You remember the old saying, right?

 If looks could kill... what's the rest of that saying, anyway?

Had to look it up, as my brain was hearing the lyrics from Is She Really Going Out With Him?
Do you remember it? Joe Jackson.
(If looks could kill there's a man there who was born dead) and I couldn't place the actual words.

The school did a little detective work and found out who talked so badly to that little boy yesterday.

I am sure she knew immediately who told on her, there wasn't anyone else in the cafeteria.

By the time I got there, the person had already been spoken to, today was her last day there as a sub and she will not be asked back to that location.

That's not good enough, really, she should be blacklisted in every school in every district.
It kinda sucks that people like that can end up somewhere else and do the same shit to small humans.

I arrived at the school about 1:15 and checked in at the office. That's what I do every day, I park, grab my backpack and go inside. I check the sign outs for the day (doc appointments, sick, whatever) and the full printout of the absences. Sometimes my families forget to notify me that their child won't be in program.

I still call them to verify the absence because that's my job, but being able to mark them absent in the computer program we use before we get our bunch of kids is helpful. I can check with parents afterward.

I got stuff set up (my sidekick is back) and walked back down the hallway to the office to use the restroom. And guess who was walking toward me?

Yeah. Ms. Gonna Put You In Jail.

Man. The look on her face was pure murder. She didn't say anything to me.
I hope she isn't a person who would actually DO anything.

I doubt she is. A person who speaks to a child like that is a coward.

So the horrible person will still be working with children. Just not the ones in our school.

Bad boy and raising hell

I was setting up my program this afternoon.
My sidekick is out with an illness and I knew I'd have someone who's unfamiliar with my program and with how I do things, so I got there a bit early.

I had two tables dropped and in their place when a woman I haven't seen before brought a little boy out of the gym. The doors to the gym are right there, which makes it handy when we want to use the gym.

The little boy was a kindergartner. A couple of my kids (both absent today) are in that class. As I said, I didn't recognize the adult. I continued with set up, but I could hear what she said.

She started with, "That wasn't very nice. I am very angry that you would do that."
I have no idea what 'that' was, but apparently she had a problem with whatever it was.

She continued. "I should call the police and have you put in jail."

Little guy said, "What's jail?"

"That's where they lock you up when you are BAD."

He looked stricken.

I could not hear everything she said to him, but she sat there and said things in a mean voice until he was crying, then she decided her work there was done, stood, offered him her hand (which he rejected) and she took him back to the gym.

About that time my helper for the afternoon showed up.

I made a mental note to catch up with the principal or the head secretary when I had a chance. I figured since it was a teacher I had never seen before that she was probably a sub, and being able to deduce what class was in the gym at that time would give enough information about who it was.

 So I stayed and helped set up, and we got done about four minutes before the kids started coming in.

The person I had on site, while competent, helpful and friendly, is not teacher-qualified.
Meaning she has not had enough supervised contact hours with children to be legally able to be with them alone. It's a licensing thing.

So I had to wait until a  manager came to my site to give me my afternoon break before I had a chance to talk to anyone.

I went to the office hoping the principal was still there, but she was already gone for the day. I explained (without profanity, but I did grit my teeth and look pissed off) to our amazing school secretary. She was as angry as I was.

But it wasn't as easy as I'd thought it would be to figure out who the culprit was. She showed me kid pictures and I didn't see a photo of the little guy. Likewise staff photos. I have seen all the kindergarten teachers and I knew she wasn't a person I'd seen in the building before.

So we left it for the evening, I am sure I'm going to have to speak with the principal tomorrow, so I will show up early. Again.

Am I worried that the person will know who told on her?
No.
I decided a long time ago that I will stand up for children, they're not able to defend themselves. And some crazy person threatening a five year old with the police and jail should not ever be in a position of control. Over anyone. But she should not be around children in any capacity. I will do everything I can when a situation like this one occurs.

I actually feel bad that I did not intervene while the conversation was taking place.
That poor little baby.

So that was my afternoon.
How was yours?

SPED

I've worked in many schools over the past 18 years. All of them have had kids with special needs.

In some of the schools, the SPED kids, as they're known, are a little more wound up than in other schools. I know the mix of children is different, but the primary determining factor in their attitude and demeanor is the attitude and demeanor of the adults who are supposed to be taking care of them.

I've seen teachers and aides who were infinitely patient and warm and kind and genuinely loved every child in their care. I know for certain that I don't have the kind of patience to be able to deal with the profound issues found in the typical special needs classroom. I'm too easily frustrated. Maintaining an even tone and not losing my temper in the face of some of the things I've seen isn't possible for me. I know it.

Unfortunately, I've seen people working with these kids who probably shouldn't be working with children in any capacity, definitely not with kids who need extra help and extra love.

I've witnessed adults who know exactly which buttons to push to wind a kid up, too. My theory in at least some of these instances is that the kids have been annoying or bothering or aggravating the adults so much that they decide, maybe even subconsciously, to get back at the children.

It's bullying in its worst form. The little people in the situation(s) are even more powerless than neurotypical kids, too. And to make it worse, they're usually kept away from the general population of the school.

