Bleeding on the Eggshells

Throughout the kindergarten selection process, I was surprised by many of my encounters. I was pleased by the schools I toured. I was excited about one of the two magnet schools, and I found the actual registration process entirely pleasant.

I was also surprised by my talks with people about the process. It appears that a lot of parents were frustrated, but most of them appeared honestly frightened beyond rational thought. Most of these parents were white, middle-to-upper-middle-to-upper class, college-educated folks. These were parents that somehow seemed ashamed that they were researching local private school options for their children. One pair even whispered their choices to each other in conversation like the mother from St. Elmo's Fire discussing money and illness at the dining room table as "hush, hush" subjects. I addressed the situation with as much lightheartedness as possible. People shouldn't be ashamed that they're making (or even thinking about different school options for their kids.). I'm happy, as a probable future Unit 4 family, to have them pay $12,000 a year in tuition to send their child somewhere else and to give us their tax money for Unit 4, without costing us anything. There was a time, not so long ago, where I thought Next Generation was going to be the best option for my son. That was, until he got wait listed and I dove head first into my Unit 4 exploration. I am inspired at what goodness I found.

But here's the issue: Champaign is segregated by socio-economic status. And as of right now, when I talk to parents from not-poor families about their kindergarten choices, there is a lot of "my family/my child" talk. Very rarely does anyone ever bring up the idea of "community." They leave kids without helicopter-level parental advocates to fend for themselves. Worse, they don't even recognize that it's what the Controlled Choice process is built for... to look out for all children. And that's just not right. My child has no more value in this world than any other child on the planet -- except to me. 

For all of the complaining, whining and fear talk about Controlled Choice, no one in the community is coming forth with a better way to make sure that children of all economic levels are able to go to school together. Sending children to neighborhood schools won't solve any disparities. It, in fact, it will only increase them. Potential school board members in tomorrow's election, specifically Grey, Brown and Novak all talked about various aspects of this at the community forum. The geography of our schools is terrible. The schools aren't where the people have been moving for the last 40 years. At the same time, even though we're not allowed to use race as a marker any more, there are a large number of African American families below the poverty line in this town. They tend to live north of University. And they were woefully treated for a shamefully long time in this town. Hence why we had a decree in the first place. 

Poverty is the one giant characteristic that can bring a child to his knees. How can a child who doesn't have food or shelter possibly perform well in school, regardless of the color of his skin?

Bob Herbert of the New York Times wrote a column called, "Separate and Unequal" on March 21, 2011. In the column, he writes:

"Educators know that it is very difficult to get consistently good results in schools characterized by poverty. The best teachers tend to avoid such schools. Expectations regarding student achievement are frequently much lower, and there are lower levels of parental involvement... Long years of evidence show that poor kids of all ethnic backgrounds do better academically when they go to school with their more affluent -- that is, middle class -- peers. But when the poor kids are black or Hispanic, that means racial and ethnic integration in the schools. Despite all the babble about a postracial America, that has been off the table for a long time... Schools are no longer legally segregated, but because of residential patterns, housing discrimination, economic disparities and long-held custom, they are emphatically a reality."

And this, my friends, is Champaign in a nutshell.

During my tour of BT Washington, I was shaken by the fact that the school only has a 7 percent white population. The clear racial divide in our town was at first heartbreaking -- and then suddenly I felt anger in my chest. And it wasn't an annoyance, it was seething. Months ago I had been worried about sending my son to any school in an impoverished neighborhood because poverty to me = higher chance of crime. During my tour, I was suddenly flushed and shamed for many reasons. First, I know that this particular fear is illogical. I worked in the BT Washington neighborhood for a year at the Douglass Branch Library. I enjoyed my time there. I worked with smart and savvy kids. Some of whom had parents who were in their faces all the time about school work and behavior, and some kids who I'm guessing haven't been parented since they left diapers. Some of the kids had parents working two jobs to make ends meet. Some of them had parents who were constantly looking for work. Others had parents in school. And a few had parents at home all day. That's no different than people in any neighborhood. Second, when you live in a neighborhood of homes well over the $200,000 range, like I do, you can say that you think the world has gotten a lot better in terms of racial relations because you see diversity in your neighborhood, at the park, in the extremely expensive pre-school/daycare that you've sent your son to for four years. But then you walk into BT and look at the faces of the students and realize how disjointed your reality really is. 

During the process, I mentioned that BT Washington was third on our selection list. In response, I had someone utter words about how I probably don't want my kid to inherit any of "those kids'" bad behaviors. My gut clenched and I explained that as a parent, I'm pretty sure that my child could learn bad behaviors anywhere. And that it's my job to make sure that he understands right from wrong whether he's in public or private school. Since that conversation, I've had three other people repeat the exact same words to me, so I've repeated the same answer, biting my tongue from including, "racist-like" between "bad" and "behaviors" as I spoke.

