When My Kids Are In School

It will get easier.

I can finally become a full time teacher.

I can make more money.

I will have time to myself again.

There will be less pressure.

These are all things I have said to myself in passing when I think about how much easier things get once babies become kids become students in school.  Yes.  I too have thought of school as a kind of daycare.

And that is where the problem lies, for me.

I have come to realize more and more, with each passing anecdote, that school has become glorified daycare.  Daycare with tests and worksheets and, in my area at least, knife fights.

There was an all out brawl between two freshman boys in front of my apartment building last week because one boy stole the other boy's iPhone 5.  The boy getting beat up was the one attempting to reclaim his stolen property.  He ended up on the ground, receiving several kicks to his head and stomach, before the police finally arrived.

Flash forward to my child in her first year of high school.  What do I tell her?  Let people steal from you.  No.  That's not right.  Stand up for what is right.  And get beat up?  No.  That's not right either.  Pay attention in your self defense classes?

Ugh.

Add to the issue of violence the one of test driven classrooms.  Worksheets being sent home to the students I tutor that involve basically filling in the blanks.  These answers can be found with a simple google search.  The work takes less than ten minutes (depending on your internet speed), and my students are learning nothing.  The night before a test, they memorize the information, get an A on the test, and forget everything before dinner the next night.  These examples come from an area of wealth, from schools that are supposedly highly competitive and catering to children of educated parents.  Imagine what schools in my inner city area are like.

Learning should be about critical thinking, about challenging expectations, about asking questions and communicating with peers.  Ideas.

Fun.

A recent study published on education in kindergarden in the U.S.

http://www.thestrong.org/sites/default/files/play-studies/Crisis_in_Kindergarten.pdf

found that fewer than 30 minutes a day were dedicated to play for kindergardeners in school.

Apparently, teachers simply do not have the time to allow for play in the classroom anymore because of the intense curricular demands placed on them by districts pushing for improved test scores.

Test scores!?

For a five year old?

In kindergarden children learn letter recognition, beginning phonics, and phonetics.  They work on colors, shapes, and basic counting with numbers.  These are all things that can be taught through play.  I know.  I do it with my almost two year old.

We are now placing test taking pressure on five year olds to excel in literacy tests?

It is ridiculous.

Fine, you say, how about private school?

Here is my problem with private school then:  is it really any better?  Is private school also not just glorified daycare?  I know kids who go to private school.  For the most part, in my experience, private school is very child driven, giving children an overinflated ego and sense of superiority.   This is not to say that there are not wonderful private schools with strong critical thinkers and creative ways of teaching.  There are.  I have taught at some of them.  But my students complained that their peers were doing cocaine in the parking lots and having sex parties while their parents were out of town.  So.  Private school has its own set of problems.

As a teacher, I cannot imagine sending my five year old off to a classroom to be taught to sit still, shut up, do well on tests, and get good grades.

She is not a bank, or a safety deposit box.  I will not have teachers attempting to simply "deposit" information into her brain.

My favorite quote runs through my head every time I get caught up in my education rant:  "Children must be taught how to think, not what to think."

Yet, as a mother, I cannot imagine spending thousands of dollars each year on a private school education that may or may not be any better than public school (except for the knife fights).

Here I am then.  What choices are left to me?

Working harder to find a small private school that fits my desires for Celaya's education, that it be creative, that she be taught how to think critically, that she is challenged daily, that she has room to play, that she is encouraged to love learning.

It might work.  Maybe I will find an affordable, revolutionary, local private school that serves all of these purposes.

The reality more likely brings me to the last two possibilities I have come up with:

Open my own school...

or

Homeschool.

I know.  I know.  Open my own school?  What do I know about running a school?  Where would I get the resources?  Who would attend?  Who would teach?

Ahhhh!

Homeschool?

When I mentioned this to my brother he raised his eyebrows at me and shook his head, "do not homeschool your kid."

Right?  The image of the dorky kid with no social life flashes through everyone's mind.

Can I do better than that image with Celaya?  Maybe.  Hopefully.

What I know for sure is that the first option is out.  I just cannot, in this moment, imagine sending her out into the wild world of public school.

We have also decided we will definitely keep her home for at least the first year.  I can teach her kindergarden.

Beyond that?  I am not sure.  But I do know that the work begins now.  I have to begin researching, preparing, planning, allocating resources, networking, and on and on.

I will keep you posted as I become more informed, better educated, less overwhelmed, and less terrified that "when my kids are in school" may not be a reality for a long, long time.

It will get easier, right?