They have their own recess time, their own lunch time, and their own classroom. Although in our school, their classroom isn't away from all the others, it's an old building and was built long before people thought about things like that.

So any issues with the special needs kids are quite disruptive to the rest of the school. It interferes with everyone, and I'm not sure how being in school is helpful to the kids with the issues, either.


The SPED staff at our school doesn't seem to be made of bad people, at least not that I've seen, but some of the kids are very disturbed. There are days when a lot of screaming goes on. I hear it when I come in to start getting things set up for the afternoon.

One of the kids is a runner. Not just once in awhile, but all day long. The aide assigned to him does nothing but chase him around. He has no sense of boundaries, if she isn't fast enough he goes into classrooms, restrooms, the principal's office. Last week as I was arriving I saw four adults running in different directions outside trying to catch up with him. He had escaped out the door of the building and no one knew where he was. The school is located next to a busy street, so it's not safe for a kid to be out running around. I know they found him, I saw them all walking past our classroom just before the bell at the end of the day.

There are kids who yell, kids who hit, at least one who is non verbal, a couple who need diapers. Feeding issues (tube feeding) is part of the daily routine, too. It takes a very specific type of individual to do work like that, and they have my respect. I am not capable of doing that. No way in hell.

But I always wonder how school is of help/benefit to some of them.
It's more respite care for the parents than anything else sometimes, I think.

I don't actually have issue with that. I can't imagine what some of them have had to deal with. Some of the adults who work with these kids have an amazing ability to meet the kids wherever they are and provide an environment for them that is at least stimulating and interesting.

In many cases, the parents have gone through years of meetings and arguments and aggravation to even get their child(ren) the smallest bit of services that they're entitled to. I have read some of the stories of their tireless advocacy for their children. It's not for the faint of heart.

So many kids don't have enough issues to satisfy the legal requirements for help, either. It's a very strange system that quite often, fails those kids. Which goes back to my question of how school is helping some of them.

I have an online friend from Colorado who has two daughters with special needs. Both non-verbal. One of them was abused terribly for years (she was 17 when her mom found out what had been going on)  by the teacher who was supposed to be taking care of her.  She had several digestive system surgeries that caused her some very obnoxious gas, something she could not help.

For years she'd had an odd rash on her hands/face/legs, but only during school. During school breaks, the rash went away. They tried figuring it out, but they never did. They had some people from the school district who took air samples and other environmental tests. This went on for years.

Finally she graduated and the rash went away.

It wasn't until a few years later when the teacher took her own life that one of the aides came forward and let my friend know what had been happening with her daughter. She was afraid of the teacher, so never said anything until then.

That teacher had been spraying that girl with Lysol every time she farted. All of her exposed skin had been breaking out in a rash for years while she was in school. And because she was unable to speak for herself, she couldn't tell her mom.

My friend wasn't the vindictive type, but she said if the teacher hadn't been dead, she would have liked to kill her. I couldn't disagree. What an awful thing. Years of abuse at the hands of someone who was in a position of trust. One of the saddest stories I've ever heard about SPED.

They discussed filing a lawsuit, but it's been a couple years since we last were in touch so I don't know what happened with that.

I don't have answers to any of my questions. I've had some SPED kids in my program(s) over the years. Sometimes I'm able to help a bit, sometimes not. I focus on making the child feel welcome and supported. I try to figure out ways to at least not make things worse. I can't do anything to help sometimes, but I sure wish I could.

When I've had to have a child removed from my program I always take it personally. I feel like I've failed. Intellectually I know that's not true, there is no failure on my part, just a lack of ability to work miracles.

I wish I could do everything right for every kid.

Fringe People

One of the things that makes me good at what I do is that I have not forgotten what it felt like to be a kid.

I remember being overwhelmed quite often, the noise level, the activity level, the newness of things. A new school year was always stressful, more so due to the number of moves we made. I had K and 1 in Colorado, 2nd grade in Vale, Oregon. 3rd and 4th grades were LaGrande, Oregon, 5th grade John Day, Oregon. I lived there until I left home the last half of my junior year in high school and went back to the town I'd originally started school in to finish high school.

I felt nervous and upset and confused during each of those moves. That's when I began my lifelong habit of hanging back. Watching what's going on from a distance. Deciding after a period of observation, sometimes days or weeks at what level I'd participate.

It would have been so much easier if someone had noticed how hard it was for me, but being one kid out of dozens in a classroom setting or out of hundreds in a school setting doesn't get you a lot of individualized attention.

Another fault of our school system, really.

Children rarely receive the support they need, not knowing how to ask for it. Adults rarely see the child struggling, either, having many others to deal with. Unless the kid acts out or in some way draws large amounts of attention to themselves, they just sort of muddle through.

Oh sure, that's one way to develop some coping skills.

I don't think it's 100% bad to put kids into situations and allow them to learn to navigate, either. But I also feel that it's up to the adults around them to see when they're having difficulties and assist them through that if possible. To be a support person when necessary.

The older I get, and the longer I do this job, the smaller and more helpless the K age kids seem to be. They're not different, of course. What's different is my perspective and the years of experience I bring to my work.

Let's take Sarah as an example.

