Kara Avis starts students off right with early academics and learning school functions

Kara Avis is getting closer to her most dreaded time of the school year: the end. The kindergarten teacher at Woodrow Wilson Elementary will soon say goodbye to her students. It’s never easy, but it’s never hard either. Yes, parting ways is tough, but it would be tougher knowing they were leaving unprepared.

Well, that would not happen in Avis’ classroom. There are just as many times students get to be silly as there are times for serious instruction. Kindergarten is an important time for children, and Avis does not take that responsibility lightly. She is tasked with setting the educational foundations for every student.

Does that sound like a lot pressure? Well, not to Avis. To her, it’s just plain fun.

“I get to build up their love of learning and I get to have fun with them at the same time,” Avis said. “We do serious work and we mean business sometimes, but a lot of it is fun and hands on and I get to be silly with them. We get to sit on the floor and get our blocks, so that stuff still happens.”

All that play is important, too. It builds social skills and gets students more acquainted with each other, as well as their teacher. In between those bouts of silliness are lessons that help students academically, and practices that get them used to what a school day looks like, essentially learning how school works.

So while kids are learning how to read and write and solve early math problems, they are being taught how to go through the lunchroom and how to sit and cooperate in groups. Avis also enjoys instilling life skills in her students, like how to be a good person, working together, being kind.

“Things that other teachers appreciate later, like raising your hand,” Avis said. “Problem solving, friendships and those sorts of things. I feel like that really happens in kindergarten. It’s still enhanced as they grow older, but the academics kind of fill in as they get older.”

Kindergarten is a 50-50 balance, she added, of life skills and early academics. Principal Todd Schuster suggested this is something Avis excels at. He said Avis balances teaching how to be at school with teaching all foundational skills needed to learn the academics side. It is so important to start kids off right.

How does she attain this balance? Avis explained her perspective is to “assume they don’t know.” Kindergartners are new to this whole school thing, so by doing this Avis can carefully model her teachings to something as complex as a new lesson to something as simple as using a glue stick.

“Just assume they don’t know,” Avis said. “They’re going to need direct instruction and direct practice. Tell them exactly what you want them to do and they’ll do it for you. If I find we’re not being successful, it’s probably on me. Then I need to step back and be more direct with the exact instruction.”

Stand up. Push your chair in. Sit down.

Of course, Avis admits she would be thrilled if she could have read aloud time with her students all day long. It’s her favorite part of the day to sit down with them and read a story outside the reading curriculum. Again, she can be silly and make fun voices. They can talk about characters.

“Any time I can pull an extra storybook into our day is a good time,” she asaid.

Avis also loves the very start of the school year. Kindergarten tends to start slow, so she takes her time to build friendships and a sense of belonging and trust with her students. But she also loves the latter months of the school year. It is a time when students can do so many things. She can see the results of her hard work.

“They come to me at all different levels, whether they had preschool or not. I kind of have to catch some of them up, but at this time of the year you can watch them write something or add numbers,” Avis said. “It’s remarkable to see that. Look how far you’ve come! I can say, ‘Go write five words for me,’ and they do it!”

But as nice as it is seeing the progress students have made this time of the year, it’s difficult to see her kids move on to the first grade. Teachers invest so much time into their students, and Avis feels like she puts in so much effort to prepare them for their ongoing educational pursuits.

“I’m sending you off to be confident and successful!” Avis said. “That’s my hope for them. Over the years though I get to see them regularly. They’re in first grade and I still get to see them. I have fourth graders that will still say hi to me because they remember me. So as a kindergarten teacher, I do have that advantage.”

It’s a silver lining that makes the end of the year seem not so bad. Plus, as a kindergarten teacher, she has the advantage of seeing them in passing longer. Her outgoing kindergartners now are starting to feel more like big kids, and they will feel even more like big kids when they run in to their former teacher later on.

That’s something Avis will hold on to.

“I hope I get to see them in the hallway someday.”