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How Oprah Validated My Career
By Susan Goldman
it's hard to believe but here we are — at
the end of summer. Time to get the kids all
—those new school items: notebooks, pencils
and crayons — and that's just the list from
me, their teacher.
I've taught elementary school at one of
Detroit's Hebrew day schools for more than
24 years, the last 18 or so in a kindergarten
classroom — and yet every new school year
is like the first day on a new job.
It's always exciting and even a bit scary.
Yes, teachers are anxious on the first day,
too. We're faced with new students' names to learn, new
parents to adjust to and new administrators to please.
Every year, as that first day approaches, I'm concerned,
feeling like there's no way I'll be prepared. (Just what
every parent wants to hear from their child's teacher.) But,
somehow, I always manage to make it.
If being a parent is the world's
toughest job, teaching their
children is a close second.
A new school year is a time of change and challenge.
Each new crop of children is different from the last, corn-
plete with varying personalities and abilities. It's my job to
meet the challenge head on with confidence and to trans-
fer my passion and excitement for education onto them.
I'll begin this school year under my sixth educational di-
rector (when I started teaching they were called headmas-
ters), my seventh principal and my second early childhood
director. What does that say about me? If you answered,
"She has staying power, is dedicated and, most impor-
tantly, loves her job," you'd be correct.
One of my newest joys is having moved on to"the
second generation," where I'm now teaching the children
of my previous students. How strange it is to hold a par-
ent/teacher conference with the parent who was
previously the student.
When I host curriculum night at the beginning
of the school year, I give my parents an impor-
tant piece of advice: Don't believe everything
your child tells you about me and I won't believe
everything they tell me about you.
(And believe me, 5 year olds share a lot, so be
careful. I've heard it all — from your eating habits
to speeding tickets, snoring dads and much,
much more.)
I also encourage parents not to be worried
when you receive the canned answer to the inevitable
question,"What did you do today?" and the answer is,
"Nothing." I give my parents a poem explaining tharnoth-
ing" can mean many things: I learned to add today; I wrote
my name the correct way; I learned to tie my shoes; or I
made a new friend. Or, put another way, lots of nothing.
Learn to ask the right questions and you will get the right
answers.
To me, being a kindergarten teacher is the greatest job
in the world. It's true what the novelist Robert Fulghum
said,"Everything you need to know you learn in kinder-
garten."We learn to share, clean up our messes and be
aware of wonder — all skills that serve us well in the
future.
Teaching and learning has changed a great deal over
the past 24 years. The 3 R's? Forget it. Reading? No need
with books on CD and computers that speak. Writing? Not
sure as to why that is one of the "Rs" since it begins with a
"W." (Unless, of course, you are using "text" language and
that is why we no longer need to teach it. Spelling is now
done phonetically, actually not a bad idea; so u don't hv
2 learn all those strange English spellings like"tough."
'Rithmatic? (another"R"?); also no longer necessary
since we have calculators on our phones and computers.
Who needs fingers anymore? I've had many a 5-year-old
teach me how to use a new app on my iPhone. When I get
stuck on my computer, I can always count on them to help
me out. Kids today are a whole lot smarter than they were
24 years ago — but I still know I have a lot to teach them.
I saw an Oprah show where she taught a kindergarten
class for a day while the teacher was sent off to a spa.
Within five minutes, two children were crying, another
had wet their pants and the rest were off doing their own
things. At the end of the day, Oprah declared that the
hardest job in the world was being a parent — and the
second hardest was being a kindergarten teacher.
It's a difficult and often thankless job, but I wouldn't
trade with anyone, not even Oprah.
SUSAN GOLD MA N is the kindergarten teacher at Akiva Hebrew Day
School in Southfield, Mich. She and her husband, Marc, have two grown
children and live in Farmington Hills.
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22 September 2011
I RED MEAD
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