First Day of School 2008

Here they are, waiting for the bus to come take them to first grade: 

Yes, I'm the anal retentive mother who actually made name tags for each kid with their school name, bus numbers, teachers' names and room numbers. Hey, at least I didn't actually GO to the school on the first day this time! 

The bus, thankfully, drops off and picks up right in front of the house. Yay! Makes life so much easier. They've got a short bus ride there and a loooooong bus ride home, so we'll see how they do. No incidents yesterday, and both of them came home with lots of stories about the playground and new friends.

Zoe said: "We're not doing math and hard stuff - we're doing fun stuff!"  Ha. One the first day? Of course! :)

Dmitri said, "My teacher is very pretty and very nice!" Whew. Last year, his teacher was "very pretty and very mean." LOL

Now we'll just have to see how things go when they start doing the "hard stuff" and the teachers don't seem quite so nice anymore...

Letter to the Principal

Dear Ms. Xxxxxxx,

Overall, our experience with school for the kids has been good. They're progressing appropriately, and we see that the kids' teachers do very well, considering the failing national educational system we provide educators as a tool, but we do have a couple of concerns about issues not related to school performance.

1. The first concern involves Zoe and a school bus driver, Ms. S..., of Bus XX.

Zoe has been in trouble on her morning bus on more than one occasion (she seems to have far less trouble with the driver of the afternoon bus). I'm sure she breaks the rules sometimes, and should receive consequences that match her behavior and age. My concern here is that she reported to us that the bus driver told her, "Zoe, you're not good with people, so you have to sit up front." Dmitrios confirmed hearing this. Both Zoe and Dmitrios also have reported on many occasions that Ms. S... continually threatens Zoe, and other children, with bus tickets.

Whether Ms. S... used those exact words or not, Zoe has been emotionally and psychologically hurt by the bus driver's message. Giving the message to a little girl that she's "not good with people" and will be punished because of it is unacceptable and inappropriate.

As you know (and as anyone involved in the education of children should know, including school bus drivers) identity and self-esteem are in crucial stages of formation and development in the elementary grades. Zoe was very scared and ashamed to tell me what the bus driver said to her and she was crying because she didn't want to tell us that an adult authority figure believed and told her she was in some way a bad or flawed person.

Zoe, and any child at her age, trusts adult authority figures and will take what they say to heart. On school busses and in classrooms Zoe's curiosity and desire for social engagement may be inappropriate at times, but they should not be devalued and labeled as inherently bad or wrong.

Girls in our society have enough pressures to be something other than what they are without the added pressure of assaults on their identity and character in our education system. Order on the bus or in school should not come at the cost of any child's sense of identity and self-esteem.

While I'm certain that driving a bus load of children is a challenge on the best days, making threats and using inconsistent follow-through are two of the more ineffective ways to keep the chaos and disorder at realistic, manageable and safe levels when children are grouped in numbers and forced into spaces and situations, such as school busses and classrooms, that are counter to learning and healthy childhood development.

As a matter of fact, inappropriate and unclear expectations and consequences, coupled with inconsistent follow-through, is a disastrous combination for us and our children at all levels, parental, educational, social, legal and cultural. Seat belts on school busses would be a far better preventative solution and consistent message about safety and behavioral expectations on school busses for our children, but we have obviously chosen to put money (the cost of seat belts on busses) before children in our society, so we all have to live with the consequences.

The third Bus Conduct Report we've received regarding Zoe and her behavior on Ms. S...'s bus reports Violation of Safety Procedures, Excessive Mischief and Rude/Discourteous/Annoying, with OTHER COMMENTS: "Zoe horsing with R.A. this morning even when asked to stop many times. They were playing around taking hats off each other and causing a big disturbance while I was driving."

Zoe tells me that Mr. R.A. is older than her and often "picks on" her. This would suggest that an effective solution to the problem, instead of multiple verbal warnings that allow the problem to continue, might be to make sure that Mr. R.A. and Zoe not be allowed to sit near each other.

