Smarter than a 5th grader?

Kids are interesting creatures. And even though my students drive me absolutely crazy sometimes... I still love them.

I work at a private school. That means that the kids are very smart and have been learning at an advanced level, pretty much since pre-school. By kindergarten, they can read. In 1st grade grammar, they start diagramming sentences. (I didn't even know what that meant till I started teaching- and I was an English major!) By 5th grade, they memorize a new poem at least every other week and then present it in front of the class. In math, they know how to divide and multiply fractions and turn fractions into decimals or percentages. And their grammar lessons don't make any sense to me.

Have you ever watched the show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" I used to watch that show thinking, I'm pretty sure they never taught me these things in school... I'm still fairly certain they didn't. My students make me feel that same way sometimes. They ask me questions that I can't answer. They know things that I don't. However, every now and again, they do a pretty good job of letting me know that they do not, in fact, know everything. For example, last week, after school one day, I spent 10 minutes trying to explain to a group of 5th graders that Idaho and Utah share a border. (Geography is not greatly emphasized at Challenger.) I finally had to take them back into a classroom to prove it to them on a map.

I am starting to feel like I might be a pretty good teacher. Last week, in art, I taught my classes about Vincent van Gogh. I taught 7th grade on Thursday, and my 6th grade classes on Friday. Some of my 6th graders had already heard parts of the lesson because their 7th grade siblings and friends had told them about it. One 7th grader went home and retold the whole lesson to his family. Another kid even posted highlights in his Facebook status!

That's why I do this job. Not to make kid's Facebook statuses, but to impact children's lives. To teach them something, and hopefully get them to remember it. So later on in life, as they watch shows like "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" they won't look back and think, I'm pretty sure they never taught me this.