After doing some math, we're relaxing with books today since we're all feeling a little under the weather
For those of us who have had our children in the public school system at some point, it is really, really hard not to draw comparisons, isn't it?
(Post Edit: this turned out to be one of my world famous ranting posts. If that's not to your taste, please choose a different post to read today) I can't help myself, and I realize that it probably makes me sound very elitist and intolerant. OK, so maybe I am on some levels. Before I give you an example of a comparison, I'd like to sidetrack a little bit and go into a little more detail about us pulling DS9 out of school...
DS9 read all three of these graphic novels today - officially reading more books in one day than his classroom read together all year so far (three full months into school, going on four).
As you all know, I've homeschooled DS9 since I pulled him out of kindergarten about 5 months into the school year. We only recently put him into school because we moved to a new area and I hadn't been able to find any resources and/or groups for local homeschoolers. Basically, I didn't want the kids to be lonely. I knew academics was going to be hit-or-miss, but I was prepared to supplement their educations if needed in favor of having other kids around them.
Well, after a few months of my son coming home each day and telling me that he feels really lonely in his classroom, I knew we had to consider a change (it was a very cliquey room, and to be honest my son is a rather sensitive boy who prefers genuine, soul-full connections to the superficial (and often cruel) interactions of some kids.)
We brought the matter up to his classroom teacher - who literally said "Just because he doesn't connect with the other kids, I really don't see a problem. He's a great student who always does his work and never acts out in class...I wish I had 10 more like him".
Oh sure, it's great that he's unobtrusive during lessons, but how is that helpful to *him* if he's incredibly unhappy because he's not really making any friends? She couldn't see the problem, and therefore was unwilling to even consider any kind of interventions.
Look, I know my kids, right? If I, as a parent of one of your students, come to you with a concern like this, you don't just brush it off.
It takes a lot to come in and say "Hey, my kid is really unhappy because he doesn't have any friends".
We waited three months to bring it up, trying to give him some tips and pointers at home...attending several school activities with him to observe (and participate, of course), etc. We finally realized that we needed some help...HE needed some help. It was no longer just that he was the "new kid". He was coming home every day very, very DEPRESSED.
If you have an anxious and melancholic child (Steiner would probably label him as "Melancholic", for those of you familiar with Waldorf terms) then you know exactly what I'm talking about. This isn't just "simple sadness" or "simple loneliness" (although, why don't we give those two terms any respect as well??). This was a deep and abiding depression that was not going away.
The more depressed he got, the more kids seemed to avoid him (which is understandable). What more could we have done? The school does not have a psychologist. It is a school of only 77 students for grades K-8!!!! It doesn't even have a full-time nurse - there is one that visits, who travels around to area schools all week long. It's not as though we could have gotten him a school counselor, since they don't have one. The closest child psychologist is over 45 minutes away, and there is literally only ONE that serves this entire area of about an hour radius around the office location.
With no resources, we had to rely upon the teacher to be willing to try (for example) some team-building activities to help DS9 feel a part of the group. She could have assigned him a buddy, she could have organized games outside at recess (which is where he felt the most isolated from his classmates). I realize that would have taken away from her precious break time, but honestly! I am a former educator myself, and I can tell you with ALL honesty that I would happily give up a few recesses if it meant helping a student become better integrated with his classmates. In. A. Heartbeat.
The fact of the matter is: she didn't see the problem, and seemed only concerned with whether or not a student was disruptive to her lessons. Who cares about the mental health and well-being of the children as individuals?? So long as they sit quietly, then she's fine and feels no need to help find a solution to a very real (and very important) problem with an individual student.
This, my friends, is part of what is wrong with our system. YES, there are some great and caring educators out there (I know, because I was one of them). There are, however, too many instances where teachers just feel the need to stick to the script and are not able or willing to deviate for any reason (whether it is to have a creative and non-traditional day of game-playing (rather than sitting in desks in rows being lectured at), or whether it is to attend to individual student issues).
Just stick to the script and prepare these kids for their standardized tests, right?
WRONG
That was NEVER the kind of educator I was (and am), and YES, I *DO* judge those who don't have at least the BASIC amount of compassion and empathy for their students.
I *DO* judge educators whose only focus is crowd control and shoving "busy work" at their students...and often it is "busy work" that does very little in the way of inspiring retention and/or actual learning. In other words: students complete the assignments just to get them done, and then they move on to the next one.
I *DO* judge educators who also accept a dumbed-down version of work, simply so they can mark in a grade book that the work was "completed".....this last bit brings me to the example I alluded to much, much earlier before I got off on this sidetracked tangent...
So, last year I had begun in earnest a system of writing whereby DS9 puts his writings into a Main Lesson Book. I've discussed these before many times, but feel free to Google: Waldorf Main Lesson Books and you'll see (in general) how they work.
When he would run his words together, I would have him use a different (colored ink) pencil to make little dots in between his words to help him remember to put spaces in there.
