spynotes ::
  August 28, 2006
Look upon me! I'll show you the life of the mind!

I�m getting behind on my diary postings. It�s a combination of too much going on (and therefore little computer time) and also with my little time spent writing other things like short stories and dissertations. My contributions to this space are likely to be a little spotty for the next week as we adjust to AJ�s new schedule and prepare for a visit from my mom and dad.

We spent the evening with other parents in AJ�s kindergarten classroom, getting an introduction to school procedures and rules and curriculum. It was a lot to take in, not so much because of the information we were being told, but because we could hardly believe we were sitting in our son�s kindergarten classroom. I kept zoning out and looking around the room at the other parents. AJ�s new class will be much more racially/ethnically diverse than his preschool, which I�m really happy about. Most of the parents were at the meeting, which was a good sign, I think. The classroom itself is lively and exciting. There are so many things to look at and space seems to be at a premium, but there is a lot of order and the rules are clear, which will please AJ. He likes order and he likes to know right from wrong.

After the meeting, in which we were told about how they were spending most of the first semester learning how to associate sounds with letters, I waited to talk to the teacher about AJ and the fact that he�s been reading for three years now. I wanted to do it without being in front of other parents, but there didn�t seem to be a way to meet privately without causing a fuss, so I just laid it on the table, choosing the �What can we do to help?� approach. I felt kind of like an idiot, but I wanted her to know I�d be paying attention. I was pleased with her response � that they�d see how he�s doing in class possibly assess whether kindergarten was the right place for him, that he could keep one of his own books in his backpack for reading group time (since he�s unlikely to have another student in his group and the classroom books are not up to his level), that she�d work with him on his own when she could (she has 22 5-year-olds to teach for 2 and � hours a day � I have no great illusions about how much one-on-one time he�ll get), and that I could and should talk to the gifted teacher who, although she only works formally with the two uppermost grades at the school, could probably help, although she�s only at the school 1 day a week.

I also got a real sense of how elementary schools have changed since I was a kid. Art, P.E. and music teachers are all part time and teach at all the district elementary schools � we had full-time teachers in all those areas when I was in elementary school. There is real curriculum in kindergarten � kindergarten was more like preschool is now when I was a kid. Although I went to preschool, most of my peers did not. And already the emphasis is overwhelmingly on reading and math � science is an extra they only study once a week and even then in alternation with social studies. This has always struck me as odd � or at the very least, short-sighted. Why not teach reading and math through science or music or art? Read about these things while doing them? Most kids AJ�s age are interested in a lot of science topics � weather, human anatomy, dinosaurs, space, and just plain natural observation. Why not encourage the hands on learning too?

But tomorrow, I�m not going to be worrying about any of that. I�m going to be worried about where exactly I�m supposed to drop off AJ, about how he�s going to get all the way through the school to his classroom without me, about whether or not I�m going to be one of those mothers who cries when her kid goes to his first day of kindergarten. Because I never thought I�d be one of those mothers, but I think it�s a serious possibility.

But then there�s the mantra: two-and-a-half-hours-to-myself, two-and-a-half-hours-to-myself, two-and-a-half-hours-to-myself, two-and-a-half-hours-to-myself�

6 people said it like they meant it

 
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