Five days after Bob Herbert's column, the New York Times ran an editorial about cuts being made between a rich school district and a poor school district in New York. Much, much, much more money was being taken from the poorer district than the richer district. 

Why representatives continue to make these kinds of decisions probably has a lot to do with campaign contributions and heat from well-to-do parents who like to point at their schools as being "good" and "successful." I got a similar class-centered vibe the first time I met the principal of Bottenfield Elementary School. Admittedly it was one of those, "You have 2 minutes to tell me why I should put you on my list of five schools --Go!" moments at an informational meeting. But the first thing he told me was that a large number of students at Bottenfield qualify for the gifted program -- but don't go.

The gifted programs are in schools north of University. Perhaps Bottenfield does do an overwhelmingly awesome job of education so that parents, particularly those conveniently located, don't feel the need to move them from a successful educational experience. But at the same time, it put up a divider and labeled "good" schools and "bad" schools. It took a tour of Bottenfield where I observed the awesome work by the teachers before I felt more than comfortable there. MacTroll, admittedly felt they were too formal. But I still listed it as my number 2 based on the educational and social growth excellence I saw going on there. 

Similarly, when I got my 20-minute tour of Stratton. The principal there talked about competing with the magnet schools to deliver  her students an equally enriching educational experience, particularly in the gifted program. I don't want my school district to have competing elementary schools. I want each child to be valued the same and treated as an individual. It shouldn't matter where he goes to school. If there's this much unevenness in how principals see their individual schools, how can we ever come together as a district?

So it was with a lot of shock and awe that I toured BT Washington with its principal after going to the informational meeting about STEM where the administration and teachers all confirmed that they would be teaching the curriculum in a different time frame without a focus on testing and would be using inclusivity among all students (even those in the "self-contained" gifted classes) in their new school. Seriously, I got up at the microphone and asked them to confirm/repeat what I'd heard before I posed my question. 

But it's become obvious to me when people ask me about kindergarten that there's a divide between those choosing private and those choosing public. If I come out first and say, "We're in the lottery for Unit 4." There is first a holding of breath on the other parent's part, and then a complete stoppage of conversation about where his or her daughter might be going. Five minutes later, I have to come around and ask directly... before they'll commit to telling me where they're choosing to send their child. And then they'll somehow confess hidden public school fears that they might or might not admit whether or not they think they're irrational. Most often, they blame it on their spouse, which may or may not be true. (For example, when we toured Next Gen's primary school when X-man was 18 months, MacTroll was sold on it. I was more for keeping the thousands of dollars to ourselves for his college. As we got closer to kindergarten, I agreed that X-man needed more outdoor time than the public school could give him, and maybe that 45 minute rest after lunch wouldn't be such a bad idea, but that obviously didn't work out for us.)

I don't mean this blog to shame anyone (except for maybe myself). The truth is that if you found a private school that you can afford that will teach your child a second language, given them outdoor time every hour, instill in them the religious values you hold dear and found a school where you feel the administration, teachers and environment are best suited for your child, etc. -- go for it. Don't worry about what other people think, especially not me. And, if this is you, disregard the next paragraph completely.

My anger comes out of other place. A place where folks have told me they plan on moving to Mahomet when they have kids to avoid the mess that is Unit 4 or Urbana. Or they want to move to Philo to be in Unity. Or they're suddenly joining a particular church, even though they haven't gone to church -- ever (like since they lived with their parents), to make sure their child attends the private school that's attached to it. These decisions are based primarily on fear. The parents don't even want to bother to find out information because? -- I'll venture a guess.

The one common thread appears to be wealth and race: Sticking with your own apparently makes people feel very comfortable. But that's not how the world should be, and the big lesson I learned from this whole situation is that the best thing I can do for X-man is to show him how the world works and how to make it how he'd like it to be. I want to teach him to be kind and patient and to be successful and scholarly in a group of peers who don't all come from the same place or look the same. And as bad as I think Champaign is at feeding the fear monster and putting way too much pressure on parents and kids about getting into the "right" elementary school, an article in the Financial Times (reposted by Slate.com) makes us look like weenies in the school selection process. At the same time, the author touches on the same kind of encounters and thoughts I've had about fellow upper class parents.

