Domestic Psychology

give STEM a chance to grow

// January 14th, 2011 // No Comments » // school

Read the comments under any KNS article about education and you will find people complaining about the students who (1) don’t want to be in the class, the students with (2) parents who aren’t engaged in their child’s education and the (3) brightest children being neglected because of the high needs students. After YEARS of mumblings about a school focused only on STEM, Knoxville is finally getting a STEM school. A school that will only have students who (1) want to be there and students with (2) involved parents. The people who are excited about the STEM school are the same people who were disappointed by the TAG program’s absorption into the regular classroom. They are the parents of children who thrived in middle school TSA. These are the students (3) who are waiting for their classmates to catch up with them when they should be moving forward. They are the parents who want their children to have the opportunity to creatively apply the skills they learn instead of memorizing the information for standardized tests.

Knoxville complains endlessly about crowded schools and building new schools in the west. The STEM school will be downtown in an old building that has proven to be a terrible location for restaurants/bars. Knoxville complains about everything. Don’t let Knoxville be known as a scorched Earth community that refuses to plant new ideas and let them grow. A STEM school is a good idea. Making it separate from the existing schools is a great idea.

Knox County Schools create schools, staffs them and zones children to attend. Schools with involved parents and community thrive and grow into something more than a building. A school filled entirely with students who want to be there and supportive parents has limitless potential. A thriving school can and should be part of the downtown renaissance. As someone said on Twitter, “Come for the school. Stay for the dinner, shopping & Sunsphere.”

Dear Knox County Schools,

// January 5th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // school

I don’t feel any stronger about school being cancelled than I do about school being open. Have school open during winter weather. If I don’t trust the bus, we will drive the children. If our neighborhood roads are glazed with ice, we will stay home. Cancel school for winter weather. We will stay home and have fun. School, no school, either is fine.

I do object to the ‘wait until 5 in the morning’ to decide on a plan. Once we get up and start looking at websites to learn what you decided, the children are up and ready to start the day. If we knew the night before, the children would get a little bit of extra sleep to make up for the hours they spent, past their bedtime, asking repeatedly if there would be school. I can’t begin to imagine how working parents scramble for childcare at 5 in the morning.

As a child, we ALWAYS knew that the ten p.m. news would have the full list of school closings for the next day. That was a different time zone, but you really should be able to decide by 11 p.m. The sun isn’t going to melt anything between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. Phone the officers who work the problem neighborhoods and make the call before the nightly news. Please.

Leaving the nest

// December 11th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // parenting, school, teenagers

I changed my mind. It started when Sarah drove to Nashville with a friend for portfolio day. She came home with an enthusiasm and excitement about college which forced me to accept that she is ready. A realization that I had been ignoring despite the quiet cheering for Sarah from the allies she doesn’t know she has on Twitter. Sarah has a dream and it is my job to let her reach for it. She’s my baby, but this is her life.

In January, I am sending my 17-year-old daughter to college in Manhattan. I know more about the environment on Mars than I know about New York. She is going to a city that is a location for television and movies. New York is where celebrities live. It’s not a real place. I feel like I am catapulting my child into a foreign land without so much as a medpac or cricket bat.

It’s not just the unknown that frightens me. Sarah has never experienced a real winter. She doesn’t have the clothing for New York weather. How will she learn to live on her own when she doesn’t have the skills to function in a city? A really big, crowded city of people who don’t all have a family or friend connection is something she can’t possibly understand. A starving college student isn’t funny when it’s your own child and she is 720 miles from home.

This is what Sarah wants. Sarah has never been anything but wonderful. She is an amazing daughter and sister. She is a good student and talented artist. Sarah suffered in silence during the difficult times that Autism controlled our lives. She works hard to contribute to our home and harder to do her best at school. It is not unusual for Sarah to study until midnight and paint until sunrise. She does it all herself. Even in elementary school, she refused help with projects and insisted upon doing it herself. She has earned the school of her dreams.

There will be no ceremony, party or pageantry to symbolize the enormity of what is happening. Sarah is leaving home. When she falls, she will get up and keep moving forward. We are her past and her future is elsewhere. If we’re very lucky, she will come home for holidays, but she will only be visiting us. Sarah has a dream college and an infatuation with a city, but she is stubbornly determined to work hard and be her own person. She isn’t waiting for her dream to happen, she’s making reality her dream. She is already planning on a series of apprenticeships to find where she fits. I’m a weeping mess, but Sarah is going to be fine.