The evidence strongly suggests that Ms. S... has a personality conflict with Zoe. My own and my wife's experiences support such evidence. On numerous occasions we have suggested to Ms. S... that she let us know if there's a problem and we would address it. Not only has Ms. S... not reported to us that there is a problem, she has been Rude/Discourteous/Annoying to us in her lack of verbal response to our inquiries and her angry affect and mood directed at us. I don't think Ms. S... would fare much better than Zoe if Zoe were able to give Bus Driver Conduct Reports.

We have no problem with Zoe continuing on the same morning bus, nor would we have a problem putting her on a different bus. We will continue to give her the message that she must follow the rules on whatever bus she rides, whether she likes or agrees with them or not, but we will also be paying attention to the messages she receives, verbal and non-verbal, and we will let you know if we continue to see the same patterns and have the same concerns.

Please let us know how you intend to address the concern. It would also be congruent with the mantra of parental involvement that we be notified of Zoe's behaviors prior to us receiving a Bus Conduct Report via mail, and it would be sensible for the adults to confer together to resolve issues as good modeling for the sake of the children who will be leading and managing this society when we're too old to do so.

2. Another concern we have is that Dmitrios is getting the message that it is ok for others to push, hit, kick and bully him as long as they don't get caught, that he is not allowed to use force to defend himself, that he must tell a teacher or other authority figure at the school, and that when he does so the message he receives is, "If I didn't see it happen I can't do anything about it."

Dmitrios has reported on several occasions that "older boys" have pushed him down, shoved his face in the snow repeatedly, and hit and kicked him repeatedly, and that the issue was not addressed when he told a teacher or other school authority. Dmitrios is not a consistent target or victim of physical threats, aggression or bullying, but he has said on more than one occasion, "I don't want to get in trouble for fighting because my teacher told me I have to get hit 10 times before I can fight back, but I don't like being hit by the bigger kids."

Of course, we understand that the school does not think its ok for one child to initiate hurting another child, yet a Zero Tolerance policy effectively castrates all of us - children, educators, parents - by not allowing our children to learn in school that force is a last resort, but if necessary, needs to be employed wisely and effectively. We teach Dmitrios (and Zoe) to work towards compromise, that force is a last resort and that it can and should be avoided through verbal conflict resolution. We further teach our children that if they have to use force they should do so only to escape and prevent the perpetration of further aggression and violence on him/her and/or others.

We will not have our children believe it is ok for anyone to incidentally, continually, consistently and/or persistently threaten their safety or invade their physical boundaries. We will continue to teach them and give them the message (after reinforcing the difference between aggression and accidents that happen during physical play) that they should: 1st, walk away from the aggression and tell a teacher or other school authority; 2nd, if the aggression continues, they should attempt to compromise and work it out with the aggressor; 3rd, if the aggression pattern continues further they should verbally assert their physical boundaries by yelling “STOP” or “NO”; 4th, if the aggression pattern continues, they should fight back as hard as they can using physical force if they are being physically hurt and threatened, and then remove themselves from the situation and get help from a trusted adult as quickly as possible. My child's sense of self-esteem and safety are worth far more than the risk of suspension or expulsion from school, although it is wrong that such a choice is forced on parents.

If martial arts were mandated as part of our national curriculum our children would be taught non-violent conflict resolution skills, violence and aggression as a last resort, wise and efficient use of force, and the importance and practice of physical and mental discipline, fitness and health.

Zero Tolerance negates the learning of effective assertiveness while creating an atmosphere and environment in which aggression and violence are not appropriately addressed and The Law of the Jungle becomes the covert but primary message. The evidence shows that aggression and violence in schools have escalated despite Zero Tolerance policies. As we all learn in the kitchen and in cutting our lawns, a dull and neglected blade is far more dangerous and ineffective than a sharp and properly maintained blade.

Not only is a Zero Tolerance policy an ineffective way to establish and maintain a safe and realistically ordered learning environment, it is also counter to our personal, parental, and family beliefs and values and sets up an unnecessary and counterproductive conflict between us and the school, and between most parents and most schools, and can leave Dmitrios, and other children, in a state of uncertainty, distrust and confusion about their worth and safety.

Dmitrios should not fear punishment for using force to clearly set his boundaries with other children or people when they are threatening or physically invading his boundaries, and he should not have to deal with mixed messages between his parents and school authorities while at school.

