The System

This is Luna's third week of school. I have cried. She has cried. I have cried some more. She started a new school this year. She is in the First Grade at a public school located in our neighborhood. She seems to be finally settling in and I cry less these days. We are trying to assimilate into this new world.

I am the Secretary of the PTO. I met with her teacher last week and her passion for teaching makes me feel much better about all sorts of things--- not everything though. Luna has had homework--- ridiculously stupid homework that required me reading the directions three times to explain. I tried to convince her she didn't need to do it. My daughter would have none of it. We compromised by having her do it but then I got to write a note at the bottom about how confusing it was.

Luna has been on "green" everyday. This means that she is sometimes rewarded with candy for doing what she is supposed to be doing. I am conflicted. Most of the time, I think this is a stupid system designed to treat to children like dogs and steal all of their intrinsic motivation for learning and doing the right thing. The rest of the time I want more than anything for her to be on "green" so that she feels good about going to school and has something of which she can be proud. On Fridays, the teacher sends home a paper that has a check for each day and says whether your child was on green, yellow, orange or red. Parents must sign it and return it on Monday. While I appreciate the idea of more communication/ not less, I am certain that when and if Luna ever moves off of green, I am going to need more information from the teacher than a check. What about those parents whose kids are all over the place? How do they know how to support their children to make better choices. I hope that the teacher is communicating with those families.

The other main issue I have with the system is that it does not reward students for being inquisitive and independent. It rewards them for being quiet and still and quiet and more quiet. Suffice to say that this mom is having a hard time adjusting from the free-thinking and exciting Montessori classroom to this traditional setting. I know that everyone will say that kids in the public education system need more structure and you can't possibly have that kind of freedom and autonomy with "these kinds of kids" but I still am not convinced. We do have a public "Montessori" school. Somehow it has been certified by AMI but the on-the-street knowledge I have of the school is that the teachers often revert to the reward/punishment system that is so common in American schools. Rather than blame "those kinds of kids", I would place the blame on system which requires public school teachers to do so much of this ridiculous testing and teaching to the test. I saw firsthand in Luna's classroom at Montessori that left to their own devices, the kids challenged themselves and learned new things all the time. How that would translate to these ridiculous tests, I can't say. Luna did have some children with special needs in her room. They received a little outside help and did require some extra attention from the teachers. Overall, though, I think these children were just as capable of functioning in the Montessori room and it was beneficial for my child to slow down and help others. It helped her learn things on a different level. It just makes so much sense. If we teach them at age 3 where everything goes and how to use things, they will be respectful of the materials and take pride in their work. If we, as adults, decide when they can pee, when they can look at numbers, when they can stand up and when they can look at letters, we are undermining their natural love of learning.

Obviously, I am still in mourning. Luna is doing fine. She is a rule-follower. She likes to make other people happy (which also terrifies me but that is another post altogether). She will work hard to do the "right" thing in her classroom. She is bright. She is already way ahead of the other children in her reading skills. She will do fine... She will do fine... Her mama on the other hand...