I Was Too Shy

Five years ago, we welcomed our first grandchild.  In an attempt to make more time for family, I made the choice to stop blogging. Today, I decided to write one last blog post.

That sweet grandchild we welcomed to our family five years ago started Kindergarten this year, and he just finished his second week of school.  He absolutely loves to read.  For the last year, he has been progressing from an emerging reader to an early reader.  He has a good repertoire of sight words and a strong phonics foundation. He has learned to segment words with his little hands and try to decode them.  Most importantly, he loves to read.  I mean he really loves it!  He burst through his Kindergarten classroom door ready to roll.  

He loves his teacher.  He speaks very highly of her. The time and attention she has given to her students is apparent.  He says she never stops smiling.  As a teacher, I am in awe of that statement alone!

Today, as he was proudly showing me his poetry notebook and sight words book his teacher sent home, I commented to him how proud he must be to read with his teacher.  He looked down and said, "She doesn't know."  I asked him what he meant.  He told me she has shown him papers with lists of letters on them and has asked him what each letter was.  He confided that when she pointed to each letter he said "I don't know."  When I asked him why he didn't just tell her the name of the letter, he said, "I was too shy."

I almost burst into tears.  Here is a child who can identify every letter in the alphabet and is too shy to tell his teacher.  It was a huge wake up call for me as an educator.

It helps me understand the danger of jumping into assessments before building strong relationships with kids.  

It helps me understand the importance of investing time observing our kids to let them show us what they know.

It helps me understand that standardized assessments will never, ever, ever capture all that our students know.

It helps me understand the difference between assessments OF learning and assessments FOR learning and how we might shift our focus.

It helps me understand that the labels we so quickly apply to students may be doing more harm than good.

Lastly, it helps me understand that the time to innovate assessment is now.  

So today, we practiced what to do when the teacher asks him what a letter was.  We talked with his mommy and daddy to tell them how he was feeling.  We spent time reading...just for fun.  

Today, I am thankful for a little boy who was too shy to tell his teacher that he can read.  He has taught me more than he will ever know.