It is interesting that our national position on school aggression, violence and bullying is so blatantly incongruent with our national position on how far out of the way we can send our military to kill others who have successfully killed some of in a vain attempt to prevent those others from killing any more of us, while at the same time we practice not physically defending defenseless people who are being killed at the genocidal level in places that don't have anything coveted by us. It is also interesting that both extremes, our tyrannical national position and our Zero Tolerance educational position, lead uselessly to even more ineffective and unnecessary violence and aggression.

Aggression and violence are part of life, and they will always be so, and it is a great disservice to our children to give them the message that they are incapable of being responsible for their own safety and the safety of others. It is a great disservice to effectively castrate our children and force them into victim mentality and behaviors.

Actually, Dmitrios handles these mixed messages very well. He's a very caring, kind and earnest boy. He's concerned with doing what's good and helpful. He asks us about these inconsistencies because he sees that they don't make sense and because he feels he's being told something different than what he knows is best. He has a good sense of self-worth and he knows that the underlying, if perhaps unintentional or misguided, message of the school is that rules and authority are more important than his safety, that he's incapable of judging when to use force, and that, if he does use force to stop someone from hurting him or someone else, the reason for his use of force was irrelevant and he is no different than those initiating aggression and violence. He knows, in his own 5-yr-old way, that he is being put in an inappropriate and unacceptable position.

This relatively minor, but important concern we have about our son, Dmitrios, is simply a reflection of the cultural message we are giving our children through our educational institutions, particularly to our boys, about their natural, good and valuable instinct for, and love of, survival, competition, and the importance and value of fighting for what's good and right individually and collectively.

We are raising generations full of more and more dull, neglected blades that are dangerous to themselves, our culture and the world. If we don't teach our boys how to temper their aggression into the capacity for assertiveness, physical and otherwise, in the service of what is good and life-affirming for themselves and the rest of us, they will continue to feel shame about their innate and valuable survival and competition instinct, conceal their weapons and go off half-cocked, trigger-happy and feeling powerless and castrated into a world that they see primarily as threatening and opposing to them. Culturally, we act shocked at the violence of our male youth, yet we are responsible for giving them little other choice. One definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different outcome.

We can see the results of this all around us in child and adolescent behavior: gangs, substance abuse, risky and abusive sex, teenage pregnancy, and the list goes on... And we can see what happens in our country (and world) when we allow adult males who see the world as an unsupervised playground through immature adolescent glasses that is either to be dominated or feared to lead us. The instinct that is expressed as destruction, aggression and violence in the world is the same instinct that protects and serves life.

As a master's level psychologist and psychotherapist working in this community I see the results in of this cultural and Zero Tolerance school problem in most, if not all, of the boys and male adolescents referred from schools or from the legal system into my services. I see the underlying identity and self-esteem wounds that our cultural messages cause boys. I see the pain, violence, defiance, anger, resentment, depression and destructiveness to self and others that is a result of the messages we give our boys. These messages should not be tolerated in our schools, yet we continue to perpetrate the very violence on our boys that we attempt to force out of them with our Zero Tolerance practices.

It would be wrong of me to allow my son to experience his father passively allowing him to be castrated, and it would be wrong of me to allow my daughter to experience her father in passive collusion with the perpetuation of a world filled with and lead by violent tyrannical mostly-male leaders.

If the cultural points I make seem out of proportion to the concerns we have for our individual children in one elementary school then it’s important to remember that, after the home, the schools are where our children spend the most time, and where they receive their earliest societal and cultural messages, and the schools are a reflection of our best cultural thinking and values on many levels besides education. That should frighten us all.

We are members of a growing group of parents who can no longer, in good conscience, allow our educational system and institutions to be the primary educators of our children. We have chosen to use school as a supplement to home education and we know that we do not have to depend on schools to educate our children. We also know that the institution and system are not necessarily a reflection on or of the talented and dedicated educators attempting to work within it. It seems to me you folks are losing the war through attrition and friendly fire.

Thank you for receiving our concerns.

Sincerely,

Michael & Dawn Mantas

Six Year Old Kisses & Underwear

Stop.