Sarah is a young 5, she was four years old until July of this year when she turned 5. Everything in school is completely new for her. Standing in line and learning where to find the bathroom (and being afraid of the LOUD sound of the toilets and not flushing) and how to operate the push button on the sinks. Knowing where to put her lunch box and where to hang her jacket and a million other little things that will be second nature to her next school year.

She copes all day long, and then comes to me after school.

When the kids pour in after school, our room is noisy. They're shouting greetings to one another, siblings are greeting each other after being apart all day. It's a time to decide what activities they're going to participate in, ask me what's for snack, stop by to get a shoe tied, ask if they can go to the bathroom. It's about 10 minutes of chaos, really. I have to make calls to locate any missing kids. There's a 15 minute window to make sure each one is safe. After that 15 minutes, if the school doesn't know where they are, I don't know where they are or the parent doesn't know, I am required to notify the police and a search begins. And no, I haven't had to do that yet.

:::frantically knocking on wood here:::

So I can't devote more than  a few seconds of attention to any one child until everyone has been accounted for. I think most of my families are figuring out they need  to call me, it's been a little easier this week.

But it's chaos. It's busy and fast-paced and frantic and loud and scary for a small person, even though I want it to be a good place for everyone.

Sarah's grandmother picked her up from my program on Monday afternoon. She told me that she came to get Sarah early because she really didn't like being there after school. "She doesn't like being at school at all," she told me. "She would much rather be at home where it's quiet and where she can read a book or take a nap without being disturbed. She just wants to go home after school, but that's not possible, her dad and mom both work. I just happened to be available today to come get her."

And because I don't have it arranged the way I want, until this week there weren't places to go and be on the fringes and observe. I am sorry to say that I didn't notice how timid Sarah was, she found things to do and played with another little girl most days and didn't require much from me.

Again... if the kid doesn't act out, sometimes the adult doesn't notice there's an issue.

So I fixed a chill zone near my little area of the room.
A table with two chairs and a little sign. "Quiet Area".

I made a general announcement to all the kids during one of our informal chats.
"Sometimes when you have had a busy day at school and you'd like to relax with a book or a coloring project or just sit, this is the place for that. You can sit here as long as you'd like to and you can play with any of the toys or use any of the art supplies you want to use. The same rules apply here, that you have to put away the things you've gotten out and that you clean up your own mess."

So now Sarah can come in, drop her backpack in a basket and come sit on the fringes and observe until she feels like joining in.

No one else has shown an interest in being a fringe person with me, but that's okay.

It's a safe spot for Sarah, and another lesson for me. I am good at what I do, but I don't notice everything and there is always a way for me to improve the program.

But it's traditional!

I keep seeing this, or variations of this on (surprise) the book o' face.

No one ever posts a good reason for the idea, though.

It seems to mostly be, "I had to do it so everyone else should have to, too."
Add, "We've lost too much of the way we used to do things" and you pretty much have all the reasons why.

I'm not sure cursive is important.
Some of my kids want to be able to write in cursive, although our school doesn't teach it. Anytime one of them comes to me and asks how to write their name (usually that's what they want) in cursive, I show them how to do it.

Occasionally they want me to write Happy Birthday or I Love You on the front of a card they're making. I'm happy to do it.
We've been working on 'bubble letters', so I sometimes lightly sketch the guide lines and the kids finish the work with markers and colored pencils.

Over the years, a few of my children have been very interested in learning how to write everything in cursive, and I think that wish should be honored.

I do what I can, helping them form letters and telling them things like the fact that no one's handwriting looks like anyone else's and that my own handwriting has changed over the years, I add more swirly stuff and it's mixed a little with printing. Unique, just like everyone's.

When I was a second grader, I remember being obsessed with learning how to write in cursive. I drove my teacher crazy asking when we'd start it.

A line on my report card from that year said, "Susan is the only student who learned cursive handwriting in less than a week."
I wonder what she'd think of my handwriting now.
It doesn't look anything like it did then, but it's much more legible than it was in second grade.

So forcing people to learn it?
I don't understand that.
I feel that way about many of the things kids are forced to learn in school. A great deal of the stuff they must acquire can be picked up from the world around us.

Having a piece of paper for every little fact they memorize and the constant specter of being 'behind' strikes fear into their little hearts. And the hearts of their parents.

Boooooo! You're gonna get behind!

So many useless bits of knowledge are made mandatory and there isn't room or time for things like creative expression. Or music or art classes or just time to dream. To sit with a book and shut out the world.

Nope, instead they're forced to memorize all the state capitals.
They're threatened with the idea they will not be promoted to the next grade if they 'fail' multiplication.

I've met kids who actually puke with the worry over those 'important' state tests.

I think making children write a certain way just adds an extra layer of bullshit to the already-heavy load kids are forced to carry for their whole 13 year sentences.

And 'because I had to do it' isn't a valid reason to burden them with that.

What Would You Do?

The famous words, "If I had it to do all over again, I'd _________."

Fill in the blank with your own choices.

I was chatting with a friend recently.
She felt like her parents had been disconnected from her education while she was growing up. Not unusual for the time and place. Sadly, not so unusual now, either.

She would possibly have chosen a different path if she'd had advisors to help. (spell check has queried 'advisors' but according to the online dictionary the word is correct.)