Well, apparently this "highly educated and highly specialized teacher" was...what??...never given the tools to help students with this spacing issue? She's not intelligent enough to look up ideas on it if she didn't get instruction on it in college??? (And I know for a fact that elementary educators ARE taught how to address that issue in college, but let's just assume she went to a sub-par college that forgot to discuss that very important writing stage in many children's development).
DS9 would come home with not only a two-sentence response to an assignment that was labeled "Please write at least a paragraph discussing your response to whether or not the protagonist was justified in his/her behaviors" (as an example), but the words would be one long chain of letters strung together, no spaces whatsoever, not to mention the fact that often his responses were akin to "I'm not sure. He just wanted to I guess."...and he knows he would never have been allowed to be so callous (and lacking in demonstration of critical thinking skills) with his responses when he was home schooling with *ME* as his "teacher"!!!
I didn't say anything to his teacher about this, because I wanted to see how long she was going to allow this to go on before she tried to correct him. Clearly, she never did try to correct him, since the papers he brought home (three months into school) were the exact same quality as the very first ones at the beginning of the school year.
We were already near the point of pulling him out of school anyway by that point, so it didn't make sense to make a fuss about this particular item, but does demonstrate that clearly his teacher is not concerned with the *quality* of his work, but rather that he quietly does it and passes it in without disrupting anyone. It seems to suggest that she's just happy her students attempt to do the work, rather than trying to get them to do it correctly.
I was more than a little miffed that it seemed that all of my hard work with him at home (to get him to write more legibly, with longer paragraphs, well-thought-out responses, and spaces between his words) seemed to have been for naught!!!
The good news? His first writing assignment for me was done in legible handwriting with thoughtful responses that had colored dots in between the words. Yes, I did discuss this with him before he did his assignment, just as a disclaimer. The point I'm making is that if you show your students (or children, in the case of homeschooling) that you don't care about the quality of their work, or that their individual needs are not important to you (and that you only value them when they are quiet and stay looking "busy"), then you are not going to get quality work out of the child. You will not tend to have students who are intrinsically motivated to do their best work, and as a result there will be retention issues (and what is the point of an education if children don't retain anything they are presented in school???)
The students also then get the message that they do not matter as individuals.
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The secretary at the school (unlike the very kindly secretary at the last school he attended) seems rather..."put out" with me right now. She's been "polite" enough, but there is definitely an undertone of irritation and judgement. She's made it clear by her insincere and probing questions that she's not genuinely interested in our homeschooling journey, or in DS9's needs, but rather she is digging up dirt to gossip with during staff lunch breaks.
Why do school educators and staff take it so personally when you pull your child out of school? It is because they don't want to admit that the system has so many flaws. They don't want to look at the fact that, for this child that is withdrawing (for whatever reason) they have FAILED in some way as a school.
This school FAILED MY SON. We did everything we could on our end, and even ASKED THE SCHOOL FOR HELP, but we were blown off. Our son's issue was deemed unimportant (she literally said she didn't see the problem) and therefore it was not addressed. There were NO measures taken to try to rectify the situation, no ideas tossed around, no investigation to begin the brainstorming process...NOTHING.
Instead, they rolled their eyes, made their judgements, and watched us walk out the door with our son. THEY LEFT A CHILD BEHIND.
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We are fortunate that we can financially afford for me to stay home with our kids, not to mention the fact that I have the desire and skills to homeschool them. Other families are not so lucky. What about other children who may be going through a similar situation? Their parents must feel the same heartache, but yet they have no recourse. They may be unaware of the option of homeschooling, unable to homeschool, or afraid of the stigma they will have attached to them by their friends, family, and community if they pull their children out to try something as radical as educating their own children at home.
I don't agree with full-on "radical unschooling", but you know what? I'd rather have children be "radically unschooled" and miss a few things and be HAPPY, finding their own paths in life and discovering what works for THEM, than to have them stuck behind a desk in rows in a system where they are not seen as individuals deserving of caring, empathy and support.
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We do provide structure to our children's education, and I've discussed in previous posts how we marry some structure with some child-led elements to create a balance that works for our family.
That really is the crux of it, isn't it?
Each family is an individual entity, as are the individuals within it.
Our school system failed our son (again).
So, they can look at me askance all they want when we come into the building for activities. I realize it is a hit to the ego to realize that maybe more could have been done, but they were unwilling/unable to do so and are therefore projecting blame onto us as parents for something that happened on THEIR watch under THEIR roof every day.
I get it to some degree: no one wants to upset the apple cart to admit their system (and the individuals within it) is riddled with flaws that need to be addressed.
I take full responsibility for what happens here at home, and we have done our best to try to rectify the very uncomfortable situation our son was in at school (which fell upon deaf ears).
They want to look at me like I'm a weirdo for leaving that "wonderful" situation in which my child was so utterly miserable? Go for it, folks. My son't happiness means far more to me than any sideways glances you might muster whenever you see me.
** end rant **
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