The.

Insanity.

A school suspended a six year old for kissing a second grader on the bus.

Yeah. Okay. This whole "zero tolerance" thing has gone way beyond any sort of common sense.

Just a few weeks ago, Zoe had an accident at school. They didn't call me - instead they just put a note in her backpack, changed her into the school's "spare" size 6X set of pants and underwear, and asked me to wash and return them in the note. Which was fine.

Except Zoe was going through her backpack on the bus and her underwear fell out. The bus driver found them, and she made a big deal of coming out to talk to me about it. When Zoe explained she'd had an accident in school, the bus driver backed down and said, "Oh, she didn't tell me that."

Did she think Zoe was flashing the other kids? What?

It just seems to me that the first reaction nowadays from schools (and anyone involved with schools) is an overreaction. Instead of using their heads, they let their fear lead them. A six year old kisses a second grader, a pair of underwear is found on the bus, and all of a sudden bells and whistles are going off? I understand being a mandatory reporter, and of course, if you discover real abuse, you should do something.

But something like this? Come on...

Life is complicated enough for adults, never mind the kids, without adding this sort of suspicion and stress. And when the adults in their world suddenly become wary of everything... it definitely makes things pretty confusing and bewildering for a six-year-old.

Where Do The Children Play?

I heard a statistic on the radio this morning.

What do only 20% of all middle schoolers have in common?

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Only 20% of them get recess.

When I was a kid, we had not one, but two recesses in elementary school. By the time I got to middle school, though, recess was out the window.

We're dealing with an "obesity epidemic" in this country, and yet we're chaining children to school desks - why? So we can later chain them to the desk in their cubicle?

What's wrong with this picture?

"Free play is slipping away from children’s lives. Yet time spent building forts or exploring outdoors, caring for animals, pretending or problem-solving with peers are now being shown by a wide body of research to be essential to healthy development, spiritual attunement, and emotional survival. Open-ended play in places that offer access to woods, gullies and gardens, ditches, boulders, and bike paths enhances curiosity and confidence throughout life. Play takes many forms. It may be best defined from within as a spontaneous human expression that relies on imagination and a sense of freedom. Players invent alternative contexts for conversation, visualization, movement, and interactions with real objects. They find release and involvement, stimulation and peace. Although play may arise anywhere, even in a cement cell, children are beckoned by the natural world to enjoy sensations of being alive."(Taken from the Where Do Children Play?" Website)

I'm glad we live in a place now where my children can go right outside my back door and explore the wide world of nature. They have a place to go to play that's safe, exciting and physically challenging. I don't worry that they're going to get kidnapped, or hit by a car or run into a drug dealer on the corner. I can look out my kitchen window and watch them build snow forts, climb trees, and play "sword fighting" with sticks.

I don't think I'll ever live in a city or suburb again. I guess I'm a convert! Not that there aren't dangers, of course. Including things like poison ivy and rattlesnakes (believe it or not.) But I've found that playing in the grass and picking flowers and collecting insects really holds their interest much more than being contained by cement and fences ever did.

Michael and I saw a wonderful documentary on PBS a few months ago that illustrated this point perfectly (and is the source of the quote above) - unfortunately, I didn't tape it, and they only showed it once! But they are bringing it back, and they are having special screenings of it as well. There's one in our area (sort of - it's a hike for us!) which I'm considering attending:

Where Do The Children Play
Detroit Screening
Wednesday, January 23, 2008.
Reception, film screening, and panel discussion.
Detroit Waldorf School, 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
For more information call 313-822-0300.

School's Out

We had a snow day this week, and I forgot what it was like having the littles home full time. They had a half day today, and now they'll be home until after the New Year.

When I was going to Weight Watchers with a friend (a million years ago) there was a group of us who would go out to eat afterward. (Don't even start on the twisted logic there, alright?) One of the women said she couldn't wait until her son started first grade the following year, because he'd be in school all day, and what a relief that would be! Then she asked me when mine started preschool, and I replied, "Oh, we're homeschooling."

You would have thought I had five heads.