Katie Roiphe writes:

"The reality is that their school, like all the other schools, is a tiny bit diverse. There are a few kids who come a very long way every morning, from another neighbourhood, on a scholarship, but the large bulk of the class very much resembles in background the other kids in the class... if you were truly committed to sending your children somewhere "diverse", would you not be selecting a different school, one that doesn't require almost all of its students to pay tuition that could support several villages in Africa? ... The interesting element of this obsession is that each of these unique and excellent schools seems to be conferring some ineffable quality, not just on its students but on the parents of these students. In the 10 minutes they spend dropping their children off in its hallowed hallways, they are seeing some flattering image of themselves reflected back: progressive, enlightened, intellectually engaged."

In other words, the choice of the school and the fancy-pantsness of it -- reflects mostly on the parent. A "good" parent picks the school that has historically perform well (test scores). A "bad" parent settles for -- anything else. And I refuse to play that reindeer game.

I put Carrie Busey down as my first choice because I loved my interaction with teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, the healthy food and fitness initiatives and the fact that not all the kids came from the same background. I worry that if we do get our first choice that once the school is built a stupidly convenient six blocks from my house -- that part of what I loved about the school when I chose it will fall away. I don't want it to lose that Carrie Busey feel and metamorphoses into something like a Barkstall. I don't want large and institutional with uniforms. I want it to be personal and individualized. Because as much as parents coo about the ease of uniforms -- in a school like Barkstall (and even at Stratton) you can still tell the haves from the have nots just as easy as if they had picked out their own clothes that morning. 

Honestly, I could forgive the ugliness of uniforms... but I couldn't forgive a kindergarten selection process that didn't open the doors of a new $18 million school to everyone in the district, and not just the people in my neighborhood. That just simply won't do. 

Controlled Choice is what we have. It's there for a reason, and it's not to screw your beloved child out of a good kindergarten program or to drive you insane. It's there to level the playing field so that all kids have fair access to all buildings regardless of how much money parents make or don't make. While many parents may see it as penalizing -- many may see it as a blessing.

In the end, I know my child will be fine, no matter what school he goes to. MacTroll and I stress education, respect and hard work. He'll learn those lessons even if his school isn't the highest ranked or most chosen school in the district. And if you don't believe me that parental involvement matters in awesome amounts -- ask Steven D. Levitt and read his book Freakonomics.

More thoughts from class

I'm loving my Infant and Toddler class at Parkland. I take away lots of new things every class to use not only with my focal child (our lab is to spend time with a child under 24 months each week and record specific observations) but with my own child. 

It teaches me to take a step back and not be so emotionally involved or strung out every day. A few months ago, a number of local bloggers, who are mothers, talked about how they feel as their kids move into the toddler realm that they're yelling becomes the primary source of communication. "Don't touch that! Don't hit your brother! Don't pull the dog's tail! Don't eat food off the floor! Don't pick your nose and eat it!" I have the same issue. 

These kinds of things get repeated over and over and over again. Along with "Good girl! Bad Boy!" It's frustrating to realize we're only speaking in the negative or that we're issuing time outs every 20 minutes, or we're giving unclear compliments, where if you're hearing good than at some times you must be "bad." Instead we should be telling our kids what we like about their behavior or what we don't like.

For example, yesterday morning, X-man was stalling when getting into the car. I asked him if I could help him. He refused. Two minutes later he's still dawdling in front of the car. I had given him a warning that if he wasn't in his car seat by the time I counted to 20, I was putting him in it. He tested that. I picked him up and placed him in the seat. He screamed, hauled off and smacked my glasses off. Mommy's red alarm went off. Steam came out of my ears. Before Infant and Toddler I would have issued a time out or I may have even shouted at him that he was a "Bad boy" before I shouted about how hitting hurts. 

Instead, I tried to follow what I'd learned in class and be specific. "Hands are NOT for hitting!" I said it loudly, but not screaming. "You hurt Mommy! I do not like being hit!" 

X-man immediately started crying and reached for my face, kissed my cheek, handed me my glasses and tried to help me put them on all while saying, "Sorry Mommy!" When he calmed down, I took a minute to talk to him about how we use our words when we're frustrated, and how Mommy is trying to keep him safe and on schedule. She's not trying to be mean by making him get to school on time.

Do I think this will prevent hits in the future? I have no idea. But I did see a big difference between this and both of us sitting in the garage crying after we both had a dose of regretful behavior. So, um, I'm calling it a good choice for X-man.

In addition, the time we spend with our kids where we do have quality time with them is often directed by adults. "Is that a blue block? What shape is it? Is it a square?" As adults we get in kids' faces and ask them all these questions. Then we tell them what to do in loud, demanding, critical voices. We hope to teach them right from wrong. We hope to teach them colors, shapes, numbers and letters. We hope to teach them to share with their friends, to be cautious, to be independent, to be kind. 

