Am I smarter than a fifth grader?

Is it normal that I am scared of misinforming my students? Is it pathetic that sometimes I doubt my competency with the learning material? I am in a fifth grade classroom. I have passing praxis scores assessing that I have the knowledge to cover the upper elementary grades. I attend an Ivy League graduate program and have successfully competed 8 courses thus far. Not to mention, I myself, before these wonderful qualifying feats actually attended the fifth grade! Now, I know it was many years ago but still, as an educator, I have to believe that what I am teaching will stay with young minds and help build foundations, right? So, is it silly for me to be insecure in my knowledge of fifth grade level language arts and social studies? I had to look up what a homophone was the other day. My fifth graders knew what it was, why didn’t I?

This week, I did a lesson on time lines and introduced the terms BC, BCE, CE, and AD. Now, these are really abstract terms PLUS it doesn’t help that there are four terms to describe two time periods AND one of the terms is in Latin. On top of these teaching obstacles, I decided that when one draws a time line, the present year is on the left. This is not even a little bit true. Apparently my fifth grade failed me and now I have passed on this misinformation in a vicious mis-teaching cycle because now about 50 fifth graders share my misconception.

So, in conclusion, no, it is not silly for ME to be insecure in my knowledge of fifth grade level language arts and social studies. Hopefully this week, I can actually TEACH the fifth grade and not just confuse them. Wish me luck.