But now that they're in school, and we're getting used to that whole thing, I didn't realize how much I missed them until they were home again all day during a time they were usually in school. Granted, I get a lot more done with them gone. Dusting, laundry and dishes can be completed without interruption.

But still... I have to admit. I miss them.

Am I strange, that I miss the endless interruption, the "Mom, will you tie this cape around my neck? I'm Super Anteater man!" and the "Can you put this (impossibly small and made for dolls whose arms actually BEND) shirt on my Barbie?"

Do most Moms simply wait for the day that the state relieves them of their charges for half the day? Am I the only one who finds that rather strange? *sigh*

Anyway, I'm glad we've got the next week together. They're building a dragon fort right now and they have all of Dmitri's firetrucks lined up outside the fort to put out the dragon's fire. Barbie's manning the hose. Can't wait to see what they're going to do with all the new Santa toys. Should be an interesting week!

Columbo's Indian Parts

Sometimes we have to gently correct the misguided or overly P.C. myths that public education still insists on teaching... and of course, our children's interpretations of them.

Dmitri climbed into bed with me this morning, all excited about their school's Thanksgiving Feast today and said, "My teacher says Columbo took a boat here so we'd all know the world is round."

"Well, sort of. His name was Christopher Columbus. And in 1492, the year he sailed to America, was the year the globe was first invented. We pretty much already knew the world was round."

(The first globe actually noted in history was the 1492 world globe made by the German map-maker Martin Behaim.)

"He discovered pilgrims."

"No, the pilgrims came over a different ship."

"Well, he discovered Indians."

"Yes, that's true." Sort of. I decided that we'd discuss ethnocentricity and the rape of the Native American people due to the forward domination of the Europeans later.

"There's another word for Indians and that's Native Americans."

Ahhh the P.C.ness of public schools. "That's right."

"Grandma says I'm part Indian."

"Yes, that's true." On his father's side. One of Michael's ancestors was a Native American princess of sorts.

"Which part?" he asked solemnly. "I think my toes are Indian. And this leg. Doesn't this leg look Indian to you?"

Immaturity: Caught on Tape

I have a camera phone. I never thought I'd have one (I couldn't imagine a use for it!?) but our cell phone network offered us a deal on new phones, and since mine had been broken for three months and Michael's cell phone case had just cracked, I decided to try them out. So far, I've taken pictures of the kids and the dog to put on my screen saver. That's about it. What else can I use it for, really?

Then I saw on the news this morning that a teacher in Arizona was recorded doing a cheerleading routine on a camera phone by a student in her classroom. The student then decided it would be fun to share and put the video on YouTube. The teacher was consequently put on administrative leave.

When I was in school, there were no cell phones. We weren't even allowed to use the phones in the office, unless we were sick. When I worked as a secretary to the assistant principal in a high school office, they didn't allow cell phones in school. I used to be in charge of putting confiscated phones in our office safe, where kids could get them if their parents came in with them, or they could collect them at the end of the year.

Now, though, the laws are changing. Kids are allowed to bring their phones to school, and their phones aren't just phones anymore--they're also cameras, both still and video. And apparently, high schoolers are much more creative than I am--they're definitely finding a use for their camera phones! Like recording their teachers without their knowledge and putting those videos on YouTube...

This is becoming a more and more common phenomenon. We've all had the experience of having some strange or funny YouTube video forwarded to us from someone. And you have to know, if you put yourself out there, you run the risk of someone calling you on your actions. For example, there was a teacher in Virginia who created art using his buttocks who was fired after he posted his method on YouTube and was identified in spite of his disguise.

But what about videos taken without a teacher's knowledge or permission? Here's another video of an angry teacher that identifies the school and the teacher by name. I have no idea if any disciplinary action was taken against this particular teacher--or if any of the other teachers listed when you search "angry teacher" on YouTube were discovered online and paid real life consequences for their surreptitious appearance on the net--but the question is, how are these clandestine videos being used to hold teachers accountable?

It's interesting to me that it's this particular video getting all the attention. Why? Because this is a young, attractive teacher performing a cheerleading routine? Because it has a slight hint of sex? So because some high school boy happened to record his wet dream on his cell phone, now we pay attention to what's going on in schools?

My god, are we that immature, as a culture?