It's a huge, huge job. And one that no one I've ever talked to feels like they've done a good enough job no matter how much effort, blood, sweat and tears goes into it.

In class, I'm starting to learn to do things differently. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. But the ways that Nancy's teaching me to interact with children makes  lot of sense. A lot of it, I've always done naturally. But I'm working on changing from a parent who commands all of the interaction to a parent who just sits on the floor and lets their child lead. Make it all about the child and his/her choices rather than make it about me and what I think the child should be doing. 

And that's the stickler between generations. It's a complete cultural change from the way people used to think about child rearing. It used to be that kids were supposed to follow their parents commands. It was a sign of respect. But behind that "respect" was a healthy dose of fear of getting in trouble. And "trouble" could mean a wide variety of things depending on what discipline was like in your family. So not only was there actually no respectful behavior going on toward the parent when a child followed directions out of fear, but the lack of respect was reciprocal. Parents who think they should be able to drag their kids wherever the adults want to go when they want to go is disrespectful to a child. There are excursions that are NOT developmentally appropriate for children. 

For example visiting someone's home can be a large problem for both a parent and a child. If a home is not childproofed and has a lot of nicknacks or fragile pieces near the floor, a parent spends the whole visit following a toddler around moving things or saying "No." It takes a lot of work on behalf of the parent and is discouraging for a child. He or she simply won't want to go back there if the place is like a museum. Infants and toddlers like to explore and try new things. They get messy. They're amazed by how things work. They need environments that support that, which may require others to travel to them rather than expecting a family to always be on the move.

A long time ago, before X-man was born, MacTroll and I agreed that we were going to put X-man's safety and our own sanity first. This means we've had to think about things in a different way. People who haven't had hands-on experience with toddlers in a while might not understand why we do things. They may think critically of us and think we're spoiling our child. But apparently, our gut instinct when X-man was in utero reflects a lot of the theories behind modern infant/toddler educational theory. Not that we ever feel guilty about the choices we make, but it does help to know that we've got research on our side when we worry about people taking offense to the fact that we decide not to attend things or go places because it's not in the best interest of our child at that particular day or time or age.

Parenting is a hard job, and my readings all support that every adult that works with small children 8 (or if you're a stay-at-home parent -- 24) hours a day need substantial breaks to step away and regroup so they can continue positive interactions with their kids. And most of the stay-at-home parents with small kids that I know don't get one -- ever.

So it's not surprising that we all go bat shit from time to time.

Here comes the rain

Yeah, so I started to nap, but then the snack dude came in to check and see if I had consumed their canister of $9 Pringles (I hadn't.). And of course, I was half asleep, completely naked when he knocked. Figuring that it was some other room and given the level of deep sleep I'm capable of, I just kept on sleeping. 

I'm not sure if he saw me or not. There's this cut out in the wall in the bathroom, so you can see the area where the closet and the door are. I just kept my eyes shut, let him do what he needed to do, and then when he was gone, I put my "not now -- much later" sign on the door, deadbolted it and did that top lock chain thing and crawled back into bed. 

It's thundering out now, which means if I can get my groove back I can go back to sleep. But first I wanted to comment on a depressing e-mail I received. I was not depressed that the sender sent it, but the content made both the sender and I sad because it sounded like something that would go from fifth grader to fifth grader. Jenny said that John told her that Abby thinks... 

So, excuse me while I get my soap box out and stand on it to deliver a life opinion.

Here's the deal. Everyone has friends and family that they talk to about varying personal things. Disclosure and trust and open communication with no judgment is amazing. You should give yourself a pat on the back if you're strong enough to do it consistently. You have a strong sense of character and I applaud you from my soapbox. 

My rule is that I don't say anything I wouldn't say to a person's face, if given the chance (i.e. I'm not ashamed or embarrassed about how I feel). 

But when you find that you have to talk AROUND a person about something (i.e. husband, friend, brother, sister, mailman, bookseller) -- that's just annoying.  Because the reason you're talking around the actual person who may or may not have a problem with you is because you think the more people that are on your "side" will make you feel better about that one person feeling a certain way. 

The truth is that a posse will not make you feel better at your core. The truth is you should just talk about it openly, and if that person subscribes to the Dana rule mentioned above, you'll get it out and over with. It's impossible to have a relationship with someone and not have times when you disagree or have issues. Every marriage, family, friend-based relationship is going to have friction. 

If you only hang with people who are just like you and agree with everything you say... how in the hell are you going to grow as a person and experience new things.

Okay, I'm off my soap box.