Progress

Progress is marked in so many ways in our lives, isn't it? It's marked in society by innovation and technology, marked for individuals by successes and failures. Marked by my kids in their first monthly report card. Really! Monthly! I don't know if this trend in rating will continue, but a report card did indeed arrive in the "home" pocket of each child's folder today.

The school I attended growing up was one in which, there's no mild way to say this, hippie-ness reigned supreme. It was pretty much like a public school version of the private school that we just left. So much so that when my Mom first visited said private school she asked "was this school founded in the early 70's per chance"? I thought that she had done some researching and website looking to discover that but no, when asked she said "looks like it". Which, my friends and enemies, is why I love it so much! It looks and feels like my own school but teachers don't go by "Mrs. and Mr." anymore. Needless to say, until middle school, there were certainly no grades or clips but there were conversations and journals. That's how I grew up. Journaling. Go figure.

So imagine my surprise to come home to kids anxious for me to look in their book bag.

Have I mentioned that I'm terrible at poker? I guess that now I have. Actually, I never have played because the rules are way too complicated / I'm not interested enough to figure them out. Partly because I have what is commonly known as "a bad poker face". Like when one child came home complaining of being teased for being small (what WILL they tease about next), I snarled and rolled my eyes "so call him a huge giant who can't find a good hiding spot". Probably not super constructive nor poker-esque but my true thought on the matter.

So imagine my reaction to a paper filled to the brim with numbers and letters. Numbers! Actual scores averaging what I can only ascertain to be test scores! Test scores! For a 1st grader! This is very different from self-motivation. This diverges substantially from my plans to have them not compare themselves against others. This isn't all about Phonics, it's sight words. This isn't creative spelling. I know this because these are all of the tests - spelling, reading, math... "Specials" don't get a grade. Phew.

Their progress is marked at the end of this, the first month of school. And, you know what? I feel pretty well informed about it. And I feel connected to the teachers (who I have irritated endlessly by e-mailing them - they shouldn't respond, it's teaching me bad habits!). And I feel progress myself as well. I feel like this might just work out. I realized that they have never complained about getting on the bus in the morning, they have never said they didn't like their teachers, that no one has revolted against a single test. Progress for us all.

Oh, incidentally, they all rocked their report cards and, in spite of my poker face, I'm proud as hell.

Pride in Paperwork

To: Mom

From: Ms. Teacher

Re: Speech

Hi, Mom - Do you want your child to participate in the President's address today? I did not receive your permission slip. Please let me know. Thanks so much. -Teacher

I'm sure that you now think I'm some sort of science fiction writer, composing other-worldly blog entries regarding the Martian public school system. Because there, on Mars that is, you get to choose whether or not you want to hear something that the elected head of the free world has to say. You don't need special permission to listen, you need special permission NOT to listen.

Nope, this is the same ol' planet earth and the land of the free - the YOUnited states of America. And I didn't even notice that I got a permission slip to fill out although, having received it in triplicate, I did notice the letter itself. The letter in question described the content and intent of the speech being made. You know that I'm politically uninvolved, but I just purely didn't think this was optional. For a few reasons - first because I wouldn't have dreamed that there could be a permission slip without a bodily risk, and second because I am burried in papers of all shapes and sizes, I really didn't see the three slips. Long story short, I called the school and gave my verbal permission.

That verbal permission travelled like the old game of telephone that we all know and love. And we know and love that game because it's true how facts become distorted as more and more people fondle them. Two of the permissions reached their destinations but a third did not. Two children saw the speech and the other, the most politically engaged of the family, stomped toward the car this evening as I pulled up with venom seething from every pore. You can picture the face, right? Imagine that poisonous face saying "WHY didn't you let me watch the President"?

In order to register the kids for school, I (mercifully) did not need thousands of dollars. I did, however, replace each tuition dollar, one for one, with an impeccably filled out article of paperwork. There was proof of residency including utility bills and notarized affidavits (because the notarizing makes it real). But in addition to proving that I live in the admittedly coveted school district, I also had to prove that my children are alive through their official birth certificates. It seems that I had two official certificates and one unofficial. I thought it was fine but the office disagreed and sent me away to get an official copy. Now here's the thing. I have this particular child. That child was born. The particular certificate belonging to that child does not have the offical creasing where the notarized seal would be, but otherwise it demonstrates all of the living time that the child has had.

