Pre-K... I think not....

This semester has been a great learning experience for me.  After spending an entire semester in a pre-k classroom I have decided that why I love my students, pre-k is not for me.  These students are so bright but at the same time they are so young it is their pre-k teacher's responsiblity to expose them to math, science, history, language arts for the first time in at least a school setting.  This is such a big responsibility and in my opinion it is very hard to do.  I am more inclined to find fun/interesting things for my students to do becasuse I would not want to turn students off to a subject.  I feel that students are so new to this information that if they do not have a good experience with these subjects.... you could lose them for life.  I know I am making this sound like a life or death situation but I am being serious... to me this is a big deal.  I would not want to bore a student to death with a topic and turn them off especially at this age.

Another bone of contention that I have with this age is that everything has to be read to them.  My students can not read anything for themselves.  I read their tests, reading passages, directions on the worksheets, etc. to them each day.  My throat is sore by the end of the day after reading that much each day.

Lastly I do love how innocent my students are.  When they learn to recongize a few words and can point them out in a book like door, frog, dog and other words like these it is the most rewarding experience ever!!! I will never forget tutoring my student for another class and her having the epiphany that she did about the sight words we had been working on.  She was so excited that she could recognize and say those words. As a student teacher who had been working with her and had seen the process she went through to get to this point... I was just as proud as she was!!!!  These are the moments that help me know that I am truly in the profession that I am supposed to be!!! :0)