The big question

How do you meet the needs of one off the charts highly gifted student, three students who are truly not ready for Kindergarten, and the sixteen students in-between?

And all the children are above average

On his radio show, "A Prairie Home Companion," Garrison Keillor ends his weekly segment about life in fictional Lake Wobegone with his famous, "And that's the news from Lake Wobegone, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."

For the past two years, I taught in Lake Wobegone.  The majority of my students exceeded district expectations - some by a little but most of them by a lot!  Since our school's expectations are higher than the district's, that means that almost all of my students were above average!  The few students who did not meet those expectations typically had some learning issues.  Overall, I felt pretty successful during my first two years teaching Kindergarten.  I know it wasn't all me.  I know that many of my students came to Kindergarten more than ready to learn thanks to outstanding preschool programs and highly involved parents.

This year is very different.  During the first few weeks of school I was pretty overwhelmed by their squirminess, chatting, play-fighting, lack of attention, and general lack of knowledge regarding how to "do school."  I looked at their birth dates.  OK, so they are on the younger side of 5 than has been typical in my class.  I have almost twice as many boys as girls - well I did two years ago and it didn't make a difference then.  I've looked at preliminary assessments and finally come to a conclusion.  This year I have an average Kindergarten class.


Yes, I have a few students who are above average and a few who are really struggling, but the majority of my students are right where they should be.