If you take a look at some of the other videos listed under "angry teacher," you'll find much more inappropriate and shocking teacher behaviors. Teachers having fits, teachers throwing things, teachers out of control. Teachers who look like two year olds having tantrums.

What's wrong with this picture?

We have raised generations who believe it's perfectly okay--in fact, it's "normal"--to abdicate the responsibility of raising their own children, and have given that power to the schools. Most kids weren't really raised by their parents--they were raised by the public institution of schools, teachers, and their peers.

Where do kids spend a majority of their waking time? Schools. Who do they see more of: peers, teachers, or parents? Those three, in that order. Parents, especially working parents, see their children the least. Time spent makes a huge difference, and I think the concept of "quality time" is just a rationalization on the part of working parents. Quantity matters. What we see and do every day, that's what influences us. How can we deny that?

What results is that no one is personally invested in the development of each child. No one is the adult. Teachers are just doing a job. Schools themselves are bureaucracies. The two people who should be personally invested in the child--the parents--have the least influence and time spent. That leaves peers, who teach each other nothing about being adults, but rather perpetuate the endless infantalizing of one another, sustaining the selfish, narcissistic behavior of the child, generation after generation.

Is it any wonder we have teachers doing cheerleading routines in front of their students? "Look at me! I'm young and immature, just like you!" And we have students recording that behavior and putting it on the Internet to pass around like we used to pass notes to giggle over?

The school itself passes judgment and places the teacher, who is "supposed" to be the adult, on administrative leave. The bureaucracy plays the role of parent. And what have we all learned?

We aren't adults. We have no self-control. We're all children who need someone to tell us what to do.

Does this scare the hell out of anyone else but me??

Timing

So I'm paranoid and pick the kids up from the bus stop every day. It's not even a block. It's three houses. But around here, three houses seems like a long way.

When we lived in the suburbs, the kids played only in the backyard, because we lived on a pretty busy street. The cars flew down our street (and we had a school right across from us!) We had one of those speed capture things on our street practically once a month. Cops pulled people over all the time for speeding. But people still did it anyway.

Out here, though, while we have less vehicles, people actually go FASTER. Less traffic, more speed. They also don't stop at stop signs. Especially at night. They turn off their lights as they're coming to a stop sign, and if they don't see lights coming the other way? Well, they just keep going!

But even during the day, they go fast. And don't like to stop. And everyone out here owns a truck. So we're not talking little cars. These are BIG cars. One of these meets a five year old in the middle of an intersection, and it's just over.

In fact, enormous farm vehicles go down our street at least once a day. And when I say enormous... I mean, like, bigger than elephants. Like two elephants, maybe. I don't even know what these things are and definitely don't know what they do. I just know they're big, they're loud, and they go pretty darned fast for being so huge!

There's no sidewalks, the dirt roads are narrow, and I worry about the little ones making it home without going into the road. So I drive three houses down to the stop sign at the corner to pick them up. I know, how pathetic is that? I don't even walk... I DRIVE! I walked the first day, thinking I would teach them to walk home... but when Dmitri ran across the street to pet the neighbor's dog and Zoe tripped over a tree branch and fell into the road, I decided it wasn't the best idea in the world to let them walk yet.

The second day, though, Michael picked them up (I had a migraine and he happened to be home) and he drove down to the corner. The lightbulb went off in my head... hey! What a good idea! Granted, a lazy idea... but I'm all for lazy! So now I drive.

Only I never know when the bus is going to come for sure. They said at the school office the bus would be by at 3:30 p.m. But I waited and waited and they didn't show up until almost four! After a week of waiting there starting at 3:30 and waiting at least until 3:45 p.m. for the bus to show up, I finally started leaving later and getting there around 3:40. That seemed to work just fine.

Except the time, last week, when they called just as I was walking out the door to say, "The bus is waiting at the corner."

Wow. Now that's service. Boy, was my face red!

So yesterday, I pulled up and the bus was waiting there. At 3:40. Damn. My time gauge was clearly not working. So today, I left just a little bit earlier. When I pulled out into the road, I saw a bus in my rearview mirror. Which I thought was weird... because no school busses go down our road that I've ever seen? When I pulled over, the bus pulled up next to my van and sure enough... it was the kids' bus.

