Fresh Faced Kindergarten Parents

School is starting again and I am thinking about how 2 years ago my family was a fresh faced, new to school, kindergarten family. 

We came in to our daughter's elementary school with the same sort of hopes and dreams for her education so many other parents have.

As parents we hoped that school would be better, kinder and more successful for our children than it was for us.  Even if it went well for the most part it still seems to me that most of us recall the parts that didn't and we want it to be better for our children.

We all have protective instincts where our children are concerned.  School is part of letting the big world into their previously well protected little lives.

My husband and I made a lot of promises to ourselves about how we planned to work hard and insisted on how we would watch over the homework, participate at the school and make our presence known through volunteering. 

At the time we simply assumed that the overall educational system was working well.  We felt good about the school we chose.  Although it was small we thought of it as a hidden gem.  We liked the community it offered and outward things like uniforms made us feel that our child would be safe there.  The principal was excellent at the sales pitch.

It most likely might have been an average to below average experience had our daughter not been one of the 20% of the population with dyslexia.

That made the neighborhood school we originally planned being a part of a horrible choice. 

On some very real level I believe they know they are unable to educate a dyslexic child but they are either not educated on this issue or are unethical enough to refuse to admit that fact to anyone, even themselves. 

These days, two years after those first kindergarten school days, I believe truly educating children is a lot more complicated than anything we could have ever imagined on that first day.  And really, we are still beginners in this game.