Admiration for First Grade Teachers

Yesterday I went to Ben's classroom to read Stuart Little by E.B. White as part of the volunteer read aloud program at Shepherdstown Elementary. Upon walking into the classroom, Ben came bounding over so proud that his mom was reading that day. I started to introduce myself to the kids and ask them their names. Ben wanted to do the introductions so he proceeded to tell me several of their names. He then looked at two little boys that were on my left and said, "and those are the bad kids." I wanted to laugh but had to say with a straight face that that was not nice. I looked at the the teacher at the back of the room and I could almost read her mind. Ben was right, because children know and say things that are truthful, not meaning to be hurtful. At least not first graders.

First graders are so much fun but so much work. They have graduated from Kindergarten where most learned "the rules". Quiet in the halls, raise your hand, don't touch the walls, keep your hands to yourself, etc. So they know the rules and now struggle to follow them. First graders are so eager to learn but yet their attention spans are still only about 20 minutes long. Do you know how much energy it takes for a First Grade teacher to constantly keep those little folks attention? And first grade is a major learning year. This requires intense phonics and math. And these teachers are evaluated on how well the students grasp these concepts. This is the big leagues. So, let's here it for First Grade Teachers. God grant them good health and lots of energy.

Here is a video of Ben after our read aloud day. You can see the energy of this First Grader and this is at the END of the day.