School's (Almost) Out

This morning, as I was emailing a friend, I had a epiphany. And I wrote this: "I fucking hate school. Didn't like it then. Don't like it now. I like classes. The kind that are specific to one's interests. The kind you don't get graded on. The kind where you can tell the teacher to go fuck themselves if they're idiots."

And that's pretty much how I feel.

I feel this way because third grade has been a battle. In many ways a losing battle for my unfortunate kid who is caught in the middle of this tug-of-war. I didn't realize how bad it actually was until this week when homework suddenly ceased.

I had a good sense of it throughout the year, when I found myself looking forward to Fridays more than the Boy because a) there would be no homework Friday night, and b) I could sleep in on Saturday morning (yes, I'm a selfish human being). But the full impact of how homework has made impacted our lives, really hit home this week.

And the comment to my friend has made me realize how much I resent my son's teacher and the school district for turning school into a full-time job without pay. For him and me.

When I would look at some of the work coming home I would curse the teacher and truly want to tell her to go fuck herself "we're not doing this anymore." It's all busy work. And it eats into the the quality parts of a child's life.

Case in point: Thanks to kindergarten and first grade teachers who were more concerned about turning the individuals in their classes into good little student robots, and less concerned about individual attention and follow-through to be sure each child understood the concepts being introduced, my son has spent two years in reading remediation just to catch up to his peers. There seems to be a lot of that in our school, which you would think would be a red flag.

We also went the extra mile and contracted a tutor who specializes in reading remediation, and considerable expense to ourselves. Our son meets with her twice a week, and during the first part of the year it was three times a week.

This necessary intervention, along with what turned into 90 minutes of homework daily, made it impossible for any additional extra-curricular activites which might have fed the creative interests of the boy. And I pissed.

Third grade, and all lower elementary grades, should be less about homework and more about being a child and having the time to explore the world around us. My feelings for my son's third grade teacher are not very kind. I like to think I'm fairly good at reading people, and she's one for the books. As the year has progressed, I've noticed that when our paths cross I can see the inward groan before she pastes a forced smile on her face and pretends that she really cares about what I have to say or about my son.

My dream in life, right now, is to find a way that's financially feasible for me to make a living at home so that I can homeschool my kid. At least until high school when his options might open up. It would be my small contribution to telling the school district to go fuck themselves. Until then, he's just another bright, underserved kid falling through the cracks of our public education system.