Lessons of Late

I am a little frustrated as I begin this blog....I tried to publish another draft twice and experienced "technical difficulty." After the second failed attempt I began questioning whether it wasn't divine intervention rather than technical difficulty. Maybe my subject matter (basically bashing the current public educational system in America) is not time appropriate.

Fortunately, I have more going on in life than worrying about the education of our future leaders, albeit, I do feel this is a worthy debate; I will at this time shift my focus on my two star pupils...Maggie and Gabbie.

Maggie is a natural student. She aims to please, learn and follow directions. At this time (still in the first 6 week period of the first grade), she has mastered most skills needed to move on to the second grade. We are focusing on more of the social skills needed at this age, such as "emptying our bladders" regularly so as to not pee our pants and not chasing boys that employee bodyguards at recess to protect them from the desperation of silly six year old girls. Oh my word! Was I ever a goofy girl? Surely not. But just in case...sorry mom and dad...I'm feelin' ya'!

Gabbie's recent focus has been getting ready for Kindergarten. She is not a very serious student without some added motivation. She typically enjoys answering any given question incorrectly in anticipation of a reaction from her inquisitor. Mrs. Smith, Maggie's Kindergarten teacher, has become our secret weapon for motivating Gabbie to take seriously the importance of letters, numbers, shapes and colors. I find it very useful to pressure her into learning, surely learning is not meant to be fun! I, the pragmatic mother, cannot understand her resistance to such valuable knowledge. Surely, I, as a young girl, was pragmatic, quick to learn and always ready to "perform" when required. Right mom and dad? Oh....I wasn't....hmmm...I'm detecting a pattern.

In all seriousness, I really do enjoy focusing on my children and their educations. I feel that they, as all students, benefit from a simple educational regimen of exploring and discovering knowledge, skills and concepts through READING, THINKING, and ATTEMPTING new things rather than performing the typical systemic routine of temporarily memorizing and regurgitating bits and pieces of time sensitive information. (It was my experience, as a teacher, that the later mentioned system was more often employed by the public school system....so much so that I swear I could sometimes hear the Mission Impossible theme sound as the students completed the task of cramming for a test, vomiting information on a page for a grade of at least a 70%, and..."Please be aware, this information will self-destruct in....3...2....1...." BOOM! Forgotten!)

It's actually a fairly sizable problem we have managed to ignore for quite some time. Okay, Okay...I better get off my soap box before I encounter more "technical" or "divine" difficulties.