I took a tour of the school today that we are most likely sending Torie. The grammar of that sentence sounds weird to me but I’m going to keep going.
Observations:
School is crazy. How do kids sit for so long? Go all day with only a few sips of water? Now that I’m used to homeschool and all the movement, water breaks, real-food snack breaks, basketball breaks, running breaks, Mozart breaks, jumping jack breaks…how do they do it? 8 hours a day. 5 days a week. PE only twice a week and a mediocre playground. No wonder kids get diagnosed with ADD. I had ADD and I was actually walking around on a tour.
School kids can perform on command. All the parlor tricks. Counting and singing in Chinese. Immediate group response to a clapping rhythm to get everyone’s attention. Saying “Hello” in 3 languages. Being silent when the teacher is disappointed that they weren’t perfectly behaved when something interesting is finally happening (i.e. a mom and 2 kids on a school tour interrupted their Chinese dragon coloring/cutting project.) I know it’s good and real that they have learned these things, but it felt so forced.
Technology is weak. I don’t imagine many schools (even the best ones) can afford to keep up with the rapid changes in technology. We were told that the kids, by the time they reached the older grades, would learn how to make Power Point presentations. That’s an archaic selling point. I mean, most Kindergarteners at our prospective (private) school have grown up knowing how to use the web, burn a CD, download a new app to an iPhone, and now, just ask Siri to get information. Their future jobs haven’t even been invented yet, and the technology landscape is changing so fast that it seems insane to sell me on a classroom full of desktop computers and Power Point for 8th graders working on a research project.
On to more crazy:
I met with the 2nd grade teacher to talk about Tanner. I respect her. I know her. Her own kids are bright. She must have some insight, right? She asked me where he is academically and then pretty much told me I was doing him a disservice by “accelerating” him. Ugh. No one understands my kid. She said, “90% of my class is as bright as Tanner.” No they are not. According to my research, in a school of 500 kids, 1 kid with Tanner’s IQ will enter every 20 years. The school’s only been open for 12 years. It’s pointless to argue.
Oh, she also said, “My own kids are super bright, but I want them to be bored and understand being bored, so they are prepared for the real world.” Not the first time I’ve heard that one. But why is her real world boring? Mine’s not. Never. Not boring. I don’t sit around waiting for life to happen. I make things happen. I’m learning, working, loving, teaching, creating, thinking, experiencing…I’m not bored. Dan’s not bored. But we’ve been making our own way. We’re not sitting at desks in offices being told what to think and do. I don’t really want to prepare my kids for that lifestyle either.
Argh. What to do? I’m sending Torie to Kindergarten. I want her to learn her prayers, practice good handwriting, understand what it’s like to be part of the system…and then…well…we’ll see.
