It wasn't a good day...

Most of the time, being a kindergarten teacher is awesome. So much excitement happens during the day, you see so much growth in your students throughout the year. When you get down to it, it's a lot of fun hanging out with the 4-6 year old crowd.

Most of the time it's fun, that is. Yesterday was not one of those fun days. Oh, a lot of good things happened, but one bad thing happened, and it was enough to make me re-think any of the good things: were they really good? were they really instructional? were they really fun? I don't know anymore.

Here is a sample of my day:

Choice time

Music

Morning Meeting

Writers Workshop

Recess

Snack

Shared Reading

Learning Centres

Recess

STUDENT HAS MAJOR MELT DOWN

other students left to read alone while I deal with major melt down

student taken to office (in order to calm down privately)

Measurement activity about Diplodocus

Get ready, Go home. 

See, lots of fun stuff happened. But what stands out the most for me (and I am sure the rest of my class): 

A major melt down. I mean a roll on the floor, sobbing, crying, screaming, kicking melt down. Why? Because she hasn't been getting along with another student in the class and I wanted to talk about it with her before she sat down to lunch. There are so many things in this situation I should have done differently. So many incidents leading up to this should have been handled differently. But, hindsight is 20/20 we all know that.

Because in this day and age of 'educational reform', where the microscope is on the teacher at all times, it sure doesn't help one feel better about the missed and mishandled situations. When you look for inspiration and you read how important the classroom teacher is, it sure appears that we must be super-human and never make mistakes. When you compare yourself to your colleagues and they never have students who melt down like this, boy you sure feel like a failure. And since it happened on a Friday afternoon, that is what I am left to think of all weekend.

So, Monday, I will get up and start my week. I will put a smile on my face and try to move past this situation. But it will not be easy to get the vision out of my mind, out of my thoughts. Because I don't ever want this to happen again. Ever. I have been teaching for over 20 years, I am not new to the profession. I think that's what is making this so hard for me to move on. I'm not a rookie. I should know/do better. I hope I do.

Thanks for letting me tell the story of my day. Thanks for not judging me (because you're not...right?). Thanks for letting me be honest. And thanks for allowing me to start new on Monday.