Hooray! Sarah is going to college. Wah! Sarah is going to college. I’m happy. I’m sad. I’m excited. I’m terrified. My heart is ripped into pieces, but I’m stashing a few of those bits in Sarah’s coat pockets. No matter where she goes, I’ll be there too. If the zombies get too close, she can toss my heart to distract them while she gets away safely.

Reading, Writing & Arithmetic

// November 30th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // parenting, school

While one of my children graduates from high school in a few weeks, my youngest child is in Kindergarten. The difference in their education is tangibly different. When my oldest children started school, we played games like breaking everything down into circles, squares and triangles. My youngest child know the geometric shapes based on the number of sides. “That’s a hexagon. It has two trapezoids inside it.” I played games with the alphabet and street signs with my oldest children. My youngest child sounds out every word he sees and follows up with a discussion of why some sounds are silent.

My youngest child is learning faster. He is taught differently. His classroom has higher expectations. The amount of homework has eliminated the need for workbooks and flashcards that I used with my older children.

The classrooms in the elementary school are technicolor in their diversity compared to the mono-ability classrooms that my oldest child experienced. When my oldest son was in school, I had teachers and parents complaining to me that they didn’t want those kids in their classes. Hiding the children who look, act or learn differently is no longer the norm. Schools are helping build a kinder, more compassionate generation of people than the trolls who comment on newspaper websites. We are building on strengths, both internal and external.

As beautiful as the evolution of elementary education, I am wary of creativity and play being shoved aside in favor of testing training and memorization once children leave elementary school. The future may be wrapped up in science and technology, but creativity and imagination are the seeds of innovation. The strong foundation of elementary school should be the basis for learning problem solving in middle school.

Short sighted people who scream that high schools with the most challenged populations should be closed are taking something important away from the elementary students who are working hard to install the operating systems that will allow them to reach their potential. We need more schools, not less. The well-intentioned NCLB has morphed into a monster that punishes schools and teachers who are struggling with students whose obstacles are overwhelming and life threatening.

Our schools have come a very long way and they continue to change for the better. I look forward to seeing the embracement of potential and feeling of hope that is taking root in elementary schools as it spreads and grows to the teenagers who so desperately need it.

Repeat daily

// October 28th, 2010 // No Comments » // kid quotes, school

“What did you do at school today Evan?”
“I went to *art.”
“What else did you do?”
“Worksheets.”
“Anything else.”
“Ate lunch.”
“What did you eat?”
“Something brown, but I didn’t finish it.”
“What else can you tell me about your day?”
“That’s too many questions. I’m done talking.”
“Okay. Thanks.”

*Or “music” or “the room where we get to paint” or “gym cause it’s the best place in the whole school”.

Dear Kindergarten teacher,

// September 29th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // parenting, school

I am certain that you have a lengthy list of observations and advice to help my youngest child be a better student. I really do want to work as a team to help Evan. I’m actually quite surprised that I have not been called in for a conference with you or the Vice Principal before now. It’s no secret that Evan is extremely free spirited and more than slightly indulged by all of his older siblings. His parents might occasionally giggle when they should be tsk-tsking.

That said, please do not mention Ritalin during our conference tomorrow. If you do, I will be so busy having a silent monologue in my head that I won’t hear anything else you say to me. Evan does not need medicating. He needs to know that there is a time and place for creative antics. He doesn’t need that creativity numbed with chemicals. He needs to learn self control. He doesn’t need something else to control him. Evan is awesome.

Trusting you with valuables

// September 28th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // school, teenagers

The household mailbox has become the girl teen’s mailbox. For the past few months, the percent of mail for her has dramatically increased while the amount for the household accountant has remained constant. Every day brings new brochures, catalogs and letters from colleges that are eager to have her as a student. While it is possible that she gets an above average amount because she is choosing two colleges, one for January and one for August, I suspect that this monsoon of paperwork is in every high school senior’s mailbox.

In my fantasy world, colleges wouldn’t market only to students. They would have packets of information targeting parents of 17-year-olds. Parents want statistics and policies from school safety and security departments. We want to know what student services have in place to identify and intervene when students are in emotional distress. We want to know that you can be entrusted with valuables.

