Summer

Summer With my Kids

This summer is nearly over! 

Just a week before school. Here is my favorite picture of me and the kids this summer at the Allentown Arts festival.

Just about every blogging guide I've read says never to write about how i'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I just realized that I haven't posted here in just over a year. I'm probably not supposed to go on and on about the uncomfortable realities that made it so hard to write anything in this space. Besides, there are a few things that are even too close and too personal for even a blogger to casually post. It seems those circumstances are beginning to resolve themselves. And it means some big giant positive changes, will be coming our way. Life is never what you'd expect!

I spent a lot of time with the kids this summer, it has, been my biggest joy! I am so incredibly thankful for them, they put the sparkle in my life in a lot of ways.

I will say that I've missed writing here. Even if I've managed to post on my other (artsy) blog, this was where I where I talked about being a mother. Princess A is going to kindergarten next week, so I'm entering a whole new phase of mothering. Its good, I can't wait to see what she does with it. K-dog, well second grade awaits, he seems confident that he's got it covered.

Fall has always been my favorite season.

It always seems like a new school year is really the time for new beginnings. So here we go!

Time to Start School?

First Day of Pre-School

        K-dog is five, the wonderland of early childhood is ending, and the structure and order of school age is upon us.  The time has come.  There is a flurry of open houses and applications and registration deadlines right now.  My husband and I are really wondering what will be best for him.   Even, what is best for our family?




    Because of his birthday, late October, there is first the question of weather he should go to kindergarten again, or onto first grade.  We have had the good fortune of a Waldorf Early Child Center that was very close to us.  K has loved it, our family has loved it.  It has been a nurturing and creative environment.  It seems that going into a Waldorf school would be the logical option.  Of course, the expense and, for us, a long bus ride and some other negatives that require some thought.  As, at least, mediocre parents we have to research some of the other options.  This should be easy; my very own mother was a kindergarten teacher for 30 years.  I have an “in”.   I could make decision matrix coming on; my father was a mathematician.  I cannot just leave it to the numbers; my heart is in it.

A school loving kid

    Realistically, I am not sure how much it will really matter.  K-dog is the child of lots of privilege.  He nursed until the, eats organic (mostly), sleeps in a safe warm bed, both of his parents went to college, we read to him at least 30 minuets a day, heck he takes violin lessons.  We could send him to the woods for 4 hours for 5 days a week and I am sure he would learn to read.  (Did I mention that was an option?)  This really has to weigh on parents who do not have so many choices.  School is not just an education.  It will make K-dog, and all of us part of a wider community.  He will be there most of the day, most of the week.  Mostly I want him to love school, as much as I did as a youngster. 

First Day of Kindergarten
What's next?

    We've been talking about all this around our house. Of course, K has been listening. When I dropped him off at school today first thing he told his teacher was, "When I get bigger, I'm going to go to school with lots of desks!" Its coming if I'm ready or not!


    How did you decide where to send your child to school?

Wordless Wednesday: Kindergarten!

"Kindergarten"

 age 4 3/4

 

age 3 3/4

age 2 3/4

When I woke up this morning

I realized something really quite interesting. My family lives in a city (Buffalo) with an African-American Mayor, in a state (New York) with an African-American Governor, in a country (USA) with a mixed-race/ African-American President. This is a lot of executive brownness, you know I think my city council person is Hispanic. So I should feel that we have "overcome" and racism is a thig that my son will never have to encounter.

He's just a bit over two years old, and Kindergarten is not until 2011, but I have serious reservations about sending him to public school. I'm not so worried about a thin curriculum or lack of art and gym, I feel that I can supplement those. I'm more worried that because 1 out of 2 of the African-American boys in our city don't graduate from high school and that because of this his Kindergarten teacher will have lower expectations from him. I worry that she his brown skin and assume that his curiosity, exuberance and spirited-ness are liabilities and a discipline problem. Or worse yet, knowing that he only has half a chance at achieving a basic education she'll just protect her job and teach to the state test and leave out everything else. Our school staff and administration isn't all white, in fact the superintendent is another accomplished African-American. After some of the things that the public has said about Barack Obama I'm also worried about what some of his black teacher and classmates might think about him. Kiran is multi-racial, like most Americans, but he wears it on his face and in his crazy curly hair. Will someone say he's not black enough because his father is Polish, and his mother went to college and speaks standard English. This is one of the most hurtful things that anyone can say to you, or think about you. I know because since I was in honors classes in high school, students and teachers implied that I mustn't be really *that Black*, right?

So there's always private school and if we scrimp and save we may be able to pay for some of that. The parents and teachers with no doubt be a little more familiar with multi-racial children, and maybe a little less prone to stereotypes and there will be little room for low expectations. I went to private school for most of elementary school but I clearly remember the mother of one of my classmates giving me what could simply be called a reading test when I went over for a play date. Are you kidding me? no. Can President Barack keep that from happening to Kiran? Can I?

I'm not sure that I should try to protect him from everything, and if I do succeed in protecting him, what about all the other children in my town, my state and my country. If they have to encounter these little injustices, these big injustices how will they be affected. How can I protect them too?