Why haven't I been posting lately?

Well, the egghead is going through some stuff. all of it positive but time consuming. First of all I started doing weight watchers because my high school reunion(which should have been last year) is in May and I would at least like to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I really only started in earnest the past week or two but have spent the past couple of months examining my eating behaviors and really figured out why nothing worked. So that's taken up some time. My other big project has been the idea of buying a used bookstore. I've been talking to the owner for about six weeks and I'm actually going to go work there for a few weeks to see howit will be with the kids. I'm very excited. I've also been doing a major purge and reorganization in my house. It is much easier to be neat when you don't have that much stuff.

I'm most excited about the bookstore. Even if the book business is on the decline and the advent of Kindle and all of that. I walk in there and get tingly. Obstacle after obstacle keeps coming up and I find a solution to it. That's how badly I want to make this happen. I should talk more about it but time for BSG!

Cady

Cady is at the stage where no detail is too small for sharing. "My pants are wet because I peed all over them. I'm cold." "I'm going to read this book now because it is good. I don't read bad books." "This puzzle is funcusing me. It's so funcusing."

Cady will be turning four next month but she could care less. Four is just a stepping stone. On our way to school today she counted on her fingers-
"Right now I'm three." Holds up four fingers. "At my birthday party I be four." Hides her hand. "You know what comes after that?" Wiggles all 5. "5. And then I go to Sudbury School."

It's going to be so interesting to see what it's like for her and what her relationship with Des and Amelia will be by then or how it will change. It was so important to me that my kids grow up together. Even if it means they bicker more. With the age based segregation of public schools they could lead whole separate lives.

I wonder if Des and Amelia ever fight at school the way they do at home. Probably not. Kids are always better in public than they are at home.

Asking questions is a good way to find things out

So I decided to ask the staff about the attendance policy. I really only wanted three people's opinion on it but I felt that everyone should be given a chance to answer if they wanted. It seemed to be more democratic that way. I sent an email privately rather than the Assembly list because I was afraid my questions would be misunderstood and there is always someone who goes off on a tangent and the original point gets loss in the ensuing evolution of the conversation. I sent an email even though I prefer to have these conversations face to face although email does offer some nice advantages. I can be more thoughtful and measured in my responses in an email or a letter, although I'm not always, and I think sometimes it's easier to say things that you might not face to face. On the other hand, without the visual cues of body language it is so easy to misinterpret tone. I reread my original email and while I was trying to be succinct I think, because I tend to be jokey and cheerful by nature in person, it could be read as hostile or challenging but I was trying to keep it all business.

Why did I even feel the need to do this? Like any human being I brought my own bagage and assumptions when I read the policy and I was feeling really negative about it. I'm invested in this school. I'm not a founder or a staff member but this is where my kids will spend a large part of their childhood. I simply will not have them in an environment that generates more negative feelings for me than positive ones. I used to work in a nursing home and when I would tell people what I did they would say "Oh my mother was in a nursing home. It was horrible. It was the worst place in the world." And I would think, "Then why did you leave her there?" That's how I feel about schools. No place is perfect but when I have more bad things to say than good, they're out of there.

So I felt if I understood it better I would be more accepting of it and I was right. The reason for mandatory attendance is that the school is only as "vibrant as it's students". If there aren't enough people there it's like a poorly attended party-everyone milling around wondering where everyone else is. I also came to realize that there is a difference between policy and procedure. Policy is what you want done. Procedure is how you do it. As a parent I really only need to know the policy and maybe the reasons behind it, reading the endless list of details and stuff made it feel burdensome. I'm glad I was able to sort that out too.

Here is a funny thing about human communication. I first noticed it in the second Matrix movie. Too often we answer questions that nobody asked or present something that will generate all sorts of questions and then never answer them.

Smells like teen spirit

The kids were telling me about some activity in the blackboard room and Amelia said "We can play there now that the teenagers go to the music room. It smells much better." Des said "Yeah and now the music room stinks." I said "Really? What does it smell like?" Amelia scrunched her nose and said "Hot."

In other news, the kids made a motion for a valentine's day party which was approved but with stricter conditions than Des had anticipated. After his 20 minute meltdown I was able to deduce that his vision for the party was something on the scale of the Halloween fair not "some dumb thing where you're stuck in the kitchen and have to do every single bit of cleaning. Who thinks that is fun? It isn't fun to just be stuck in a kitchen." I hear that! If an idea isn't abandoned before it starts Sudbury is very good at teaching the amount of effort and work needed to achieve something.

Attendance

There's a new attendance policy. I'm not really sure why it had to be changed. Attendance is one of those things where I recognize that School Meeting has authority but I think as a courtesy they should seek parental input. I think if you are going to make changes with the potential to affect home life you should involve the larger community. The new policy sounds a little too much like a regular school with all sorts of threats built into it. (I'm being dramatic-we're talking about write ups and fines but still!)

Let me backtrack here. I'm philosophically opposed to mandatory attendance. There is always a distinction drawn between alternative models of education and "compulsory education" but if you are forcing a child to be in school when you say so, isn't that compulsory? I think the merits of attending any school should be obvious enough that there is no need for a separate consequence simply for not being there. I've heard the argument 'well, when they grow up and get a job they have to show up for work or they'll be fired'. Then so be it. Again, do you need 12 years to teach this lesson and is that the point of going to school? I've had jobs where it was the work that I actually accomplished that was key and not when or where I did it.

Here's another little sticking point with me(winter makes me so cranky). If we want to do something outside of school on a school day the kids have to make a motion for school meeting approval. I think the policy should be that school meeting has to be notified. I neither want nor care about school meeting's approval. They are my kids. I pay for them to attend this school. And one of the reasons that I sent them to this school was for flexibility so that if I want to take the day off and take them to the city I can without having to answer to anyone. The idea of school meeting having to make a decision about whether an outside activity is comparable to a day at Sudbury seems silly to me because there is no typical day at Sudbury. What would school meeting disapprove of? Illegal activity I suppose. Excessive absences where the kid was out of school more than they were there? I don't know. I should ask.

I think, I hope, the reason for the policy is because it's a state mandate. I think NY even makes homeschoolers keep attendance. Beauracrats. Humph. They are my sworn enemies.

Oh, so that's what they do

We were visiting some friends and of course the subject of school came up. Des was surprised to hear that their 8 year old daughter was reading. Amelia said "Of course she is, she's in 3rd grade! She's 8." Our friend's 5 year old boy said "I go to her school too but I'm not in a grade yet." Des said "We don't go to a grade school." The other boy said "You should come to my school. Math is fun." Des said and he looked at me kind of slyly,"Well, at my school we can do math all day if we want." My friend asked him "Do you?" Amelia said "No, he plays video games all day."

They missed the bus today so I drove them to school. Amelia had a fit that I was dropping Cady off first "That is so unfair. I don't want to get there all late!" i pointed out that Cady's school was only 10 minutes away so that's why she went first. Later on I said to them "I know it's important for you guys to get to school as soon as possible but it isn't that important to me because I don't really see you doing anything there." Amelia said "We love our school! We love it so much so we always want to be there. Sudbury is like a giant playdate." and then Des added, "But not at anyone's house."

Lately I've been very cynical and thinking it's all BS. I know I've said this before but do they really need 12 years of hanging around? Just like I ask if the regular schools really need 12 years of total control. Is there no middle way?!