7th-9th November - A teacher's perspective, a dad's perspective

Myself and Rebecca were both teachers, and we absolutely loved it. There was loads of time spent with kids, teaching them how to read, add numbers, write sentences and learning about the world around them. They were glorious times, many years put in the classroom with loads of memories of students and teachers alike. As the leaders in the classroom we used to have parent/teacher evenings which were really insightful into 'why he does that' or 'why does she say that'. In those meetings we'd discuss how their child was learning and also behaving. It's amazing how often the abilities and behaviours of the child at school did not mirror the child at home according to the parents.

Sometimes it was a case of  'he never does that at home' or 'I can't believe she does that at school' the point is so much of what happens in a child's life happens at home. This seems really basic and obvious but as teachers we never saw what happened at home or what home was like. We were a couple who were around kids constantly but in the controlled sphere of the school not the freedom of the home. My how wonderful it is to see from the parental perspective. We have been making a couple of visits to local nurseries (preschools for Americans) and it is fascinating to ask questions, to observe behaviours of the kids and look through the lens of our daughter not the instructor who is over the whole room.

Being the parents means some really great things; we get to read books at home, lots of books and there are no assessments attached to them. We read the books because we want to, it's not part of the lesson plan or learning objectives.  If we want to break for a snack no troubles, it's our call. Usually by the time kids arrive at school they are already speaking if not writing and reading. We are so blessed to have our youngest just getting into the art of oration, so far she has mastered 'nice', 'up', 'no', and 'again'. Just that bit of vocabulary will get her a ways in life. Seeing that she added 3 out of 4 this week who knows what all will come out of her mouth in a month's time.

Take learning to walk for example, when kids get to school they are walking, in fact most have been striding for years at that point. Part of our first couple of months together has been the combined joy and struggle of our youngest learning to walk.

First it was cautious gliding from chair to chair and hoping to catch hold of something before falling over. Then it was on to no hands down the hallway, but still only crawl when outdoors. Before you knew it we were on to attempting the stairs (haven't mastered that yet) trying to run and freely walking, you name the surface it doesn't matter. These are treasured moments that as mom and dad we are experiencing, it is a whole new perspective.

Yesterday we were going through a book about numbers, how interesting it is to be on the ground floor of the language of mathematics. The realisation that 1 and 2 are brand new and not just a given, recoginising that 2 is more than 1 is a breakthrough in understanding. It seems elementary but it's actually learned sooner than elementary, it's something that is usually grasped in the home and we are happy to be there to be catching it all. As we carried on through the book the attention span wavered as the numbers 7,8,9 and so on were introduced.  For now we'll stick to 1,2,3 and allow the nursery workers and teachers to help with mastery of the others.We are so blessed to have this perspective now, and to think that we'll be looking at life through the eyes of the girls and us as parents for many, many years.