Endings, Part 1

I just finished my last volunteer session in Patrick's kindergarten class.

School ends two weeks from today, and they're winding down. This morning, I was giving math assessment tests to the kids, one by one. I was depressed by how many kids really struggled with things, and also by how poorly put together the state test was. It wasn't in kindergarten language, and it was REALLY long - eighteen questions!!! What K student can possibly sit still for eighteen questions, unless they breeze through?! Children ended up feeling done with the whole experience after about five minutes, which was fine for the few kids who had no problems, but for the children who had to think about each question, they were mentally done before they were even two-thirds of the way through, and by the last few questions were just randomly pointing at answers. It's frustrating that the kids have to do all this crap when the people formulating the tests obviously don't spend time with young children. It would have been a lot better to have ten questions over two segments of tests on two days, rather than a big glob all at once.

I feel melancholy. Not only will I no longer be doing something I have enjoyed, but the kids are all so much bigger! Their faces have all changed, and their way of relating to each other has even changed. Patrick is doing so much better maturity-wise, and even got to participate in the quarterly good behavior award party the school has for kids who don't have to flip their color card/move their behavior indicator clip more than twice in the quarter. Also, he's progressed to a Level O instruction in reading, which is a fourth grade level. He breezed through the math test today, and was the only one to get all the answers right. I'm so proud of him!

But.... but.... oh, he's getting so big. With every accomplishment, along with the pride comes a little sadness, too. My baby is getting big. The end of kindergarten is the end of little kid.

He's ready.

I'm not so sure I am.