She went to college, this friend of mine, then proceeded to "waste" her college education on staying home and raising a family.

Not that *I* see it as a waste, of course. She was just told that. Often. From people who really didn't know any better. And probably from people who should have known better, too.

I have given it a little thought.

I know I have mentioned before how much I dislike(d) school.
I love to learn things. I love knowing things. I like to read, to explore, to discover. But I hated school. I am not a huge school fan now, either. I understand how we ended up with formal, compulsory schooling. It's not a pretty story. It's also not a wonder it's a mess.

I'd give you a ton of links to look at, but unless you really want to know about this stuff, you won't read them anyway.

I think this is particularly good and accurate, though.

Regarding not putting a bunch of links here for you because if you wanna know, you will find them yourself... I'm like that, too. I don't look for information or learn about something unless I want to.

And most of humanity doesn't pursue learning about something that's irrelevant to them, personally.

It's why people don't stay in school. We're not offering kids things that are relevant to their lives. We're force-feeding bits and pieces of knowledge and rote learning and making sure they're scheduled every bit of their day.

My first Girl Scout troop was mostly drawn from the local public schools. I had almost nothing in common with the parents in that troop other than having a daughter.

The longer we were together, the more obvious the differences between my child and theirs. She was so.. comfortable going her own way.

I met most of those girls in Kindergarten. They were giggly little butterflies, fluttering through life happily. They were messy with their art projects, difficult to wrangle into something resembling order, and just fun.

By the end of their second grade year, most of them had changed quite a bit. They were tired in a way they shouldn't be. Most of them were crabby after school. Some had dark circles under their eyes. They hated school. Every one of them. They hated the tests, they hated not being able to do the things they were interested in... they were also starting to get together and dislike people. They often talked about this person or that as 'weird' and/or stupid.

They no longer attacked a table full of craft supplies with reckless (or wrecking) abandon. When presented with an open ended project, they all kept waiting for someone else to start. I'm deliberately leaving Lyssa out of 'they', because she did start. She always just did her own thing. Making me extremely happy.

When someone else finally did start with a project, the other girls were timid in beginning theirs. It wasn't long before one of them would decide the others were doing it wrong... even if I'd given them no particular instructions or an example. My rule has always been that if you make something you like, you did it right.

My co-leader was very bothered by the open ended project thing, too. She always wanted an example made. If she was the one conducting the activity, she also wanted to control how the girls made their project. In particular, her daughter. I didn't try to keep track of how many times she surreptitiously fixed something her daughter or one of the other kids had made while the glue was still wet.

I have several things Lyssa made, mistakes intact. One of my favorites was a simple thing the girls made as Daisies, a Christmas card with an oval cut out for a photo and holes punched around the outside with green yarn woven through. Lyssa's was imperfect and adorable. And I hang it up every year.

Oops. I've digressed. Again.

So back to the troop.
Their 2nd grade year, the girls were joined by Breanna*. Her parents were medical professionals.

Breanna was scheduled and overscheduled and hyperscheduled and oh-my-god scheduled.
Our troop met on Thursday afternoon, right after school. When the meeting was getting over, she changed clothes in the restroom for her ballet lessons. She ate a quick dinner in the car on the way to ballet, then a small snack in the car on her way to tae kwon do. She did not get home until 9:45 PM any night of the week, according to her mother. Her mother didn't see anything wrong with this crazy schedule, either.

When she told her eight year old to 'hurry up, we have to go go go' and Breanna said, "Can't we just go home tonight?" her mother would say, "Stop whining."

It wasn't just Thursdays, either. She had riding lessons, fencing lessons, singing lessons, piano lessons and a different dance class. She also had gymnastics. And whatever sport was in season.

It was appalling. She was always tired, pale, wanting to stay home in the evening but her mom was relentless. She wanted lots of extracurricular activities "to help Breanna get into a good college."

I don't keep up with all the children I've known over the years. It would be impossible, I think.

But I just looked her up on Facebook. She evidently survived the overscheduling. I hope she's doing well in college. She looks good. I hope she doesn't waste that education by staying home with children.

I understand wanting your child to be successful. But I don't think my definition of success is the traditional one. My definition is, "are you happy doing what you're doing?"

A good job, to me, is a job that you look forward to going to. A place that you're happy. That you miss when you're not there.

Money is not the point for me. When I was in my early 20s, money was important because I bought into the whole money=success thing.

Now, if I have food on the table, a roof over my head and the internet...

I think college is fine if that's what you really want. But it's a racket. It's horrendously (and unjustifiably) expensive. Is it M.I.T. offering their entire curriculum free online? I know it's one of the big guys. Colleges and schools have not kept up with advances in learning and ways to learn.

Making it 'affordable' is being discussed quite a bit recently. Obama and other doorknobs think that it should be "freeeeeeeeee". Um, that's not free. Just like the health care and other things aren't free. We are paying for it. Why don't they just say they want it to be taxpayer funded?

If they really wanted to help people, to make education and diplomas available, CLEP testing would be free. There are so many people out there who'd be able to pass their tests because of life experience.

