SCHOOL DAYS

Is there something wrong with your browser? Can you not see my champagne glass raised high above my head toasting to the glorious joy of this first day of school?


Please adjust your settings, take a glass, sit down and enjoy this moment with me.


Kid 1 started second grade today. Last night I was struck with all the first day jitters I’d had when I was a child: will the teacher be kind? will the bullies be back? And the usual parent jitters: will Kid 1 get to sit in the front row? how many children will be in the class? will she “get it” this year with math or will I be forced to put her in Kumon? have all of her supplies been properly labeled? does she have everything, everything she needs?


School is a big deal for me and as I see it, the problem in many schools today has less to do with funding, supplies, teachers, ADHD and more to do with what I call TFCP's: Twenty First Century Parents. Parents today are strangely unrealistic. Many expect teachers to work miracles (turn Susie into an A student when she’s really a solid B) and do the work they as parents are supposed to be doing. Teachers have the arduous charge of being teacher/social worker/nurse/disciplinarian. Let’s face it: your child’s education is a two way street, a forked road and to send your child to school expecting that they will come home at the end of the year knowing and mastering everything they’re supposed to know and master at any particular grade level is downright ridiculous. School is for teaching but home is for reinforcing, assessing and teaching again. My problem with TFCP’s (Twenty First Century Parents) is that many are working hard not to pay legitimate bills but to fund all the necessary trappings that keep them up with the Joneses, the Smiths and the Harveys. Many are living in homes they can ill afford, driving cars that cost more than some people's mortgages, necessitating both parents working longer hours and leaving little time to check Susie’s homework, introduce new concepts and assess just how she’s coping with school in general.

School is the equivalent of a job for children. It’s where they spend the majority of their day, where they are subjected to all kinds of pressures both educationally and socially; where they are expected to perform and if they don’t they are penalized and often ostracized. School is work. School is a mental work-out on many different levels and children often display their coping (or failure to cope) in ways that if a parent is not present (mentally and physically) simple molehills have the potential to escalate into mountains. Parents today are simply not present in many regards. I’m not talking about quitting jobs to become stay at home parents. If one can do that, terrific! But for those who cannot, I am talking about minimizing the things that distract from the child, assessing whether or not the climb up that corporate ladder is really worth it in the short AND the long run, determining whether the SUV that sucks up gas and makes our air smell like rotten eggs is really worth the time, money and effort.


Another problem with many TFCP’s is that they are lazy; they substitute tried and true techniques for learning and socialization with complicated, ineffective toys, games, computer programs and after school activities. Play dates, in my opinion, are pathetic. And I wish I had come up with the idea of the Leap Pad – an expensive, overrated computer “toy” that requires Leap Pad “books” be inserted on the surface of the computer so that the child can use a computerized wand, point it to the words in the story, and a computerized voice pronounces the words, thereby “teaching” the child how to read. Right. The books average $14.99 a piece, even at Wal-Mart and Target.


I haven’t met a parent yet whose child has successfully learned to read with that appliance. The wand breaks easily, the books are not challenging after the initial read (in fact, they’re boring), the voice inaudible and hey, who wants to spend $14.99 every time you need a new book? I recently came close to begging a relative to try out the $3.99 Dr. Suess books that have existed since the Earth was formed, that my daughter felt so good reading because she was quickly able to read and understand the rhyming words. No luck. Why? Because that would involve sitting down with the child, helping pronounce letters, sitting through almost a half an hour of trips and dips over mispronounced words while the child tries to read. It requires time which many parents don’t want to invest. It’s much easier to plop the child in a chair, put a computer on her lap and let the computer do the work. There’s nothing like a free library card, a tank of gas, and a couple of plastic bags to carry home some free books. But there again, that requires effort that many don’t have or want to expend.


Lastly, from my soapbox, I say that too many TFCP’s don’t do the necessary disciplining that children need. I’m no advocate of beating or spanking but I am equally not down for children wanting to negotiate every single thing; children hitting, kicking, pushing, biting and bullying other children. I’m not down for children having fresh mouthes, talking to adults in the same manner that they talk to their school mates. I’m about parents being parents. My motto: We can be friends later. Right now, I need to be your parent. I need you to recognize that some things are not up for discussion. If it’s ten degrees outside, you HAVE to wear your coat. If it’s a hundred degrees outside, you CANNOT wear those red cowgirl boots that grandma sent for your third birthday. Likewise, I know you’d love to spend the night at your friend’s house but since I don’t know her parents and I don’t know their politics, I cannot in good conscience allow you to sleep in someone else’s home. I cannot give you the keys to my car unless you show me that you’ve got respect for a moving vehicle and the necessary restraint to handle yourself on a road full of crazy people who will cut you off for keeping the speed limit. I need to be your parent first. We’ll be friends later. A problem with TFCP’s.

So school has begun. The welcome silence spread over me like a nice warm blanket today. It was only half a day for today (full day tomorrow); only enough time to work on an essay that I’ve waited too long to start but hopefully I’ll meet the deadline. Initially, I’d passed on the submission call, rationalizing that it was only another distraction and wanting to focus on my novel and my chapbook manuscript. But the subject matter keeps tugging at my heart. In fact, I’d written an essay about the same topic (motherhood and art) previously that did not get accepted for Brain, Child but did get returned with a nice letter from the editor stating she loved it but could not use it because the same topic had been covered in an issue just months earlier than the time I’d submitted. Oh well. Nothing’s ever a waste, I figure, so I filed it and here it has come around again. So hopefully, I’ll do some good on it and get it completed by the deadline. If not, it’d be great just to purge my thoughts about the subject matter.

The good news (after all this ranting about schools, etc) is that Kid 1 has a front row seat, brand new glasses that I picked up at the eleventh hour last night (molasses-slow optical lab) and there are only 18 second graders in Kid 1’s class. Miraculously , the ones who were causing the most disturbance last year have gone off to other schools. That’s another problem with TFCP’s: it’s never, ever their child that needs a little improvement or discipline --- it’s always the school’s fault and thus the nomadic trek from one school to another and yet another.

So yet another Life lesson that things always, always work out. The things we worry about the most are the things we least need to concern ourselves with. Another step along a very long, very interesting journey. Another reminder to me that this thing called motherhood is a very scary looking, but oddly cute, little alien with a pointed red finger leading me the way to a greater part of my Self.

Be Good,

ANGEL