Elementary school: Bad enough the first time!
First an update on The Fight. You wanna know what the offending nailholes were for?
A smoke alarm. The same smoke alarm that I removed several days before when I thought I was going to paint but didn't and then, in the heat of battle, I stupidly forgot that the nailholes were for the smoke alarm which I had, in preparation, removed, which would have been real sweet to remember right at the moment that I was being accusingly questioned about them. I made up for it somewhat by calling husband at work and saying, all shrilly-like, "You know what those nailheads were for?! The SMOKE ALARM!!!" It was funny.
So, I just finished reading Burb's saga of first grade book loss and teacher judgment and half expect that Burb and Burb's wife are having the same "ACH! Not prepared for class!!" anxiety dreams that I am having. Read all about it here: www.whywontyougrow.blogspot.com. I have my own tale of first grade woe to share.
Stevie has homework every night. We are supposed to sign his homework, attach it to his planner, and send it in his backpack. We do this with great conscientiousness. On Thursday night, Stevie wrote his upper- and lower-case ABCs very neatly, and I signed in the bottom right-hand corner. Witnessing my John Hancock he chirped, "Now I won't miss recess."
"WHHHHAAAAAA?!?!?!?!?!" I said, calmly, in my mind.
Turns out that Stevie had missed 5 minutes of recess (out of a meager 30) on Wednesday and 10 minutes that day because we hadn't signed his homework! Now that's a bunch of bullshit, as there it was, last night's homework (write numerals 1-50) with my signature right there in the bottom-right hand corner!!! Now, I hadn't signed the previous night's homework because there was nothing to sign--it was reading a book and something else unsignable. I thought, "I should have signed the planner. Shit." I've signed it before, and something in my mind was saying that we were supposed to sign the planner, but I've signed just his homework, too, and that seemed fine. What's happening!? I'm losing control! He, he, he DID do his homework! He always does! He even does extra sometimes, and we did the suggested summer bridge activities, and we're good at this, I swear, and our kid is going to learn good work habits and not screw up in school like I did and, and, I'm starting to hyperventilate!!!
After trying to pull the story out of Stevie on all homework interactions to this point and how every classroom procedure involving homework works, in detail, we decided we would just call Mrs. S and see what was up. Unlike the Kindergarten teachers, first grade teachers are smart enough to not include any contact information in the freakin' first grade booklet, so we were lost, stranded in a cloud of anxiety and confusion until we could call the school the next day and find out why our baby, our sweet little guy, was being denied precious recess time (he must've been so sad! so dejected!) TWICE for something that OK, we didn't do one night (but he DID do the work) and something that we DID do the second night and she just failed to see it! Why didn't she write a little note in the planner to remind us that we are supposed to sign the planner, which they probably said at some point during orientation, and by the way, we were the ONLY parents to sign up to volunteer in the classroom and we accepted the challenge of providing "red" treats on the very first day and doesn't this entitle us to a little note? Geesh!
There's something else, too. The library at school is having a contest. Read a library book, fill out a little "watermelon book review" thing, and the class with the most watermelons filled out gets a party. OK, fine. The first week the book came home, we read it, and filled out the review. The next day another library book comes home, we read it, but we didn't have a watermelon to fill out. I don't know why it's a watermelon. So we write a note in the planner--"please send more watermelon review sheets". We get one about the same time that we realize that the second book was from the class library--not the school library. Does this book count? We go ahead and fill out the extra watermelon.
That same fateful Thursday that created so much blogger fodder (we had our fight that same night--surprised?), we also get a note from the librarian:
"To the parents of Stevie McClary" (so much for informality)
(paraphrased and edited) The students get ONE library book per week. Unless you lost one, I have no idea why you would need extra watermelon sheets. (Implied) Are you trying to RIG the reading contest???
Yes, that's exactly what we were trying to do. So I wrote a note back. 'We didn't realize that the books he was bringing home were class as opposed to school library books. We were not trying to rig the contest (wink!).' Ha ha.
But why so cold, Ms. Librarian? Teacher? Where's the benefit of the doubt? Why do I feel such resistance to my efforts to keep my kid prepared and happy about school and to support the "school community"?
OK, maybe it's not all that bad, but I can sympathize with Burb. It's really fun to see your child in his own element. He's growing up, he has some friends, he's up to par in class. He has a world outside of us. However, when there are issues in that world that your 6-year old doesn't know how to handle, it can really bring out the inner grizzly. After my initial charge, I tend to lighten up. Being a person who has hiked in grizzly country, that's not very comforting. I'll have to learn to deal with my kid's occasional failure or social snubbing, him being treated in a less-than-just way, with him forgetting his planner on Friday (!?) and missing some recess today. Probably.
But when he's six, I'll give myself a free pass to maul every once in a while.