I get really tired of people who think a person lacks intelligence due to level of education completed. What a crock of shit. I know more than one really stupid person with a piece of paper that is supposed to mean he or she is smart.

I've mentioned being dismissed by people due to my own lack of paper. I used to feel bad about it, but you know, I'm not a puppy. I don't need a pedigree. I have nothing to prove to anyone regarding my intelligence. I have a job I love.

If I could go back in time and choose my path, would I do it differently?

Would I pursue a paper?
I don't think so.

But I regret not finding this line of work sooner.

On the other hand, I would not have developed the skill set without all the years of experience in other jobs and activities.

So no. No regrets.

What about you?

Endings and Beginnings and Sinking Fast

Remember when you were a kid at the start of summer vacation?

I'd wake up on the first day of vacation and literally see allllll those days of vacation time like a road, unrolling before me. So many possibilities!!

I spent a great deal of my childhood immersed in books. The season was unimportant. But during the summer, I could spend a whole day reading.
Anything I wanted to.

My dad is still one of my heroes for that. :)

I didn't have to put my book away to get ready for school. I didn't have to leave the book in my room so I could catch the bus. I didn't have to suffer through a whole day of "learning" so I could get back into my book again.

So I liked to read. I still do, although a great deal of the reading I do now is online. I still read voraciously, but I guess I'm reading mostly non fiction now. Because of course if you read it on the internet, it's true.
(Abraham Lincoln said that.)

I rode my bike.
Hung out with my brothers in the front yard. We shot each other with imaginary guns, shot our friends, died a hundred times before lunch. The more dramatic, the more better. ;)
Visited friends.
Went swimming.
As a family, we went camping and fishing, too.
The expanse of time ahead of me on the first day of summer seemed infinite.

My favorite part then and now (besides not being regimented all day long) was sleeping in. Not having to get up early. Heavenly. :)

So I confess to still seeing summer as an endless expanse of days to goof off in. Oh sure, my responsibilities are different now, I am getting ready for company in two weeks (MY SON IS GETTING MARRIED!!!), I have a job, I do the regular stuff of laundry and dishes and sweeping the larger chunks of whatever off the floor... but still. It's summer.

I looked at the calendar this morning. There are fifteen days of summer program left. Ten of those are work days for me, I am taking a week off just before the arrival of friends and family for the wedding. Cleaning the house. Doing laundry. SLEEPING IN.

I wouldn't take that time off at all, but the way vacation time works with my employer, if you don't take your vacation time, you lose it when it rolls over again on your anniversary date.

I'd prefer not to lose that time, really. I have more than earned it. Most of my vacation time used in the past five years has been for surgery. Cleaning the house will be a treat compared to that. The mild pain in the ass of mopping a floor is pretty mild compared to the white-hot agony of a sliced and diced knee, trust me.

I'll probably end up going out to my school and meeting with the new principal during that week, as it may be my only opportunity to do so before the chaos of a new school year starts. It's super important to establish a decent working relationship with everyone on the staff at the school. Fortunately, it's not difficult. They're all great people and realize that we're all on the same team. The kids are the winners of the game, though.

I usually buy a bag of fun sized Crunch bars ('crunch' week... get it?) and drop one off in everyone's mailbox with a little note on the first day of school. I also stop at Winco and get the large boxes of individual bags of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies and try to get those set out in the staff lounge on the first day for the teachers.

::making note to self to email my manager so she can purchase those items for me.... I usually end up buying them myself:::

Say what you want about public education. I have issues with the system myself, as I think we do a grave disservice to our children in institutionalizing their learning. I think they'd learn better and thrive more in a less regimented lifestyle.
Whatever.
I can't change the system.

Hell, I'm not even a day care fan.
I think if at all possible, children should be with their families.
If one chooses to send a child to school, I think a parent should be home with them before and after. But those same children have to be fed and clothed and most of the time, that means that either Mom or Dad (or both of them) need to have employment that takes them away from their family.

So while not a fan of day care, I am a huge fan of kids in general, and I'm glad that when they're with me, they're with someone who genuinely cares about them. They're going to be in day care anyway. It may as well be with a person who puts them first.

The public school staff I've met during the course of my job are amazing. They're all very different personally, but all of them are united in their love of children and a wish to make a difference. Within the constraints and limitations of the system, they are making a big difference in the lives of a lot of kids.

I mentioned I'm not a fan of public education. And I'm really not. But the people who work there are laboring under some pretty oppressive circumstances. You couldn't pay me enough to teach public school.

So on tap for today?
First, a shower. It's nearly eleven. I got up at 6. And 7:22. And 8:15. I made a smoothie, took some aspirin, sat here at the computer watching my husband prepare to replace the kitchen sink and get started on that job. He has pulled out the old one. Made in 1959. It's on the back porch. Our brand new stainless steel sink and faucets and drains are strewn across the kitchen floor. It's mildly entertaining, who knew there were so many creative uses for the word 'fuck?

So yeah. That's my life right now.
How's yours?

Going to school?

Did you enjoy school?
After the first couple weeks every school year, I hated it.
I slogged through, enjoying very little of what I was forced to do.

When I graduated, I was so happy that I wouldn't have to go back. Never lost that feeling of joy that I no longer had to be trapped in a building all day long, wasting my time.

