Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

How did this happen?

I caught the tiny, fleeting hint of apprehension

Then it was gone

And now I have three school children

And thus begins another battle against conformity, uniformity and bashing them into round holes

Wish us luck!

This time last year we were preparing for the school’s annual prize giving where my children were to receive no less than NINE merit awards between them, 5 for my daughter and 4 for my son. I was chuffed as a chuffed thing… blah blah. It’s nice that their hard work is recognised and the fact that half the school seem to get them doesn’t really bother me, or them, all that much. It’s about applying yourself innit? Having said that, thanks to some daftie teachers inability to point at the bi-annual CAT scores and say “You should be doing better” I know my kids are hovering at or near the top of their respective year groups. I’m pretty much of the opinion they don’t need to know this but meh, the “mistake” was made and attention was drawn to it, done and dusted.

This year they are getting nuttin’, nyada, nowt. And I’m confused.

How can my kids go from 5 and 4 merit awards to nothing in the space of a year? Does this mean that there’s something not going at all well with their levels of attainment? That’s some serious drop off if you ask me. No? Yes? What does it mean? Anything? Nothing?

And what do I do? I’m scared to raise the subject with them in case they think it really matters. Prizes, bits of paper from the school saying you’re better than a whole lot of others…. they don’t mean anything I have a stack of them myself. But that’s a BIG drop.

I’m wary of coming across as some hothouse parent with entitlement issues if I contact the school to ask but something just doesn’t feel right about this. There’s nothing in their report cards to indicate a problem, nothing at all, they’re doing great. So why are they suddenly off the prize list? It’s not like their awards have dropped off slowly as they specialised in subjects, nine to nothing is not a gradual thing is it?

What to do?

Ignore it?

Ask the school if there’s a problem (or two) they’ve forgotten to mention to me?

What to do?

There are good reasons why I write. I struggle with assertion, I’m really pretty abysmal. I usually come over quite aggressive (would you believe it?!?!?!) especially when I’m getting upset or passionate about a subject.

So I write.

I consider my words (most of the time). I vent, then edit, edit, edit my words into something bordering on the inoffensive (mostly).

Then I say my piece.

Do you know what I find really rude? When I write and the person I am entering into  a dialogue with chooses to return that contact by phoning me.

I don’t do phones.

When I’m on the phone I don’t stand up for myself, I go along with whatever, I’m a pathetic whimpering mush.

So I write.

When I have to deal with, especially raise concerns with, figures in authority, I write to them.

Is it too much to expect them to write back? I’m not after a stamp and a signature. I email so surely they can email back?

But no, it must be part of the training that they don’t put anything in writing. They phone you. No paper trail… pathetic mush parents going along with whatever.

It’s rude.

I find it rude and intimidating.

So my phone is OFF.

I’m hiding. And I want chocolate.

Relax

Stand up straight

And for crying out loud woman get the front step tidied up a bit before August!

We’re off to Paul’s new primary school to meet the teacher today.

No he doesn’t have to wear the uniform.

In fact I made him take it off just in case we lose him amongst the big boys.

I undid his (too big borrowed from Andrew) tie and he waved it in the air crying “FREEDOM!”

I think he’s going to be trouble….

As for me? I’m already shedding a tear at the thought of him starting school

Another pile of shirts to iron. Meh.

Two weeks ago I was a hair’s breadth away from home educating. I was that close.

Then I said no to a request from Paul for a Wagon Wheel breakfast he yelled that he hated me, thumped out and slammed his bedroom door (yes – four years old and slamming doors before his teenage siblings). I came to my senses.

The whole artificiality of school screams at me “Don’t do it!!”. If you were to observe our society from afar, rounding up its young and locking them inside high security buildings, filling their heads with information, lining them up, marching them in, marching them out, dressing them the same, testing them the same, controlling their access to anything outside school for most of their waking hours, well you’d be forgiven for confusing our offspring with our convicts.

Strangley the first thing most people point out that Paul would miss if here were to be home educated is the “social side”. What social side? There’s nothing natural about being forced to only interact with people born in the same 12 month period as yourself. Even now, at 43 and having left school 25 years ago, I STILL do a wee sum in my head when I meet new people and place myself and them according to our ages. Not hierarchically, there’s no implied power structure to it, I just do it because school categorised us thus from age 4 and it’s difficult to stop.

Just when I was almost settled on the notion and about to start looking for local home-ed groups, we had our placing request granted. We just made the cut-off date in applying. I’d seen some icky stuff at the local school earlier this year, nothing particularly terrible, nothing awful, nothing anyone but me would have complained about. But enough to make me realise that despite years of training and experience, there are just some people you wouldn’t leave your children with.

So he’s going to school in August (eeek!). Given that he won’t even listen to me when I try to stop him walking into immovable metal objects, I’ve decided for his sanity and mine someone else can teach him harder stuff than walking and talking.

I have now landed myself with 7 years of getting him to the other side of Perth over 3.5 miles away.

Did I once say I wouldn’t find something to moan about?