Well, as you can likely envision, I began an attempt at this retort at the school office this summer and was met with this. "If you don't have the official birth certificate, then in 2 months you'll receive a visit from a social worker. If the social worker has to visit twice then your child will be suspended." Now were this particular child suspended for, say, moving their clip to red too often, that would make some sense. But for never having been born?

I suppose that in the end, it seems that the government funded public school system is going to send a social worker after me for lack of notarization. That self same government funded school system has lost a game of phone tag and prevented a questionably-living human being from viewing a presidential address. Today, I think it'd be fair to say that I may as well live on Mars as I've taken quite limited pleasure in allegiance.

Lucky #12

I really like learning stuff and I like when kids learn stuff and tell it back to you and sound smart. That's probably my favorite part. Sounding smart. So, when my daughter told me all about Paul Revere and taxation without representation, I was really psyched. Because she sounded so smart. Then I went to her classroom and saw how they have learned all about Democracy and the Greeks and things that quite possibly I would not know upon standardized (or any other) test. So you can imagine my elation when I was told that by the end of the year she would be expected to write 5 paragraph essays.

So if you went to grade school with me, you'd probably remember that I'm not super coordinated. I'm not a freak but I've never been, shall we say, a sportswoman. When people flick their fingers toward me I do blink excessively, when I'm challenged to go to a new place I can seldom find it because of a small issue with telling right from left. I was on the tennis team in high school so you can imagine the confusion when I closed my eyes when the ball flew at me, my coach yelled "run right" and I ran left. Anyway, it's not very cute.

So at the Parent Night at school, I was leaning back on the kids mailboxes for a little relax and fell backwards as easily predicted but never anticipated. A parent was busy asking some ridiculous question about band practice so I'm not sure how many people noticed but as I pulled myself up I looked at the mailbox and was struck. I was struck hard. The mailboxes were numbered 1-17. Every night, my daughter places the number 12 on her paper. I had thought it was just one of those bizarre things that kids do like making a heart or smily faced dot above their lower case "i" but as it turns out, she is #12. She is literally a number. And it is 12.

Now, she has tried to explain this to me before but I didn't think it could be true. I mean, she's learned a ton of little cool facts about the ancient greeks in only 3 weeks! I think that she is learning a lot about the tea party and proper paragraph structure and even some math. She's sounding smarter and more grown up by the day!

One time, when I was 15 I went abroad for the summer. My father who loves Brussel Sprouts, along with the rest of my family, took me to the airport and walked me to the gate (ahhh - a different time and place). While we were waiting, I could see my father becoming more and more anxious. Finally he collapsed on the floor, grabbed my ankles and yelled "don't leave me, Baby!!!" while my mortified Mother scooped up my sister and walked away in an attempt to pretend at being a mere passersby.

So perhaps you can tell that being an individual has never bothered me - clumsy with a side of parental humiliation has a way of making you ever more confident. I suppose that time will tell how #12 feels but I sure hope that she always knows she's special and unique and, well, much much more than a number.

Bathing With a Man Eating Shark

Anyone know Jack Pruletsky, the children's poet? Kind of a Shel Silverstein for the 2000's? Well, he has this poem. I can't remember the whole thing but it starts "Homework, oh homework, I hate you. You stink". Then it ends talking about all of the things that'd be better to do with your time. Taking a bath with a man eating shark is one of those ideas. I used to laugh at this clear silliness but now I recognize it for what it is - pure truth.

I now have three children with homework. That's up by 3 children who have seen a rapid close to their lives of leisure. If there were three Greek Gods of Homework (which there aren't as far as my deep research demonstrates), I would think I may have given birth to them - Apathy, Resistance and Resignation. May I tell you their stories? Just a warning - I never said I was good at this parenting thing, right?

Apathy - he is 5. He would way rather lay down on the couch and watch a little scooby-doo than pretty much anything. But there's homework! Like worksheets and phone number practicing to be done! There are 3 things that start with the letter M to select! The amount of energy it takes to get 3 things with the letter M in a backpack is pretty monumental. He doesn't kick and scream or anything, just sort of wanders vaguely off into the other room and plays swordfighting against an imaginary opponent. So I pick the 3 things, shove them in a backpack and move to Resistance.

Resistance - she is pretty much convinced that there is some evil polt that will ruin her. The assignment is to write 4 sentences and the hysterical response that ensues can rival only that shark bath we talked about before. So, I say, "no worries, just let your teacher know that it was too hard". Ooooooo. Look out, mama. I say "it's not my homework, it's yours and you need to make a choice about whether to do it or not". Friends, I could have lived my entire life without ever having this battle. In fact, I'm looking forward to a business trip next week to not have to battle the resistance... She chooses to write the sentences and it's on to resignation.