I have never stopped learning, though.
I read constantly.

There are many universities and colleges offering their full curriculums online.
Did you know that?

There are also sites like Khan Academy. Tutorials for all sorts of interesting things.

One doesn't get a diploma, but this one doesn't have that as a goal.

A person could offer me a full ride scholarship, complete with foot massages, a chauffeur, housekeeping services and meals for any school I wanted, anywhere. And I'd run screaming in the opposite direction.

I love to learn.
But I hated school.

I realized years and years ago that a person's learning is really up to them. And that if it's something you need to know, you're much more likely to retain the knowledge than if it's something force-fed to you. The height of mountains in Peru. The date treaties were signed. What people wear in Ecuador. Don't need to know that. And if I do, I know how to find the information.

I think knowing how to find information is a lot more important than storing meaningless, out-of-context facts and figures in your head. Rote knowledge.

My feelings about education are partially the reason I am so good at my job. I like to provide a ton of activities for the kids, designed to exercise their brains. I don't talk down to them, instead using words that might make them stretch a little. I learned huge words through context, didn't you?

So that's why I go to the library for discovery kits. Hands on science. It's why I shop at Goodwill and find cool things. It's why I can't wait to swim the clownfish into our cafeteria at the beginning of our water week unit.

It's why when they ask me questions, there is no topic off-limits. I have to say on occasion, "That is something that's very personal, and should be discussed with your parents at home." But I don't act shocked or angry or worried or horrified. I address everything with the same tone of voice. Similar to the way I handled things with my own children. Except of course we were able to discuss anything and everything.

So no school, thanks.
But send learning my direction any time.

Indoctrination

All kinds of lessons are being taught to our children in schools. I'm cynical enough that I'm 99% certain that most, if not all the lessons are intentional, but I am sure not everyone thinks the way I do.

Let's take the recent Worms and Composting talk that was furnished to our day campers, free of charge, by our local regional government, Metro.

Patty* the petite, perky, positive presentation person, was really upbeat and cute and great with kids. She brought in a composting box full of red worms, a cheerful face and trendy Birkenstock-with-wool-socks feet on the end of her jean-clad legs.

In introducing the topic of composting to the kids, she propped a white board on the worm box, and they all helped her tell the story of a day in her life.

She gave them choices of what to tell the little stick figure she'd drawn to represent herself.

"Should I eat the oatmeal or the toast with fruit for breakfast?"
She went through her day, deciding for and against foods, some based on packaging, some based on what was best for her to eat.

For dinner, she asked the kids what she should have. Suggestions of chicken, hot dogs, steak were all tossed out.

"No." she said. "I don't eat bad food. Meat is stinky and you can't put it in the composter, so I don't eat it. Meat packages don't compost, either."

She briskly moved on and 'finished' her evening meal, then asked the kids what she should have for dessert.

There were suggestions of pie, cake, pudding, chocolate... and she said again, "No, I don't eat things that are bad. I need to choose between cherries and blueberries."

So she talked about composting, but tossed into that lesson?
Meat is bad.
Desserts are bad.
Bad to buy certain packaging.

Oh sure, they'll tell their parents about the cool worms. Worm eggs. Little potato bugs. Compost. But the other, more subtle lessons are there, too. Regardless of a person's feelings about food (I think anyone who eats hummus has, at the very least, extremely bad taste) those things are a personal choice. And when someone comes in and forces in little lessons around the edges, the kids don't even realize it. Those lessons stick.

During Spring Break, we were to teach a unit on "Global Warming."
Now you'll probably realize without me telling you that a curriculum unit about that topic will be slanted in only one direction. There will be no mention made of other possibilities, the fact that the dire predictions haven't come through, bogus emails, junk science, and the Goracle who started it all.

You know... the Goracle. He of the nine mansions and the carbon offset businesses and the private jets and the lavish lifestyle of a famous philanderer (massage, anyone?) He who makes a bigger carbon footprint on one little trip than I will for the rest of my life? Yeah. Him.

So a couple of the kids informed me during our unit that the polar ice caps were going to melt and that someday we'll probably drown because of it. So I stopped the lesson and inserted one of my own.

I put a large, solid plastic cylinder inside an even bigger pitcher. We filled the big clear pitcher with ice cubes, making sure to stack a lot of them on top of the cylinder. Then, I poured water into it until the surface tension holding the water together was clearly visible above the rim of the pitcher.

Then I asked for predictions. And every single kid thought that when the ice melted, we'd have a flood. They worried that there were no towels around the bottom of the pitcher.

They were shocked with the final result.

And although it was tempting, I didn't say a whole lot. I did tell them, though, that as thinking individuals, they were free to draw their own conclusions about what the non-flood may mean. And about anything else they were told is absolute truth. That sometimes, they may hear conflicting ideas, and it's really up to them to find their own truth. That real truth usually exists somewhere in between all those ideas.

And I left it alone.

We had another discussion that week, too.
About cutting down trees. The kids were convinced that cutting down a tree was tantamount to murder. Seriously!

So I asked one of them, "Taylor*? What is your house made of?"
She didn't know.

Well, I do, because I drive past the wooden house Taylor lives in on my way to work.
She looked mystified when she admitted not knowing what her house was made from.