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This was originally posted on 1st July 2009 and has been recycled for Tara’s Gallery over at Sticky FIngers. This week the theme is The 7 Deadly Sins, and if you read on I’m sure you’ll get the gist of my entry. Normality will be returning just as soon as I get over the NINETEEN DAYS my darling offspring have just had off school. Actually, this post is timely since I do need reminded of a few things after NINETEEN DAYS at home with them!

As if I wasn’t proud enough with their 9 Merit Awards between them… see my daughter?

My daughter’s something else.

We found out the day before Prize Giving that Brian Soutar, that well know homophobic, pseudo-christian bigot was the invited guest speaker. The homophobic, pseudo-christian multi-millionaire bigot who bankrolled a private campaign against the Scottish Executive’s decision to overturn Clause 28.

The main argument used in support of Clause 28 was the claim that it protected children from ‘predatory homosexuals’ and advocates seeking to ‘indoctrinate’ vulnerable young people ‘into’ homosexuality (thanks Wikipedia).

As it was solely aimed at restricting what could and could not be taught and discussed in state school the “predatory homosexuals”  referred to could only be teachers.  Obviously homoexuals need to be watched, after all there are no straight sexual predators.

What a crazy choice of person to invite to a school prize giving.

Up until 4:30 I’d been under the impression I was going to be taking photos of the awards ceremony for my OH to make available for teachers to use, or the school video feeds, or to print off for any of the children who wanted their photo.  This was kaiboshed at 3:30 under some “child protection” issue. Don’t even get me started on that. By this stage I was all for not going  but was assured that Soutar would only be presenting the senior awards.  And that the bar would be open. Small compensation for having my first offer to take free photos cancelled… without a police disclosure I am clearly a predatory lesbian paedophile incapable of not posting every photo I take on the interwebtubes. Clearly.

Back to my daughter.

I’d given her a bit of background on Soutar and whilst she was keen to attend she was a bit outraged a man like that had been invited. How could she let that be known? Most of her friends didn’t know who the guest was and even when they found out they didn’t know anything about him. We toyed with wearing pink triangle badges but thought it might be a bit too “in yer face”, so I suggested she wear rainbows. You don’t have to be gay to fight gay prejudice. So she rainbowed it up good style.

From top

To toe

Soutar might not have got the point but I’m sure some people did.

I did, and I was so very very proud of her.

I never really gave a great deal of thought to what I wanted to “be” when I grew up. When I was around 14, in 2nd year of secondary school, we were asked to fill in a form about possible subject choice in 3rd year and one of the questions was, “What do you want to be?”. With hindsight I should have answered “thin and happy” since they are the two things I seem to have spent my adult live striving for. But no, I fancied myself as psychiatrist and that’s what I wrote down, impressed with my spelling ability if nothing else.

In the end I chose a strange set of subjects, Physics and Chemistry, Accounting, Engineering Drawing, French and Maths alongside compulsory Arithmetic and English. I crammed in History, Biology and Modern Studies in 6th year and my results saw me offered a place on a 4 year MA, Psychology course when I left school at 18. To be honest apart from skimming a beginner’s guide to Freud I didn’t given it much more thought then than I had at 14 and unsurprisingly it all went pear shaped within 3 months. Faced with the reality of independent study, statistics (yeugh!), maintaining friendships with my mates who all worked and living at home rather than in student halls… it was doomed from the start. Obviously I was destined for a career in computer programming.

Unike 14 year old me, some 14 year olds know exactly where they want to go in life. My kids tell me of classmates who know they want to be vets, lawyers or pharmacists, footballers, lottery winners or WAGS. A psychometric questionnaire indicated that my daughter’s strengths tended towards psychology, social work and teaching, and primary teaching has always been there or thereabouts when she’s talked about any future career. My son says he hasn’t filled it in yet.

My daughter surprised me, totally resistant to languages after 2 years of French she nevertheless chose it, along with a host of “traditional” subjects like History, Chemistry and Biology. She has a single aim, get into university, since MrW and I are discouraging her from narrowing her potential by studying primary education. She’s open to the idea of studying a subject she enjoys and is good at followed by a teaching qualification. Her desire to teach hasn’t really wavered in the 9 years since she first played at classrooms with her friends but there’s still time.

My elder son’s strengths are less evenly spread, but I think that could well be his own doing. I strongly suspect he’d be good at anything if he just decided to be good at it. It’s frustrating as a parent to foster that desire. For now he is toying with French and Italian, Music and Art, Chemistry and Computing. Talk about beating his own drum. I look at these subjects and try to imagine where they could take him, where these skills could lead him if he chooses to exploit them. I have visions of my TESOL qualified son travelling the world, ordering nut-free food in a multitude of languages, programming in Japan or Korea, busking on beaches with people of all nations… my imagination runs riot. Sometimes I share but my enthusiasm for this imagined future of his just gets me funny “Shut UP Mum” looks. So mostly I don’t.

Mostly I keep quiet and dream about where their lives could take them pretty much the same way I dreamt about mine.

And no doubt I’ll be just as wrong!

Did you map your future out at school?

Or like me, do you still have no idea what you want to be when you “grow up” and dream vicariously of your children’s future instead?