Academics are the responsibility of our college bound teens. Safety is a different matter altogether. I want more than a text message when the campus is on lockdown. I want a safety net to reduce the need for those lockdowns. You want tens of thousands of my dollars in your school and community? Impress ME.

TCAPs: No jolts here

// September 21st, 2010 // 5 Comments » // parenting, school

The front page of yesterday’s paper warned parents to be prepared for a shock to the system when their child brings home last year’s TCAP scores. It comes after MONTHS of notes, e-mails, articles and parent meetings saying the exact same thing. The TCAPs have been so hyped that I can’t believe anyone is going to be surprised by good OR bad results. I’m even willing to go out on a limb and predict our family’s results.

First, is the middle child who was in the eighth grade last year. At last year’s TCAP meeting, the test booklet was distributed with the scores to help parents understand the areas of concern to their child. Ideally, it was to be used to create very individualized tutoring plans. My child’s scores were excellent, but when I asked him how he felt about the test without showing him the scores, he replied that he felt pressured by the time limits. So, I had him sit at the kitchen table and take the test again. He was told that there were no time limits, but in less than the allotted time, he scored perfectly. In every area of the test, he missed zero problems. The TCAP is a useless measure for my middle child. I may have him take the ACT this summer just so I have a better idea of his educational needs. I am certain of one thing that he needs. Because he spends every free moment with his nose in a book, he has an excellent vocabulary on paper, but an inability to correctly pronunciate the words he has read, but not heard. We need to figure out how to work out the kinks in his speech before he starts college. I expect his TCAPs to have mistakes based on time limit anxiety and not ability.

The other TCAP results in our family will be for the youngest girl. She will take her first TCAP this year and I will still make a prediction on her results for next year. Based on her lip quiver and manipulative “Math is haaaard” attempts to get an older sibling to give her the answers to homework, I expect terrible math scores and good language scores. This is not the school’s fault. This is just a red flag that she needs to do more math until she gains the skills to confidently tackle new concepts. Her brain doesn’t have an operating system yet and WE have to help her download one.

Now, I wait. Not in anticipation of a jolt, but for the confirmation of what every parent already knows based on the level of work their child is doing. The work you see at the kitchen table every afternoon. The work you see when they take online quizzes and play with educational software. The work you hear when you read together in the evenings. TCAPs are tools that schools should use to measure the curriculum. They should not be a surprise to parents.

be more specific

// September 8th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // children, school

Me: “Did you lose your clothespin today?”
Evan: “No. I knew where it was.”

school pictures

// August 18th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // school, teenagers

It is school picture time again. Freshmen pictures had to be pre-ordered and paid for sight unseen. Unbeknown to me, the high school freshman made a last minute change to his wardrobe and chose the same color shirt as the color I specified for a background. His picture will look like a weatherman in a green shirt aka floaty hands and head. When they get the picture at Christmas, it should be fun for the older relatives to choose between complaining about the length of the teen’s hair and the teen’s missing torso.

Senior pictures are four full pages of proofs and decisions that are weightier than they should be because of the heavy price tag. For $500 I could have them on a CD, but since I don’t have half a grand for pictures, I’d still have to pay extra for prints and we still have to buy graduation announcements, I think I’ll spend more time staring at the proofs. It’s easy to stare at them, because they are great pictures. Even though it’s a treat to see the girl teen without her face hidden or sticking out her tongue, she looks absolutely beautiful. The pictures that include one of our dogs are funny and I have to have them just because the dog posed for only a few minutes before trotting off to frolic in the creek while pictures continued sans dog. One of my favorite poses is on a green screen.

Let’s look at the backgrounds that can be added as an afterthought. There’s are five different versions of crumbling brick or cinder-block walls for anyone who spent their school years painting, cleaning and fund raising to salvage their deteriorating school building. If your student minored in train car and overpass tagging, there are eight graffiti background choices for you to remember their unbridled creativity. There are only five beach and pier options for students whose parents have a coastal timeshare, but they also have two extremely tropical backgrounds for families with serious island property. There’s a paint splattered warehouse door background for art students and a fire damaged curtain background that looks like it survived The Phantom of the Opera for theater students. There are several indescribably odd backgrounds, like some kind of sideways log cabin wall with a whiskey barrel in front of it or the one with train tracks and a train coming toward the student. There are four tree backgrounds that seem appropriate for our area, but since the candid photos include REAL trees, that seems an unlikely choice.

I wonder if we can just use the green screen as a background.