So I told her. She was shocked. Disagreed. We decided to ask her dad when he came to pick her up.

Then, I asked the kids where paper comes from. Fully half of them did not know! So we talked about that, too.

We then walked around the room and up and down a couple hallways in the school, identifying the objects we saw that had been made from wood. The kids were very surprised.

I refrained from preaching again, but I am glad I got them thinking. Someone sure as hell needs to.

We discuss politics. As much as I'd like to, I don't put my personal beliefs out there. I'm not trying to influence them to think my way... but I admit to trying to influence them to think. There doesn't seem to be a lot of that allowed.

So what do you think? Do you find you're having to argue with 'absolute truth' that's brought home from school with your kids/friends/nieces/nephews. Do you think school should be a place of social engineering so we can all learn to think the same way?

'Cause even if you don't agree that it should be, social engineering is one goal of a mainstream public education.

Kindergarten Roundup

I understand why people send their kids to school.

I don't fault them for that choice.

We sent our firstborn child to school. It didn't work out for many reasons, and I'm glad we not only had other options but open minds.

Our solution worked for us.

Kindergarten roundup was on Wednesday afternoon.

The school district sent out a big yellow bus to pick up the kids and bring them for a tour of the school building.

Kids only on this day. No parents allowed. They can come and have a tour and meet the teachers later.

We saw two different tour groups wandering around the school building. One group walked through the gym and watched my kids playing basketball in one end and jumping rope in the other.

Some of the little tiny itty bitty people (big eyes, nervous little faces, a few apprehensive tears) who came for the tour are four years old. They'll be five before September 1st, so that makes them eligible to attend K this fall.

I understand why the kids come for a tour. It's good for a small person to know what's coming and to have a little familiarity with a new situation. To get a glimpse of how they're going to spend a large part of the next 13 years of their lives.

I get the whole idea of separating them from their parents for the occasion. (Not that I agree with it... but I get it.)

I have fundamental disagreements with public education.
I know this is not a surprise to anyone who reads here regularly or to anyone who's known me for more than, oh, an hour or two.

What I'd wish for all those little ones is that their parents would evaluate them on an individual basis and decide, based on their observations, what educational method(s) would be best for each child.

I wish the parents of some of the four year olds would ponder keeping them home another year. Or two. Or three.

Compulsory education does not begin in this state until the child is seven on the first day of school in September.

Public school is not necessarily the best option for some children.

C'mon. Admit it.

I see kids who do okay there.
(They're 'doing well' according to the standards found in the strange and unrealistic world of schooling.)

They adjust to things like not being allowed to even say the word 'gun' without the thought police reminding them that it's not appropriate to say that word in school. They understand that they can't wear their hoods in the building. They learn to be quiet while standing in line. Even if the line is outside where noise doesn't matter. They learn to stay with their classification, be it age, grade level, specific needs... just pick one.

Kindergarten is also where they learn the lesson that kitties aren't pink .

::sigh::

Yeehaw. Round 'em up and move 'em out.

Individuality is FINE... as long as we all do it together.

When Matt was in 1st grade, each little person in his class colored an apple tree for a display for the upcoming Parent Night.

Matt colored the apples on his tree in different colors. Some were green, some red, some had a bit of yellow.

When I talked to him this morning about it, he recalled that he was trying to duplicate the colors and varieties he'd seen in the grocery store.

He also colored the foliage with several different colors of green, and made the trunk with shades of brown.

His teacher was not happy. First, she (as he says) got in his face, leading with her big chin mole and blasting out coffee breath. She grabbed his box of 96 crayons* and found three crayons for him. Red, green and brown. She slapped them down on his table so hard that she broke one.

Then, she took his box of crayons, told him he could have them back later, and got him a new apple tree picture. She threatened him with, "Your picture will not hang up for parent night if you don't do it right."

She took his crayons and unfinished picture back to her desk.

She got the attention of the rest of the class. Held up Matt's picture, and said, "This is what you DO NOT DO."

Sat down and crumpled up his work and tossed it into the recycle bin.

So he did it her way. He was not happy with his finished project, either. He'd spent so much time trying to be creative with his first attempt that he did not have time to make the second attempt up to his usual standards. When we attended the event, he was embarrassed and apologetic that his picture 'wasn't as good' as the other ones.

I guess he learned a lesson or two from the incident.

*At parent night, she berated me for buying him the large box of crayons for school when the supply list specifically said 24 crayons. "Too many colors," she said, tsk tsk-ing. "It's confusing for the children."

So Matt will be 23 years old in a few months. I find it interesting and not in a good way, that he still remembers a 17 year old incident so vividly.

I recalled that little episode this week after witnessing an incident at the school.

My program is set up in the cafeteria. The kids get out of school at 2:30, and for me to be ready for them, I arrive early to set up the room.

On Thursday, the Kindergarten class was painting on the cafeteria floor. The teacher rolls out long sheets of paper and the kids put their projects on it and paint.

They all look so cute in the big t-shirts they're wearing over their clothing while they paint.

I walked in while the teacher was telling a small boy, "No, we do not paint the kitty pink. Cats are brown and black and white and gray. Sometimes tan."

