Parents, teachers, and friends, I need you to tell me what you think of that move.

Here’s the background:

I have the feeling that my kid has been put in the ‘rough’ class several times now, probably because she can fend for herself academically and assertively.  Talking to parents whose children are in other classes in my daughter’s grade has confirmed it: They’re having a lot more fun. There’s always a ‘rough’ class. How do you know if your kid has landed there this year? Count the rings under her teacher’s eyes. 

But it’s a teacher conflict too. We all have a story about that teacher, who seemed miserable and possibly scared the #$%@ out of us in grade school. Mine had a foot-shaped hole in the tile floor where it was rumored she had screamed and stomped her foot so hard that it Broke. The. Floor. She supposedly left it that way as a grim reminder to future students that things could get UGLY. 

The elder offspring’s 2nd grade teacher has decided that whole-class punishment is her classroom management tactic. Several times now, all the kids have missed recess as punishment for bad behavior. Yes, like when we were in school. Although for me, that was the 80’s and I don’t remember much of this happening. 

Although I (empty) threaten individual students with this consequence sometimes (actually quite effective), I disagree with this policy on several levels:

1. Though occasionally necessary, regularly punishing the whole group is unfair and bad for morale.

2. These are 7 year-olds. They need recess. If you make the mistake of keeping 7 year-olds from running outside and being crazy, you might as well feed Gremlins after midnight, because that’s what you’re gonna get. 

Cute before you make a giant mistake. Just like 2nd graders. It will be a loooong afternoon.

The kid has been a little down about this. I am extremely tempted to be that mom and email the teacher, questioning her policy and telling her my kid doesn’t like school. It’s not the academics. It’s not for lack of friends. It’s this feeling that she’s in a “bad class”, that needs to be punished all the time. Additionally, a few times her librarian has also denied the whole class the chance to take out new books, because of ‘bad behavior’ in library class.

So one (tearful) night the elder offspring was bemoaning her class’s situation. I asked her if she was very, very sure that she was not part of the problem. She may have inherited my inability to shut up in class, how do I know? I suggested that she do something more productive than complaining to Mommy, like writing a R-E-S-P-E-C-T-ful letter. Writing is her thing, and mine. With email and texting and handwritten words like that above, you can think about how to phrase important things…as opposed to the “word vomit” that usually comes out of my mouth. #meangirlsreference This way, I could monitor her, uh, “tone”, too.

I let the kiddo give that letter to her teacher, and she got no response. For what it’s worth, that day they had recess but the next day, they missed it again. As a teacher who has been questioned many times by parents myself, the next-to-last thing I want to do is undermine another educator. I’m playing it cool and wondering exactly how bad this class really is, till conferences. I can’t wait to hear the teacher’s side of the story.  It’s not that big a deal; this may just be the year my daughter isn’t in love with school. Or, I may have to grow some Mommy balls.

The last thing I want, of course, is for my kid to hate school. At least until she has to take Calculus. Then it’s genetically inevitable. 

So, I’m curious: (Comments very appreciated!)

• What do you think of the policy?

• What do you think of the letter?

• What would you ask at conference time, if this were your kid?

This quote and stunning portrait of Secretary Duncan popped up on social media last week. It’s from his speech during a 2009 visit to a Brooklyn elementary school. It is, of course, taken out of context here.  But that just means it’ll fit right in with every other quote on the internet, ever. Here’s a post about Mr. Duncan addressing the “educational crisis” in this speech.

He seems to be claiming that you can tell where kids will end up, higher education-wise, because of how they’re testing in second grade. Reading this on a friend’s wall, I actually said aloud,  “You leave my second grader ALONE, Arne!”  Yes, that’s a tad dramatic, but Arne is a fun name to say aloud.

Though well-meaning, this is some serious oversimplification, and rhetoric to sell the need to test small children.  I teach K-5 and let me tell you: By second grade, a couple of them haven’t even really mastered holding a #2 pencil yet, let alone having one help decide their future.  In second grade, they’re about 8 years old. Meaning that every bit of their little life has occurred in a shorter time than Seinfeld was on the air. Just let that sink in.

No, Arne, we should not.  I mean, I can totally pick out the future trophy wives by the time they’re leaving 5th grade, but that’s as cynical as I’ll allow myself to get as a teacher.

Let’s put aside the fact that college is not the right path for every person in the first place. We’ll also try to excuse the elitist undertones in his poor choice of the phrase “good college”.  Although I would never rule it out, I have no iron clad plan for Ivy League schools in my children’s futures. Arne would probably not approve.

But I do have my own second grader. Right now she is, if I may brag, one of those kids who is intrinsically motivated to learn and madly in love with reading and writing. She also thinks practical applications of Math is “neat”. Sadly, her school is already test-happier than I’d like them to be.  Last Thursday night she gloomily announced that she had three the next day. My kid is 7, but she’s known for years how to fill in test bubbles because how-to-take-a-test knowledge is woven into their little homework sheets each night. This is the direction that education is moving, and it’s quotes like Arne’s up there that point to the cause.

