Teacher Rant Ahead

Disclaimer: I know student's parents read this blog.  My blog is an honest look at me-good and bad.  Any parent that would read this knows my heart for their babies, my students. 

This week every apsect of my teaching has been put into question.  What I'm teaching, why I'm teaching, how I'm teaching, when I'm teaching what, how long I'm teaching each individual subject.  And its been coming from every angle- other professionals in the building, parents, administration, etc.  It's enough to make a kindergarten teacher scream.  It's enough to make a kindergarten teacher cry...alot...in the bathroom down the hall and around the corner from my classroom.  I came home each night aching. And exhausted. Exhausted physically, mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually to be quite honest.  I came home to a beautiful baby I had no energy to play with, to a wonderful husband who sat in silence because I didn't have the wherewithal to have a conversation with.  And each morning I walked into a classroom that made me cringe.
If you know me, you know I love teaching kindergarten.  I LOVE teaching kindergarten.  I love TEACHING kindergarten.  I do not love reading a script to kindergartens.  I do not love getting told that someone who comes in my room once every other month knows my students better than I do.  I do not love getting told I have to do this and can't do that from someone who sits in an office in a building that sees no children who has never spent a day in a kindergarten classroom in their entire professional career as an educator.  I do not love relying on a textbook to tell me what my students interests are.  I do not love getting told I must teach certain things at certain times for a certain amount of minutes to people that have an attention span around 20 minutes.
My classroom is a challenge. It is every year in different ways than the year before.  That's not the issue.  The issue is that I would like to be trusted that I desire the best for my students.  I would like to be trusted to know that I am fighting for what's right for my students, that I'm not just sitting idly by while things run amuck.  That I come home and cry and pray for my students- that God would show me how to handle each situation in love and with compassion.  I would like people to know that a degree in early childhood education means something.  That I devoted years of my life to studying the development of young children, not a brand of curriculum that graces my desk.  I would like EVERYONE to know that if you'd just let me do my job it works out better for EVERYONE.
This year I had enough requests from parents wanting their child in my class to fill over half my class. That's a big deal to me.  It means parents look at me and believe that I will work my hardest for their child.  Next year I bet I won't have five.  And its not because my philosophies have changed.  It will be due to fact that I wasn't able to teach the BEST way for my students.  And I'm pissed.  Not because my requests will go down, but because my students didn't get what they deserved.