Of course, resignation is the easiest to deal with. He lacks in zeal but he will comply. He rolls his eyes at the sheer stupidity of reviewing, yet again, how to make a tally mark. He ready with fluency the three letter words that he has known how to read for years. He zips through his list of to-dos and skips away with pleasure.

As for me, well, I am exhausted from pitching this painful exercise as as important and enriching. I'm simply tired from pretending that I really think that the distraction from fun and playtime after an already arduous and lengthy day is enhancing learning. Honestly, don't tell me kids, I'd rather take a bath with a man eating shark. Homework, oh homework. I hate you. You stink.

The Pleasure of Allegiance

Tonight I learned that my kids recite the "Pleasure of Allegiance" over the loudspeaker, fully with left hand on heart and right hand in the air kind of thing. Every day. Now that's pleasure if I've ever heard of it. And who can let this kind of opportunity go to discover what thoughts those thinkers are thinking?

So I ask. And they answer. Well, sometimes they answer - when they don't deem the questions a total insult of intelligence they answer. I can tell when the questions are beneath them when the answer comes back as an armpit fart, to choose an example at random. There are three kids who can speak, just so you know - their responses are listed in order of oldest to youngest. Here's how it went down tonight:

"What pleasure is this about?"

1. Pleasuring in your country

2. Waiting for school to start

3. I have no idea. How the heck should I know.

"What is allegiance?"

1. Loving

2. (armpit fart)

3. (shoulder shrug)

"Why do you say this every day?"

1. To remember how much we love our country

2. It's on the loudspeaker, it would be pretty hard to ignore.

3. So I don't have to move my clip (remember the clip! you have to move it if you do something wrong like suck on your fingers, trace a pattern in the rug with your finger, refuse allegiance!)

Then they all stood together, a wall of solidarity and pleasuring in our country. They recited a vaguely recognizable version of the pledge that we all know. And darnit, I got all teary. Now this is school, this is what I remember - the cracking loudspeaker with the pledge and the string of unintelligible morning announcements. I am moved by the next generation being groomed in the ways of country lovin'.

Stand up and pledge with pleasure, people, or move your clip to yellow. Your choice.

Top Secret

When you've been spending all of your time at a place where everyone can creep up to paying 20K a year for elementary school tuition with apparent ease, I can see how it would be surprising to share a table with 2 homeless kids. In fact, I can see how that would be surprising for lots of people in lots of different situations.

So, when my 8 year old daughter came home chattering about her new table mates ("the janitor helped move the desks around, I didn't get to move my own, Mom") I asked the natural question "who's at your table". I learned their name, rank and serial number as well as the fact that two of them aren't particularly good at getting "points" (whatever those are useful for) and that they often have to "move down their colors" (which sounds dirty but I believe refers to the aforementioned humiliation of changing your color depending on your ability to comply with many and varied rules).

So, the next logical question for a kid in a new school involves "are you friends, does s/he ride your bus, do you want a playdate, where does s/he live?" Usually a chat ensues but this time my daughter clams up. "It's a secret".

Oh - a secret. I convince her that I am an incredible secret keeper and that I would never reveal her secret. And I will take this one to my grave with me. Suffice it to say that my case is compelling and the secret is that these classmates live in "the shelter". Don't tell her I told you, OK? It would be a hit to my credibility.

One of my big anti-private school things was the lack of diversity and the lack of exposure to the real world, but somehow this secret jarrs me. How is my daughter equipped in any way to sit at this table when every other table she has sat at contained affluent mainly caucasian students who's parents lean on X3s with keys to million dollar mansions? So now I see what they mean when they say "careful what you wish for".

Turns out that she spends some time with one new home-challenged friend and that friend is completely horrified by her living situation. She'd hate for all of you to find out, in other words. My compassionate daughter went quickly through a very mature and impressive decision making process. She decided not to "help" her new friend. She decided not to "feel badly" for her new friend. She decided that the best thing to do would be to respect her new friend by treating her like any other kid and by down-playing the homelessness and up-playing the kidishness. "Mom, she's just a kid like me - except she's 2 years older so lots taller".

True diversity requires tough choices, open minds, and fresh perspectives. As it turns out - my girl is pretty good at those things.