Thursday, May 14, 2009

Life Lessons in Kindergarten

There is a program at the girls' school to try and encourage and reinforce positive behavior. When a teacher or staff member observes kids exhibiting good behavior, they can give the kids a yellow jaguar. Yellow jaguars are saved for prizes. The girls' teacher keeps a box of little prizes for the kids to pick from ( think pencils, pens, party favor type stuff)

Maggie and Cassie are always super excited when they bring home a prize. I am glad that they are being well behaved in school.

About 2 weeks ago they came home and said that if they got enough jaguars they would be able to go to the Science Magic Show. They needed at least 30 and every day when they came home they would give me the total that they had.

Now, I have some issues with this. The girls are only in school for 2 1/2 hours a day. Less than half the time of the older kids. No notice came home explaining any of the details of the show or how the kids get to attend.

All we did know, was that Maggie was in tears last night as she was telling us she wouldn't be able to go. (Now, I know she is my child, but she gets these yellow jaguars nearly everday and has even gotten certificates for outstanding behavior). So, to have her in tears and Cassie disappointed, I emailed the teacher last night. The show is tomorrow.

Well the teacher emailed back and told me she was going to ask the guidance counselor to see if an exception could be made for the kindy kids and not charge them as many jaguars.

Well, Maggie was overjoyed when she came home and said that she is going to me able to go. Whn I asked Cassie, she sadly shook her head no, she only had 13. I guess they lowered the number to 20.

I feel really badly for Cassie and the other kids who do their best everyday but didn't get noticed to get jaguars (There doesn't seem to be any consistent standard for passing out the jaguars)

I know that life isn't fair, however I am a grown up. These kindy kids are 5 & 6 years old. Right at the age where they need to have the good behavior praised. Cassie has never had a behavior report ( which is when the behavior is really bad, and there are some kids in the class who are always in trouble )

If Cassie hasn't been behaving then I want to know, and not 5 weeks before school ends. So since I haven't heard that she has been misbehaving I really think that she (and the other kids who don't have bad reports) should be allowed to attend. She had 13 jaguars and the show was announced 2 weeks ago. Cut the kids some slack.

I hate seeing Cassie try her best and end up disappointed.

1 comment:

Leia H said...

It's so hard when our kids are hurting like that, and there's not much we can do about it. I'm sorry she's upset - hopefully first grade will be more fair!!!