"We didn't have anyone else to drop off today," the bus driver said, pointing to the cross street. "So I was going to drop them in front of your house."

Doh! If I'd just waited a few more minutes! And... hey! They couldn't have called? What happened to that service?!

So I drove home (three whole houses) and stopped to pick up the mail (still in my car... I know I know, how lazy AM I, right?) where I found the second notice that the post office had attempted to deliver a package, registered mail from India (it's from Bookmooch) but I "wasn't home to accept it."

What!?!?

The ONLY time I left the house was the time it took to drive three houses away to pick up the kids from school! HOW could I have missed the postal carrier!? I didn't see the postal truck pass me, coming or going. (Out here, it's a red Ford F150 with an orange flag on the antennae. No, I'm not kidding.)

Out here, when there's a package, the postal carrier drives her truck up our driveway... and honks. She waits until I come out (so she doesn't have to get out of the truck... see, everyone out here is just as lazy as I am!) and then hands me the package and the rest of my mail. But I didn't hear anyone honk today?

The only thing I can imagine happened is she dropped off the mail and the notice in the scarce five minutes that I was down at the corner ushering kids into the car? Or... she shunted into another dimension to deliver the mail? Either way, the timing today just sucked!

Zero Tolerance

While I'm complaining about schools...

*ahem*

Back on my old MySpace Blog is the tale of my son, Blake's, felonious assault. Which actually ended up being reduced to something non-felonious. And considering what really happened, it should have just gone to mediation, and would have if my ex had been on the ball. Anyway, Blake's on probation, now, they imposed a curfew, and he has X hours of community service to do. He hasn't been in school since he was expelled, however. Apparently, my ex is having a heck of a time finding a school that will take him.

When I ask Blake what he does all day, he says, "I sleep and do chores." Do I believe him? Sure. And bigfoot is living in my backyard. With four game systems, a computer in the house and little to no adult supervision? I don't think so.

The ex hasn't called me once about anything. Including the original incident. Blake has basically kept me up to date about what's going on--which means I'm getting a filtered twelve-year-old's version of the truth. In fact, I just learned this weekend that Blake is finally back in school. The ex didn't bother to let me know that, either.

When Blake was here visiting last, he mentioned that he might have to be homeschooled because they couldn't find any schools in the area that would accept him. Public schools were out, of course. He was expelled from public school, and according to them, he had to be out of the district for 180 days before they would allow him back. So the ex and his new wife were on the phone looking for a school, and having so many problems finding one that they were even considering the last resort: homeschooling!

No, I didn't call the ex to remind him that, at one time, I begged him to let me homeschool the oldest two. I didn't ask him, "How many hours is your new wife going to spend homeschooling our son? Because when you told me you wouldn't allow your children to be homeschooled, you said it would require at least 6-8 hours a day per child." (That estimate was so far off base he wasn't even in the park anymore...) No, I didn't ask him if he was worried that our son would turn into some uneducated freak (which is what the ex claimed all the homeschooled kids he ever knew turned into.)

I just laughed at the irony... Blake was going to be homeschooled, and I was putting the little ones in public school.

Turns out, though, they did finally find a school. The ex was getting so frustrated, Blake said his dad finally threw up his hands and claimed, "I'm going to go down to that school board and tell them they can find a school for him! I pay taxes. They're the ones responsible for making sure my child gets an education. They're the ones who kicked him out, so they can find a suitable replacement!"

But I guess he didn't have to. Blake says he really likes his new school. There are only fifteen kids in his class (which is a better ratio than the little ones have in kindergarten! Theirs are 23:1 and 24:1!) It's an adjunct program in another school district (forty minutes or so away from their house, I guess) that was developed specifically because of these types of situations. These are all kids that have been kicked out of other schools because of their "zero tolerance" policies.

Meaning, for the most part, these aren't really bad kids. The stories I'm hearing about who is getting kicked out of school and why is beyond me. In Blake's case, just how can a government instituted "zero tolerance" policy extend beyond the bounds of the government institution in the first place?