I think we’ll be lucky; my kid will still love reading and writing and (dare I wish it) probably even Math when all is said and tested.  Others definitely won’t be so lucky.

I’m fortunate enough to work for a school district that still clings (some years by its fingernails) to the ideal of growing the whole child. The humanity, not just the testable parts. The arts are still offered, and the students have easy access to artistic and performing groups within their regular school day. I’ve also had a close view of others that weight the tested subject areas doubly in the student schedule, and jam in some test-prep classes for good measure. If scores go up, on paper, it looks like students are learning, and all is supposedly right with the world.

A September article in the Washington Post explains what this emphasis on testing does in lower-income districts. The arts, proven for years to improve acquisition of testable knowledge and life in general, are not offered to all students equally. As the Post article states, the kids who need arts education the most are often the ones not receiving it, as their “failing” schools opt instead to focus energy and funds on performance of a much less humanistic sort. Non-tested subjects (and sometimes, the people who teach them) are not valued, because frankly, there are tests to take. And there are no mandated score growth objectives for Art and Music that relate to the school’s status or funding. Do not get me started on the concept of punishing failing schools by removing funding. I kick stuff when I get angry, and I presently not wearing any shoes. Ouch. 

I’m sure we’ll find other sources of funding somewhere.

However, in a quote from August 22,d 2014, Mrs. Duncan said, “[I]n too many places, it’s clear that the [testing] yardstick has become the focus.” And, “No school or teacher should look bad because they took on kids with greater challenges. Growth is what matters. No teacher or school should be judged on any one test, or tests alone — always on a mix of measures.”

 Am I nuts, or does this sound more reasonable?  What a different tune he’s singing than the one usually sung by those who legislate education reform. Probably because somebody reinstated the choir program that got cut in 2009? This is also coming from someone who had an idea (test the crap out of kids to prove we’re teaching something), ran with it, and found it wasn’t working exactly the way he planned. Could it be, after some hands-on experience and trial and error, he’s acquiring new knowledge and gaining a better understand that may help in the future? Isn’t it great when actual education takes place?

Actually? When I was in Kindergarten I was the dead-last kid to learn to tie my shoes. This was humiliating. Nowadays, motor skills like these develop later. I presume this because it is not a standard skill among my first graders.  I have even had 8 year olds asking me to tie their shoes. Spoiler: I did not.  Now ask me if my 7 1/2 year-old is all that good at it…

This past summer I ran across a great blog post from the blog A Magical Childhood, and loved it. “What Should a 4 Year Old Know” was a calming reminder that, though my little one is not reading or writing like my big one was at this age, there are far more important things than a knowledge of the two sounds “G” makes.   I will admit to buying a Pre-K workbook for us to use when we ‘played school’ in the summer.  We cracked it once. Again, we had stuff to do.

Related, I swear, is this gorgeous little book:

Meg’s World (On Amazon here). Written by author/illustrator John Kollock and originally published by Peachtree Publishers in 1970, I have loved this book, I think, forever. Yes I know it’s older than I am. 

In it, 4 year-old Meg explains her week to someone, including the family schedule, and other fun happenings in between. One such event is having company over: “Company does not always want to play what you want them to. Last week I wanted to play gorilla, but Mary wanted to be a fairy tale. You can’t always have your own way, even if you yell. We get the costumes from the big box at the foot of my bed. When you play “dress-up” the company always gets to be the princess or the fairy. This is called manners. I get to be the boy – or the gorilla, when they will play it. After “dress-up” we get out some more toys. Sometimes we remember to put-each-thing-back-in-its-place-when-we-have-finished-playing-with-it.

Sometimes we forget.”

It goes on like that, and gets better. As a former player of He-Man and Ninja Turtles, I totally related to the gorilla thing. In her eyes, Meg stays home each day, not because she’s too young to go to school, but to help her mother with the housework. This mainly consists of trying to vacuum up the cat. There is nothing regular on her family calendar for Wednesdays, so she’s doubts aloud that there is one every week. Mother likes washing dishes so much, that she does them again when Meg is finished her turn. And then there’s this:

Pardon the orange marker stain. Everything in my house has a marker stain.

She is awesome, this kid. I’m so proud that we share a name.  If any 4 year-old is ever this simultaneously carefree and opinionated, their mom and dad can be satisfied with their parenting work thus far. This is the kind of kid that the above blog post is talking about. Secure, creative, and unburdened by, as Kollock puts it in his beautiful little introduction, “the learning process – the discipline of facts – A+ and D-.”

In a high school literature class we were asked to bring in our favorite book. Not trying to be cutesy, but rather to start a discussion on narrative voice and perspective, I unwittingly brought along Meg. Yes, I was 18. I stand by my decision.

Nowadays, as a teacher and parent, I would love to bring it somewhere again, as another type of example.

Because I got your ‘4 Year-Old Curriculum’, right here:

My memory may be failing me in my old age, but I swear to God the person who sat next to me in that lit class brought in Atlas Shrugged.