Welcome back to school night

Last night was "Welcome Back to School Open House"-- which means that our school tried desperately to get parents into the building-- but had little luck. I had one parent show up... and I didn't think that was going to happen, but in the last 10 min she came with Tay.

It is strange to think that I am the person that a kid goes home from school talking about, and complaining about-- and I can't immagine what parents must hear about me... but most of them NEVER even see me, so who knows what they picture.

Most of my students are returning to me from last year because I am self contained and teach 4th-6th grades, so they just rotate through me. This makes a very strange setting for my new 4th graders though, because they are moving to me from a 1st-3rd grade setting where they've had their previous teacher for 3 years. This situation also makes my 4th graders seem really young. I think that being in a setting with 1st graders has made them less mature for their age... Tay is one of my new kids, and his mom feels very uneasy about having a new teacher.

Multi-grade classrooms are a strange concept to me, but parents don't seem to be bothered as much as I would have suspected. Tay's mom didn't mind it when the kids were "smaller" but she said that she worries now because the kids are mostly bigger than Tay in his new class, and "he doesn't know how to control his temper, and I don't want the other kids bothering him." Yeah, yeah--