It's rather strange and twisted when you think about it. When I was in school, you had to do something really bad to get suspended. Now they're suspending kindergarteners. No joke! When I was in school, to get expelled... you practically had to kill someone. Now, because of "zero tolerance," you can accidentally take a pocket knife to school, pull it out and show your friends off school property, and still get expelled.

Huh??

And it's only getting worse, not better. Since the "Bong Hits For Jesus" ruling by SCOTUS, schools seem to have gotten the nudge they wanted toward enforcing their in loco parentis rules, even when the "offending" student isn't technically within their authority. So because Blake was still walking home from school and hadn't quite reached his doorstep, the school had the right to expel him for an event that didn't occur during school hours or on school property? If Blake had stepped inside his door, come right back out, and then discovered the knife, would they have been able to expel him then?

When you look at the suspension rates going up in schools, when there are charter schools developing specifically to deal with the problem of educating the amount of children getting expelled due to zero tolerance policies, the question you have to ask is... are kids really getting so much worse, or is something else going on?

What came first, the chicken or the egg? It seems to me that the paranoia that has taken hold in schools is incredibly toxic and damaging. Fear has taken over rationality and schools are applying some twisted King Solomon judgment to every case, without any regard to individual circumstances. In other words, they're cutting babies in half, again and again and again, without even questioning anyone involved.

And my baby just happened to be one of the victims vivisected by public schools.

I was reading a discussion about the Bong Hits for Jesus case and came across this frightening argument:

The principal is charged with enforcing school rules. That's her job. Who else has an opinion that matters? Students? Should the inmates get to vote on the policies set forth by the warden? American schools exist to educate students about democracy, not to practice
it.

Wow. Indeed.

Students are inmates, principals are wardens. It's rather an apt metaphor.

And that last... Schools exist to educate about democracy, not to practice it.

What student, not given normal human consideration, not allowed their basic human rights, is going to later give that consideration to someone else? What, then, are we really teaching kids?

If we're instructing them in the basics of democracy, but instead of practicing those tenets in their environment, we implement an authoritarian dictatorship, we are going to create an entire generation who can't think for themselves and, while they may give lip service to freedom and liberty and democracy, will constantly be looking for some parental figure to tell them what to do...

Because everyone knows...

Children don't do as you say...

They do as you do.

School Daze

Well, there they go...

*sniff*

Never say never... isn't that what they say? Today is Zoe and Dmitri's first day of school--ever. Both of them are entering kindergarten, even though Zoe is six and Dmitri is five. We've been homeschooling up until now, but I've taken a very laid-back, unpressured and child-led approach, so when the principal said first-graders should know 10 sight words and be able to count to 100, I knew ours were both definitely kindergarten-bound.

Why did we decide on school? Well, for a few reasons. First, they keep asking to go. All the other kids go to school. Even Caillou goes to school, that little bald-headed weirdo. (I'm still surprised he's not wearing a hockey helmet...) Everywhere we go, kids are defined by their grade. At church, they want to classify the kids by grade. In stores, doctor's offices, outtings, people always ask them, "What grade are you in, honey?" The kids just give them blank stares. It kind of got to the point where I wondered if I was doing more damage to them by making them "weird" or "different" from other kids than school would do... I figure they'll be better able to decide later if school is something they really want to do, and if they decide it isn't, at least they'll have had the opportunity to know what they're missing.

Also, this is the last year I could sit on the fence, and I knew it. One grade behind isn't so bad (for Zoe) but two? Eek! So if we were going to do it, now would be the time. Also, considering we've been living on one salary since Zoe was born, two kids in school all day would free me up to find something to supplement our income, at least part time, if not full. So that was a consideration.

Of course, this isn't a final decision. We could decide it isn't working and pull them out mid-year. Ultimately, I'd like to start re-homeschooling them come 3rd grade or so. Kindergarten through second really isn't so hard on kids... it's more fun than work. Third grade is when I remember the change happening in my older ones, Autumn and Blake... the light went out of their eyes when it came to school and learning. Up until then, they were still pretty curious and interested in the world around them. That's the part I don't want Zoe and Dmitri to lose...

But for now... there they go.

*sigh*