A smoke alarm. The same smoke alarm that I removed several days before when I thought I was going to paint but didn't and then, in the heat of battle, I stupidly forgot that the nailholes were for the smoke alarm which I had, in preparation, removed, which would have been real sweet to remember right at the moment that I was being accusingly questioned about them. I made up for it somewhat by calling husband at work and saying, all shrilly-like, "You know what those nailheads were for?! The SMOKE ALARM!!!" It was funny.
So, I just finished reading Burb's saga of first grade book loss and teacher judgment and half expect that Burb and Burb's wife are having the same "ACH! Not prepared for class!!" anxiety dreams that I am having. Read all about it here: www.whywontyougrow.blogspot.com. I have my own tale of first grade woe to share.
Stevie has homework every night. We are supposed to sign his homework, attach it to his planner, and send it in his backpack. We do this with great conscientiousness. On Thursday night, Stevie wrote his upper- and lower-case ABCs very neatly, and I signed in the bottom right-hand corner. Witnessing my John Hancock he chirped, "Now I won't miss recess."
"WHHHHAAAAAA?!?!?!?!?!" I said, calmly, in my mind.
Turns out that Stevie had missed 5 minutes of recess (out of a meager 30) on Wednesday and 10 minutes that day because we hadn't signed his homework! Now that's a bunch of bullshit, as there it was, last night's homework (write numerals 1-50) with my signature right there in the bottom-right hand corner!!! Now, I hadn't signed the previous night's homework because there was nothing to sign--it was reading a book and something else unsignable. I thought, "I should have signed the planner. Shit." I've signed it before, and something in my mind was saying that we were supposed to sign the planner, but I've signed just his homework, too, and that seemed fine. What's happening!? I'm losing control! He, he, he DID do his homework! He always does! He even does extra sometimes, and we did the suggested summer bridge activities, and we're good at this, I swear, and our kid is going to learn good work habits and not screw up in school like I did and, and, I'm starting to hyperventilate!!!
After trying to pull the story out of Stevie on all homework interactions to this point and how every classroom procedure involving homework works, in detail, we decided we would just call Mrs. S and see what was up. Unlike the Kindergarten teachers, first grade teachers are smart enough to not include any contact information in the freakin' first grade booklet, so we were lost, stranded in a cloud of anxiety and confusion until we could call the school the next day and find out why our baby, our sweet little guy, was being denied precious recess time (he must've been so sad! so dejected!) TWICE for something that OK, we didn't do one night (but he DID do the work) and something that we DID do the second night and she just failed to see it! Why didn't she write a little note in the planner to remind us that we are supposed to sign the planner, which they probably said at some point during orientation, and by the way, we were the ONLY parents to sign up to volunteer in the classroom and we accepted the challenge of providing "red" treats on the very first day and doesn't this entitle us to a little note? Geesh!
There's something else, too. The library at school is having a contest. Read a library book, fill out a little "watermelon book review" thing, and the class with the most watermelons filled out gets a party. OK, fine. The first week the book came home, we read it, and filled out the review. The next day another library book comes home, we read it, but we didn't have a watermelon to fill out. I don't know why it's a watermelon. So we write a note in the planner--"please send more watermelon review sheets". We get one about the same time that we realize that the second book was from the class library--not the school library. Does this book count? We go ahead and fill out the extra watermelon.
That same fateful Thursday that created so much blogger fodder (we had our fight that same night--surprised?), we also get a note from the librarian:
"To the parents of Stevie McClary" (so much for informality)
(paraphrased and edited) The students get ONE library book per week. Unless you lost one, I have no idea why you would need extra watermelon sheets. (Implied) Are you trying to RIG the reading contest???
Yes, that's exactly what we were trying to do. So I wrote a note back. 'We didn't realize that the books he was bringing home were class as opposed to school library books. We were not trying to rig the contest (wink!).' Ha ha.
But why so cold, Ms. Librarian? Teacher? Where's the benefit of the doubt? Why do I feel such resistance to my efforts to keep my kid prepared and happy about school and to support the "school community"?
OK, maybe it's not all that bad, but I can sympathize with Burb. It's really fun to see your child in his own element. He's growing up, he has some friends, he's up to par in class. He has a world outside of us. However, when there are issues in that world that your 6-year old doesn't know how to handle, it can really bring out the inner grizzly. After my initial charge, I tend to lighten up. Being a person who has hiked in grizzly country, that's not very comforting. I'll have to learn to deal with my kid's occasional failure or social snubbing, him being treated in a less-than-just way, with him forgetting his planner on Friday (!?) and missing some recess today. Probably.
But when he's six, I'll give myself a free pass to maul every once in a while.
posted by lulu | 7:20 AM
1 Comments:
Another great family saga unfolds, complete with social critique, self-deprecating humor, and the Inner Grizzly. Maybe it was the full moon Thursday, maybe it's in the syllabus for first-grade parents, maybe it's the time of year and maybe it's the time of man. The thing is, the teacher and librarian don't even know they're being rigid, narrow, and unhelpful Christofascists.
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