School started on September 15th. Kindergarteners went through a two day testing period where they were vetted according to data points to see how they would shake out into equally matched classes. In other words, kids who need help are evenly mixed with kids with an easier understanding of the material. It's all very scientific and regulated and important. We live in a school district, one of the only ones in the city, which offers all day kindergarten. This gives the kids an academic boost, theoretically, and by the time they are done with this school year they will be writing five sentence paragraphs.

Yesterday, we had a parents meeting toward the end of school where we met a newly hired fourth kindergarten teacher. She was brought in because the class size was borderline and her presence makes each class in the neighborhood of  24 kids per room.

And I could not believe how chippy some of those parents were about the whole thing.

One adult present was the grandparent of a girl in the class, and his chip was that he mother attended that school some years ago and she was being taught by the same kindergarten teacher as her mother. And because the granddaughter was being moved, he was upset.

Another lady was worried about difficulties of transition for the kids who had already spent 3 weeks with one teacher. Her biggest concern is that her child would be two weeks behind all of the other kindergarten classes.

This same lady grilled the new teacher about her education, how many years she spent teaching special ed, about curriculum, about whether she had a choice in teachers for her children and did the whole thing with an attitude of barely restrained contempt and rage. And all of it was articulated in a way that had me convinced that she didn't even have enough of an education to understand the answers given to her about training or years of specialty. "Please don't take this offensively...."

I asked the teacher about new pickup locations, whether we could expect homework in the near future, and how we could best support the kids and teacher during this time of transition. And of course the chippy people now see me as some sort of suck up.

Do I care? Of course not. Why? Because I'm not the worried about whether my kid is two weeks behind in kindergarten. 

I thought I left this attitude behind me on the East Coast. I'm so glad I'm not a teacher because that crap is crap. It's kindergarten! My generation grew up with playdough and singing time. And now we want 5 year old kids to begin critical writing?

Claire thought I was too annoyed with the chippy people. I hope she stays that chill. Because now I'm all chippy over chippy people and she can see it and laugh. At least I can laugh with her.