She then involved the rest of the class. "Are kitties pink?"
"Noooo!" they all chorused.

She turned back to the little boy.

And he said, "But it's a maginary cat!"

She smiled.

"We are not using our imaginations right now. We are painting."

Sometimes I forget that I'm working in a public school.

The experiment is over.

Alyssa has changed her mind about attending public school.

She hates all of it. Oh, except she liked the drama class. Sort of. But doesn't want to continue even with that. It would be a pain in the ass, but I'd drive her up there every other day for class if she wanted to go.

As her first post-high school assignment, I'm going to get her to write up a bit about what she didn't like and let me post it here.

Eric and I discussed it with her last night, and I'll be calling the high school this morning to let them know that she won't be back.

(And won't that be awkward?! 'Um, hello, my student #20388 will no longer be attending classes at your school. We're going back to homeschool.')

It's easiest to just refuse to be drawn into discussion about one's reasons, or so I hear. My guess is that the person will say thank you for calling and go on with her life.

Not that they get calls like that every day. Maybe I'm just hoping that no one will want to discuss anything. It's nothing personal against any teacher or staff person, after all. It's the general environment in which these people labor to provide an education p.s. style. I don't want to discuss it with them, that's for sure.

I think Lyssa has a couple school textbooks in her bag, so we'll need to return those. And since she wants to get a driver's permit, she'll have to take an achievement test so we can get a certificate of attendance from the local Education Service District to take to the D.M.V.

::sigh:::

I thought the testing shit was over for us. What an utter waste of time and energy. And money.

But Lyssa is back home.


::edited to add::

I called the school attendance office, and they transferred me to the registrar's office. I got a recording instead of a live person, so left the message that we're withdrawing Lyssa from school. Left them my cell phone number in case they need to call.

So it was fairly painless.

At least so far.

High School so far...

I figured I can use this blog as a public service for anyone who is planning to send a child to school after a period of homeschooling.

I'll try to remember to write about things as they happen.

So far, it's been a mostly positive experience. Of course as of this writing, she has not attended any classes. :)

We went to the school in June and signed her up for a full class load. The counselor was helpful, friendly, non-judgmental (at least externally, who knows what he actually thought?) and everyone I've spoken to on the telephone has been friendly and professional.

Of course, we haven't come across any differences of opinion yet. I'm sure that will happen eventually, because their goals for my daughter, her goals for herself and my goals for her are all different. Hers and mine trump theirs. They just don't know it yet. :)

She's going to school because of the dreaded 's' word.

Socialization.

Put simply, she wants more kids her age to hang out with. When she was younger, the activities we did and the people we hung out with were enough for her.

She's 15 now. She's lonely. I don't think it's healthy for her to sit here alone as much as she has, and I've been concerned for some time about it. I just haven't been sure what to do.

The homeschooled teen group she went out with one day was not what she wanted. She was embarrassed by their loud profanities in public and the fact that one of them was constantly smoking. It bothered her on several levels.

She was disappointed. "I thought homeschoolers wouldn't act like that, Mom." I explained to her that homeschoolers are just regular people... some are not as polite or worried about their public behavior as others. I guess having her hang out with only nice kids had skewed her perceptions.

She went to activities with other homeschoolers, but often said to me that although everyone was really nice and she likes them, she was tired of seeing only the same people all the time.

She wanted more. She said occasionally that she did not want to go to school, but was curious about it all the same.

After more thinking and more being alone, and more chatting with high school aged internet friends, she started to change her mind a bit.

She wanted to take a couple classes at the high school.

We went to check it out. One look inside the building and one tour later, she wanted it all. She was just... enchanted.

The desks, the lockers, the crowded hallways, the noise, the chaos, the PEOPLE.

I want to be willing to listen to her. To back her up on her decisions. To do all I can for her experience to be successful.

She has hyperflexion of her joints. An orthopedic doctor who saw her about a year ago told me that she can take physical therapy to help strengthen her joints, but that there really isn't much that can be done beyond that. Her ankles look funny and hurt a lot. Running is painful, walking slightly less. Her wrists and elbows bother her, too. It sucks, and I hate that she has this.

So when we went to the school, I made sure to add that to her health form. I was told to make sure she had health class for the first part of the school year to allow time for her to take her physical therapy.

That means I need to get that scheduled, too. In my spare time. And hey! Now that her braces are off, I have a little money to pay for it. I will have to, because our lovely insurance (remember them? The DCS company? DCS is an acronym for Doesn't Cover Shit) won't actually pay anything for any reason. They just collect our money every month, pile it up and sit on it.

I called the school Monday morning to ask about the bus schedule (there wasn't one in our packet) and neglected to ask them about school supplies. I don't want to be calling them every day and asking more questions, so I planned to send her on the first day with a couple notebooks and a pencil and a pen.

Monday afternoon, I got a newsletter from the school. In it were a nearly incomprehensible bus schedule (shit, I have to make another phone call to find out what the hell) and a paragraph stating that each teacher will provide a list to the student about what he or she will need for the class. So I predict some shopping in the next couple weeks.

We'll be doing a little shopping today for something new to wear to school, too. New as in not from Goodwill.