What Teachers Know and Parents Deserve to Hear

I was a kindergarten teacher for over 15 years. Without fail, parents would agonize over their children's reading and math prowess, at times fretting that their child wasn't further along, and at others leveling concern that we should be pushing academics more. While that focus makes sense in a culture centered on achievement, where most adults understand school through their own memories and measurable academic skills, educators know that what truly helps children learn often looks very different. And yet, in a school relationship, where trust between families and educators has to be carefully built and protected, it isn't always possible to say it plainly. 

The Iceberg

If we think of a child's school experience as an iceberg, measurable academic learning is what is visible above the waterline. Letters, numbers, reading levels, math facts. Those things are important, but child can know every letter in the alphabet and still not be able to sit through a circle time. A student can be brilliant at math and still fall apart when something doesn't go their way. Academics matter, but without foundational supports beneath them, they're not fully accessible.

When teachers talk about "school readiness," they’re considering whether a child is ready to move through an entire day of a classroom and all the demands inherent in it, so they can do the learning we hope to impart. I can teach your child academic skills; your child will be far more able to access and enjoy that learning if they are regulated in body and emotions, can function as part of a community, and can care for themselves and their belongings. My goal is for your child to love school, to feel capable and independent, and to gain the skills of being a lifelong, self-directed learner.

Try This

Think about your job as your own iceberg. If the actual content of your work is above the waterline, what are all the below-the-surface things that need to be in place for you to do it? You need the physical stamina to make it through your day, enough in the tank to show up well and know how to take effective breaks. You need to be able to prioritize what's important, ignore distractions, organize your responsibilities, set and monitor goals, and start non-preferred tasks. You need to manage frustration and things not going as planned, recover from setbacks. You need to collaborate with others, read the room, navigate a difficult conversation, give or receive feedback and know how and when to ask for help. 

Now think of your child’s daily experience. What are all the skills your child needs to navigate a classroom community for six hours a day? I think of them within five broad categories.

The Five Invisible Skill Categories

Physical Skills

Body awareness, spatial awareness, core strength, and fine motor dexterity. At the younger end this is foundational: can my child sit through a circle time, hold a pencil effectively, navigate the cafeteria without bumping into everyone? At the older end it becomes: can my child manage a rapidly changing body through a school day that asks them to sit still for six or seven hours, and still show up physically present enough to actually learn?

Emotional Regulation

Emotional regulation does not mean the absence of big feelings, but the capacity to move through them. Every child will feel frustrated, disappointed, anxious, overwhelmed. That's not a problem. The skill is what happens next. Can they notice what they're feeling? Can they stay present enough to keep functioning? Can they find their way back to equilibrium after something hard? Learning is, by its nature, a risk-taking endeavor, and children who cannot move through frustration and disappointment, persevere when challenges come, and separate their emotional state from their learning cannot effectively engage in it.

Self-Help and Self-Management

The capacity to take care of your own needs without being prompted. At the younger end this is physical: can my child manage their own backpack, open their own lunch container, get dressed independently? At the older end it becomes: can my child advocate for themselves with a teacher, manage their own schedule, know what they need and do something about it? Can they wait for their turn? Can they try things on their own, but know when to ask for help? Can they manage their impulses? The thread connecting all of it is agency. A child who can take care of themselves is a child who feels capable. And a child who feels capable learns better.

Executive Functioning

The brain's management system. Planning. Prioritizing. Starting tasks, especially hard or unpreferred ones. Shifting gears when something changes. Tracking what matters. Following through to completion. At the younger end this is simple: can my child follow a two-step direction, stay with a task for ten minutes, make the transition from one thing to the next? At the older end it becomes: can my child manage a multi-subject homework load, plan ahead for a project, and build a system that's theirs and actually use it?

Social Skills and Community Responsibility

At the younger end this is entry-level: can my child enter a group, take a turn, collaborate with a peer, recover when something goes wrong on the playground? At the older end it becomes: can my child read a room, navigate a conflict without an adult, and hold onto their own perspective under social pressure? As part of a classroom community, it means: can they subsume their individual needs for the needs of the group? Can they engage in teamwork? Can they manage responsibilities that support the functioning of the classroom as a whole?

The Teacher Perspective

I think what parents also miss is that when your child has those foundational skills, it frees the teacher up to do more of the very academic teaching parents want to take place. When a teacher has to zip every child's coat, they have less time. When a child repeatedly needs one-on-one coaching to bounce back from a setback, or whose emotional storm takes over the whole class, the teacher has less time. When a child consistently needs support finding their belongings, the teacher has less time. When a child is engaged in constant social conflict, a teacher has less time.

This isn't to say that teachers don't address all of these things -- they do, and their routines, practices and classroom environments are often designed to support children in these areas. But your child's teacher has many other children in that room. When your child needs ongoing, individual support, one of two things happens. Either the teacher stops to help them, which means all the other children are waiting, or the teacher keeps moving, which means your child is left behind. Neither is anyone's fault. It is just the math of a classroom.

The skills that make a child ready to learn aren't the ones that show up on a readiness checklist. They're the ones that let a child walk into a classroom and feel capable of what the day will ask of them.

In my next post, I'll talk about how these skills actually get built -- and what you can do this summer to make a real difference.