off to school they go

The youngest and his sisters start classes today. Good Luck, kids!! The youngest almost had another day of vacation as the main water pipe at the high school burst. Yikes. They got the plumbers out and everything was fixed and cleaned up by early this morning. School is on!

I watched the season four premiere episode of Downton Abbey last night. Oh how I've missed Maggie Smith! She is amazing. The writers who give her those great lines are amazing. Superb. Simply superb. I feared that with O'Brien's departure for the warmer climes of India, the nasty baggage factor would be diminished. But, the  new lady's maid seems quite up to the task with the help of Thomas and they are already stirring up trouble both upstairs and down.

Fun, fun, fun.

We are setting up a coffee bar at work....in my boss' office. Ha. We will no longer drink the swill they call coffee (Folgers) and will now only enjoy freshly ground Starbucks! The things we do to keep our morale up. Oh, and during lunch the two Indiana girls are teaching our boss to play euchre. That was a hoot yesterday.

So, all in all, good stuff going on. Happy Wednesday.

when it isn't about the kids

We have some BIG stuff going on in our county.  The big city has a school district. The county has its own school district.  Complicated funding formulas, crazy districting lines, annexation, taxation, etc, etc, etc, are all supporting players in what is turning out to be one major drama. The city has voted, both the school board and the city council, to drop their school charter and force a merge with the county. A referendum will be held and the city residents will get to vote on this surrender. The county residents do not get to vote on this.

The county is left holding the bag as a school system of 100,000 plus kids is merged into a system half that size. But, even though the city surrendered, they will still want input and representation and jobs.

I've been reading. I've been watching. Bottom line is this....it isn't about the kids. It's about the adults.  The fear in the county. The anger in the city. They talk about doing right for the city kids. They talk about protecting the county kids.

It isn't about the kids. It never has been. It is about money and power and ego. It is about control. It is about race...but no one will admit that.

The city schools, on whole, are a mess. The adults in charge have failed those children. The adults in the homes and the adults in the school corporation....have failed those children for generations.

One newspaper columnist said it was time to take a wrecking ball to the city schools and start over. The wrecking ball is set to swing March 8. In the meantime the adults will be arguing and posturing and preaching.  And I hope some of them begin planning.

The kids are here. They need to be educated. Bottom line.  And when you have a school system where a student had to petition the school board so he and his classmates could have books to study, books that were sitting in a warehouse and not on a classroom shelf, lots of planning is needed.

The vote will happen. The surrender will pass. The consolidation will be approved. Some folks will turn to private schools. Others will wait and see. The rhetoric will continue on both sides.

But at the end of the day, the kids still need to be taught. And having books to learn from would be nice too.

don't quit too soon

As the end of the school year approaches, the temptation to ease off and cruise until the last day is very appealing.  This is also a very dangerous approach as 8 weeks worth of hard work can be torpedoed by one week of laziness.

I feel like the voice in the desert as I admonish them to finish strong, don't stop yet, keep working, these last few grades count just as much as the ones you earned the previous 8 weeks!

But, it is so hard when it is 84 and sunny with a nice breeze. 

I finished one of the two books I was reading and made quite a bit of headway on the other one yesterday.  Figure I will recap both of them next week.

bribes

Ever heard of a back to school bribe? Okay, this is how it goes. Little boy or girl makes it to the first day of school with no problem. The excitement level is running high. New sneakers, new clothes maybe, new school supplies (my personal favorite is the new box of crayolas, nothing better than new crayons) are all purchased and either worn or carried through the freshly painted doors of the school. Kids are smiling. Moms are smiling.

Then the other shoe drops, so to speak. The second day comes along. The third day comes along. And the tears come along as the excitement wears off.

My neighbor's youngest turned on the water works and kept them going for a good portion of the second day. First grade can be sort of scary, so I totally understand. The teacher gave the appropriate amount of comfort and let mom know what was happening. Mom whipped out the 'big' bribe, if you stay tear free for the week, a new Barbie is yours!

Worked like a charm although mom felt a bit guilty about bribing in order to get good behavior, even though she framed it in more of a 'goal' type plan of action. You do 'X' and you will earn 'Y.'

Mom's guilt evaporated when she was walking home and became part of a conversation about that separation anxiety, first week of school jitters with some other moms. You see, they bribed their elementary aged kids not with a new doll, but with a new LAPTOP!

Are you kidding me? When the mom next door told me this, I about fell off my sandals. Stunned yes, surprised that two neighborhood moms would do this, no.

So, what do the 'bribes' become as they get older? Where do you go from there?

We do reward our kids for good report cards with a nice, family dinner out once a quarter. I don't consider it a bribe as we'd probably go out to dinner anyway, it is more of a label. We go out and we say, "Gosh, you worked hard the past nine weeks, enjoy those ribs and fries!"

I truly can't remember being bribed as a kid in order to encourage me to turn off the tears. I do remember walking to school and crying/sobbing because I didn't want to go. I was in second grade and we had moved to a new house which meant a new school. I went from a Mary Poppins teacher to the troll who lived under the bridge teacher. Now, that was something to cry about! I had no friends and had a mean, unattractive and ancient teacher.

Maybe a new laptop would have helped.