
I have seen it time and time again over my 20 year tenure in the school system. Little Johnny has his big ideas, wide eyed, and ready to take on the world. He wants to be a Lawyer, a Doctor, or a Firefighter. But then he comes to visit me after high school and he is a tree care professional.
He seems a little disheartened when he tells me this. But you know what I say? I tell him, Little johnny….you go out there and you be the very BEST Pewaukee tree care professional the world (or Pewaukee in this case) has ever seen.
Why do we put such strong desires onto our children to be MORE than what they want to be. What if, when you asked your child what they want to be when they grow up, they say, I want to be a carpenter or a concrete professional? Would you be just as proud to tell your friends that your child wants to be a carpenter as you would if she told you she wanted to be a lawyer?
You see, through the years, I have seen it time and time again. The children in my class room come up with some of the craziest, most outlandish careers of what they want to be when they grow up. But then, they go home, tell their parents, and the parents laugh at them and tell them, “you REALLY don’t want to be a bug collector, no, you really want to be a doctor instead.” And these children have their dreams crushed and end up like Little Johnny who feels that him being a tree care professional is somehow not good enough. 
But it is!
It absolutely is!
So I say – ENCOURAGE your child when she tells you that she wants to be a baker or an artist. Do not put your lack of accomplishments and push them onto your child. Chances are, if you allow them to dream, they may just surprise you and become a doctor or a lawyer or a scientist that looks at bugs.
Who knows?
Just don’t squash their dreams, ok!
Schools want to find teachers making an extra effort to receive the parents involvement in their own child’s education. Teachers must find a way to teach every child who’s inside their classroom. Student teaching was difficult since I realized that teenagers don’t necessarily respect you (you need to earn it), they’re defiant, their behavior must be managed and you must engage them. Thus the reason that I never taught in the middle and high school grades!
I really like teaching kindergarten! Thus, I began teaching kindergarten with a huge hole in my repertoire. You may really jump start their learning with even a single year of the kindergarten that really pre-teaches. These can obviously be based on the age of your own kindergarten class along with your school’s curriculum.
One of my biggest complaints as a teacher was bullies. I absolutely hated to see a child being bullied. Unfortunately, it seems to be happening more and more in today’s society. As teachers, it is our job to recognize it and deal with it immediately!