First Day of Kindergarten

Today was my daughter's first day of kindergarten!  Watching her walk onto the bus this morning was such an amazing sight!  It seems like just yesterday that we were dropping her off at day care for the first time.  Five years later and here we are!  She was super excited last night and this morning.  Despite the early hour, she jumped out of bed the moment her alarm rang.  Within two minutes she was dressed and ready to eat breakfast.  Then it was time to parade around wearing her new school back pack.  I'm so proud of her and the way she's handling this new step in her life.  I can't wait to watch her walk off the bus this afternoon and ask her how her day went.  

"First day of kindergarten" sign my daughter is holding.  

As she heads off to school I wonder how I will handle certain teacher/student situations.  As a teacher of science myself, her science education is very important to me.  How will I handle it when I learn one of her teachers is unintentionally spreading a science misconception?  In that situation I'll most likely bring this up with the teacher in a polite manner.  A bigger question is how I will handle teachers who are lax in providing feedback to my child.  In my classes I stress feedback and I make sure I'm returning graded assignments ASAP.  In my case I probably go a bit over board at times and grade and return work back in the same day.  I don't really expect this quick of a turn around, but how will I handle teachers who take 2 weeks, 3, 4, 5 weeks, and sometimes months before returning graded work back to my daughter?  How will I handle teachers who go an entire semester without recording an official grade until the very end?  I won't know for sure until this actually happens, but I'm guessing I will be an angry parent and I won't sit quietly on it.  I hope that day never comes.  I hope she has amazing teachers every year, but chances are that somewhere along the line she'll have what I consider a sub par teacher.  

Today is a special day for my daughter.  It's a special day for my wife and I.  If my daughter is half as excited about school in the future as she was this morning, she'll love it each and every day.  That's my hope.