I have writer’s block. There. I said it. The stress is getting to me, and I am finding it hard to find words. Blog posts sit open on my screen all day long. and when I try to write, I wind up reading other people’s blogs, surfing MySpace, or DigiShopTalk instead.
As if I don’t have enough pressure right now… I’m struggling with feelings of failure as an educator. Now… I know I’m *not* failing my kids. But I still beat myself up worry about it. When we have days, like we have for the past week – where we really don’t “do” much in the way of formal anything… Yea. I worry. I know that I get stressed, and depressed, and the kids disappear into a room somewhere and play nicely, and I just let them… I was really freaking myself out and stressing over it. So last night I downloaded the Standards of Learning for Kindergarten through 3rd grade for our state. Then I run down the lists and check everything my kids can do. This is what I get when I compare thePinkDiva’s progress to the SOL for Kindergarten Math:
you see that? of 18 points she can already do 8, and is working on 4 more. ALREADY! She’s 4! Technically in Preschool! *whew* Hear that big sigh of relief? A quick scan of the other SOLs shows me that she is hitting about half of the Math and Language SOLs… Writing being a sticking point because she just doesn’t have the motor control in her hand yet, but come on! she’s 4! We do need to work on Science and History, but we’ve already covered a few of the points on each SOL, and it’s only September! We’ve got time!
A brief overview of GeekBoy’s SOLs shows much the same. He’s technically in first grade, but doing 2nd grade work in Math and English, with the exception of writing which is hard for him still. A quick scan of the SOLs shows that we are over halfway through the English SOL already, and about one third of the way through the Math SOL – which is amazing considering how much he hates math right now, he has declared it to be too boring. We need work on the Science and History still. But we’re getting there.
I really stress myself out. and when I get down on myself, and things slide from under me… I get worried. Worry leads to more stress. More stress leads to paralysis. Which leads to me sitting here like a bump on a log, not sure what to do next.
But. We really are doing well.
Now if I could just figure out what write about next. *S*