2nd Grade

The kids have all gone back to school around here. Our District went back this week, which is also when the road work for the very little road that goes right into our neighborhood school's parking lot, started up, for some unknown reason. People, you had ALL summer to wreck the roads! I hate 3pm. . .8am doesn't effect me, because I'm not even awake, I don't care about the traffic then, but 3pm. . .that's like THE time I try to leave my house for the first time most days. Except now, it's naptime, and if we don't get that nap started between 3 and 4, then we don't get one at all and it's crazy lunatic 4 year old with a chip on her shoulder, who doesn't go to bed until everyone else does. At least she sleeps then, though!

Recently I've felt really negative about the entire institution of school, as a whole. You know, oddly, I loved my own schooling experience. I loved preschool and friends, Kindergarten with my yellow corduroy pants and peeing myself because I couldn't get the zipper undone in time. I loved laying on a mat in the dark, never falling asleep. . .this clues me in that I was at all-day Kindergarten. I loved little conversations with my dad when he'd pick me up from school, like the time the kids were teasing me that Scott Thomas was my boyfriend and my dad was all "He's a boy and he's your friend, so yeah, he's your boyfriend." I hated how Christopher was the king of losing teeth, literally, there was like a crown and there was a chart on the wall. . .and I didn't lose ANY! I think he was already 6 when he started Kindergarten though and I'm a "late in the year" birthday (just like my mom, my sis and both of my girls).

And then I headed into another private school, St. Edward's and I made best friends for a lifetime. And I remember in FIRST GRADE my BFF refused to talk to me one day because I swore like a sailor! And she was like "We shouldn't talk like that" and I did NOT care! And the next day we were all fine and dandy again. I don't think I can recount year by year, but I remember little things here and there. We moved towns and schools and TYPES of school when I was in 5th Grade. My first public school experience and it was a multi-level class for gifted students. Then another town and another school, but just one year. I was in 6th Grade and would move to Jr. High the next year. In all of our schooling, my sister and I, only 4 years apart, attended the same campus for only 2.5 years of our schooling. I had my first REAL crush in 5th grade, Martin. Before that it had been far too homogenous, I'd been in a class with the same 30ish kids for nearly five years before moving the first time. In 6th Grade I had my first boyfriend, Chris Ashlock, we lasted a whole week!

I'm in Jr. High now. . .crushes abound and I have a boyfriend, Mikey Peterson. I also find a lot of trouble, rap music and grounding. I move scenes in 8th Grade and chill with a lot of hippie types. Then we move again.

I loved high school. There was usual teenage angst, several pretty significant crushes, best friends, lost friends, friends who died, friends who moved, friends who loved, three boyfriends and a cap and gown. I loved high school.

I read all about school now and I think. . . I don't remember it being like that at ALL. . .I don't remember aggressive standardized testing. I felt free to explore creatively within my class. I didn't feel limited. I will say that in the early years, my life was similar to Alani's in that the kids I went to school with were the same kids year in and year out, there were not multiple classes for each grade. They were the same kids I would go to church with when we went to church and the same kids I played sports with, the same girls I was in Girl Scouts with, the same parents my mom knew from PTA too. I like that. I like that we were involved in so many facets of one another's lives. It wasn't like heading out to public school at 6 years old and I brought home kids my mom didn't know or asked to sleep over with families she'd never met. It was community. I feel similarly about my girls in their homeschooling community. . .I know the parents first and then the kids are friends, I don't send my kids off to play with people I don't know.

Is it because there is too much to read? Is it because there are too many opinions about how horrible schools and standardized testing are and how militant the system is? Or have things really changed? One thing has changed. . .I am not the one going to school. I don't WANT to send my kids out into that great wide world of unknown and injury and hurt. I don't want someone else to mold their minds all day long (peers as much as teachers). I don't want unknown influences from other parents, coming through their children, to enter into MY children's minds and hearts and ultimately into our home. I also hate getting up early! I hate 3pm traffic. Last year I remember always being SO relieved that I didn't have to wake a napping toddler in order to get her sister from school each day and this year I'm thankful I don't have to delay a toddler's need for naps in order to get her sister from school each day, or wake her early, or wake MYSELF early. I don't like that the ENTIRE TOWN is bolted to the floor by the school schedule. . .what people can do when, and at what time of year, how much homework there is and when dinner and bedtime must be. We could probably do with at LITTLE more order around here, and we're getting a handle on that. . .but the freedom is also so very important.

This year, we are starting 2nd grade. I was very lax when it came to 1st grade. I was working around a little scamp we call Henry, whom I really thought would not disrupt our day THAT much. . .boy was I wrong. And we were working around a little rapscallion we call Airi, who I knew would be a struggle, but didn't anticipate being quite as difficult. I think we're ready. . .I've even found something I think Airi will quite enjoy this year.

We'll start the day after Labor Day, because that's how we always did it, growing up :)