Confessions of an Old-School Kindergarten Teacher - Number 1 and 2

The last day before winter break, the school IT guy rolled in a spanking new smart-board.

They just don't understand. My whiteboard is cracking and mottled and almost useless. If anything, I need a new white board to teach math and phonics with my trusty dry-erase pens (which do just that-dry up in a week). Why was my white board the most decrepit in the whole school?

A veteran kindergarten teacher told me that she had my room when she first started. The front wall flaunted a meadow-green chalkboard. Since the school was about 30 years old, whiteboards had not become the teaching fashion.  But that year, she said the District updated the chalk boards and transformed them into whiteboards by applying a white plastic veneer.

After over a decade of use, the cracking veneer looked like the shell of an adventurous hard-boiled egg. Picture Humpty Dumpty after he fell. I checked the upper corners of the board and found that I could actually peel the darned stuff off. Being a picker by nature my semi-psychotic urge to remove the sheet of plastic was severely tested. I SO wanted to reveal the leprechaun green and get out my little cylindrical instruments to have at it!!

Notice the 7-year old writing in cursive - a foreign language to most 4th graders!
Photo credit - Pinterest

But I resisted, knowing it probably would not peel off uniformly and look worse than it already does. Picture Humpty Dumpty meets The Hulk.

Turns out...

I don't need to worry about removing the disintegrating gook any longer because they brought me a smart board. Something that will only distract and mesmerize the children. They will pay more attention to how my pen magically draws digital colors rather than the equations I am writing. The truth is,

Confession #1:

I want my chalk board back.

If it was good (and smart) enough for NASA, it's good enough for me!
Photo Credit- Rarehistoricalphotos.com

Then there's the joy of teasing the class with that grating screech made by holding the mineral utensil at just the right angle with the precise amount of pressure. You know you miss that, too.

 I want the classic board along with McGuffey's Readers that explain the diacritical marks so children can easily blend words, which, by the way,

Confession #2:

I consult McGuffey Readers on the down low every night to see how I can sneak in diacritical marks and the "Ann has a cat" lessons.

Enough of sight words and letting kids spell anyway they want!

I learned to read using the McGuffey Readers. (Along with "Dick and Jane"). My father bought the books at Knott's Berry Farm in the Motte's Miniatures store in the mid-60s and I still have the whole set, from Primer to Book 6.  It's a shame that book 6 is really our current college level. We have been dumbed down so.   I try to smart-up my kids using the books secretly--not 'smart' as in iphones, and security systems, but as in brain power.