On the fourth day of school, I asked my lil man how
things were going. I was expecting some
positives seeing as we have a nice teacher, no homework. “School is not
fulfilling anymore…” Hmm, that caught me off-guard wondering whether to first
clarify the meaning of ‘fulfilling’ or ask why it wasn’t. “They just keep coming up with rules. First It
was the STAR position, now we have to tuck in our shirts including gym shirts….”.
The STAR position is some acronym for sitting upright and tracking the teacher
and I clearly don’t remember what it stands for. My son demonstrated it with
shoulders held unnaturally high and straight neck; I could see why he wasn’t surviving
the day. I asked him to relax his shoulders a bit. I agree, it is becoming a bit ‘military’, I
mean untucked shirt has nothing to do with learning eh? He’s lucky he wasn’t around
when I was growing up-, unpolished shoes (yikes), slightly unkempt nails, hair
that was not in place, uniform that wasn’t pressed crisp among a myriad of other
unrelated issues could earn you a proper punishment. We all thought it was part of school life. I
don’t know how much good that did, I hate ironing, don’t ever polish my shoes,
the only school approved hair style in my day(cornrows) puts me in anxiety, I do my nails real nice though.
How do you keep a fourth-grade boy motivated? This morning, he was excited that he had Gym
and since it had rained all night, the default outdoor activity would be
kickball due to a flooded playground. “I’m glad it rained because I have my
good shoes on for kickball”. See, on a regular day when there is no Gym and it
rains, his dress-up shoes are not conducive to a good kickball session. My son
lives for recess. It’s a phase right? I mean he gets good grades; I guess that
is more than I can ask for.
When asked what in math he finds difficult, he said “nothing” (initially) and that he doesn’t really know what he hopes to learn this year. After mini-session on ‘we all have things we could polish up on’, the answer changed to fractions, but he was adamant that he didn’t find any math difficult, just did not find anything fun about it. I beg to differ remembering countless homework wrangles that we had last year-undermining my traditional learning methods, counting beans and what not over some new era rounding off methods. If this boy did not learn any more math moving forward he would be ok with life. I guess that is why I’m the parent and he is the kid. I don’t remember having ideas about school or otherwise but I was scared cold of becoming a farm hand-because that’s what you became around my parts if school came in one ear and out the other. There were no options to school and doing well in school. You knew better than answer that recess is your favorite part of the day, there was a right answer to that question, no need putting your opinion or dreams in the path of your future. So I’m trying to be a parent of the future without veering too far off the more trodden path, balancing opinions and necessity. Lord help me.
When asked what in math he finds difficult, he said “nothing” (initially) and that he doesn’t really know what he hopes to learn this year. After mini-session on ‘we all have things we could polish up on’, the answer changed to fractions, but he was adamant that he didn’t find any math difficult, just did not find anything fun about it. I beg to differ remembering countless homework wrangles that we had last year-undermining my traditional learning methods, counting beans and what not over some new era rounding off methods. If this boy did not learn any more math moving forward he would be ok with life. I guess that is why I’m the parent and he is the kid. I don’t remember having ideas about school or otherwise but I was scared cold of becoming a farm hand-because that’s what you became around my parts if school came in one ear and out the other. There were no options to school and doing well in school. You knew better than answer that recess is your favorite part of the day, there was a right answer to that question, no need putting your opinion or dreams in the path of your future. So I’m trying to be a parent of the future without veering too far off the more trodden path, balancing opinions and necessity. Lord help me.
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